COPE sees breakthrough in ‘78 election

Ward system position set

The annual meeting of the Committee of Progressive Elec-

tors (COPE) last Sunday appealed’

to supporters of a ward system for Vancouver to hold off an initiative on a plebiscite on area representa- tion and to instead work for the election of a new city council “unreservedly committed to a full ward system.”

The appeal was embodied in a resolution submitted by the COPE executive to give leadership in the current discussions among ward system supporters over how to approach the issue in the upcoming election.

“In our opinion,” the resolution stated, ‘‘the election of a council, the majority of whose members are unreservedly committed to a full ward system is the first, and necessary, legislative step that needs to be accomplished.”’

During the next civic election, pressure should be brought to bear on all candidates to declare them- selves in favor of a full ward system, the resolution suggested.

Leading up to the election this year, ward system supporters will be asked to participate in a ‘‘straw vote’’ on the issue, the resolution said, that would ask the question, “Are you in favor_of a full ward system for Vancouver?” The straw vote would be an- educational

process and an opinion poll to’

provide information that COPE feels is necessary to map out a strategy to win the ward system.

Only after the 1978 election should a plebiscite be considered, it said, and then only if the ballot asked the same simple question as in the straw vote.

“COPE believes that there is nothing to be gained and much to be risked at this time in proposing any initiative to the present City Council for a plebiscite,’’ it stressed. “It is a fact that a majority on Council are opposed to a full ward system. This fact is bound to be reflected not only in the wording of any possible plebiscite, but also in the likely results of the plebiscite itself.

“In our opinion more time is needed to develop the good work done by full ward supporters both

inside and outside Council, before -

the public as a whole are prepared to demand a real change.”

COPE ANNUAL MEETING... launching the 1978 election campaign.

-—Tony Bjarnason photo

Chiselling on Family Court ‘public disgrace’

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

Conditions in the Family and Juvenile Court building at 2625 Yale Street, Vancouver are a public disgrace. Facilities in this wretched place are completely inadequate for both staff and in- mates.

The city owns the building and rents it to the provincial attorney- general’s department, which operates the court and is responsible for renovations and improvements.

For years the city has been after

the attorney-general to relocate and reorganize the family and juvenile court setup and in the meantime to renovate the present premises. As late as a year ago, March 3, 1977 to be exact, the at- torney-general gave a firm commitment to do just that. But in the meantime very little has changed. .

It was recently reported to Council that ‘‘the two existing cells are unsanitary and dangerous for the purpose-of holding juveniles.”

One juvenile had tried to commit suicide there.

The heating system was so bad that staff had to bring their own electric heaters. A skylight was broken and remained unrepaired. The corridors are often crowded with bodies waiting to be brought into court. The washrooms have been infested with fleas.

What was the response of the.

attorney-general’s department when these conditions were brought to his attention?

The regional court adminis- trator, J. Bird, replied that “conditions at the present location are certainly not ideal, but were exaggerated in the media‘ re- ports.”

The deputy attorney-general, R.

H. Vogel, replied that “we are reluctant, as formerly was the city, to invest substantial sums when replacement is so far advanced,”

and he stated further that for the

city to suggest termination of the See COURTHOUSE, pg. 11

PEOPLE AND ISSUES :

Annual meeting puts candidates in field

The Committee of Progressive Electors launched the 1978 civic election campaign last Sunday with the nomination of. 15 prospective COPE candidates:

About 200 COPE members at- tended the’ annual meeting at Vancouver’s Iron Workers’ Hall to hear the first round of nominations and to adopt an election strategy and budget and a campaign time- table. Nominations will be finalized at a special nominating convention in September.

‘COPE president Bruce Yorke and former VRB manager David Schreck were nominated to contest the mayoralty spot on COPE’s slate. Yorke was the COPE

-mayoralty candidate in the last

election and ran a strong third, polling 14 per cent of the vote.

-Seven candidates declared themselves in the race for COPE aldermanic nominations. Down- town Eastside Residents’ Association organizers Bruce Eriksen, Libby Davies and Jean Swanson were nominated, along with West End activists Joe Ar- naud, Paul Murphy and Debra Lewis. Kitsilano law student Connie Fogal was the other can- didate for the aldermanic slate.

On the school board slate, six .

candidates declared themselves, headed by COPE education committee chairwoman Polly Weinstein. Irene Foulks, who narrowly missed election in 1976, Betty Greenwell and Helen O’Shaughnessy all intend to run again. Wes Knapp, a functionary of the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation, put his name forward for the school board slate for the first time, and Fred Lowther, a candidate in 1974, has decided to try again. |

The early nomination of can- didates was planned to allow prospective candidates time to begin campaigning on issues and become well known before the

" election campaign actually begins.

In the report from the outgoing executive Yorke predicted a breakthrough for COPE in the 1978 elections. ‘‘We will emerge as the centre-left reform party and challenge TEAM for the right to run this city,’ he declared. As TEAM shifts more to the right,

reform minded voters who have supported TEAM will switch their allegiance to COPE, Yorke said.

In the coming election, the report stressed, COPE will place its emphasis on basic economic questions and the standard of living within the city. The need for a light rapid transit system in Vancouver needs to be linked with the need for jobs, and similarly with the need for housing, it said.

COPE plans to spend $30,000 in the election, $13,000 of which is already on hand. In March or early April an election headquarters will be opened in the city and can- vassing is set to begin in June.

From September on, five cam- |

paign organizers will be hired to co-ordinate the campaign.

In other business before the annual meeting, a new executive

board was returned to lead COPE’Ss:

work in 1978. Bruce Yorke was re- elected president; Libby Davies was re-elected vice-president; Paul Murphy was elected second vice-president; Bruce Eriksen was elected third vice-president; Atiba Gordon was re-elected secretary and Jack Nichol was re-elected treasurer.

_ Elected to the general executive board were Jim Quail, Jonnie Rankin, Jim Duval, Jean Swanson, Dave Stone, Debra Lewis, Shawn

Hatch, Doug Laalo, Ben Swankey, —

Pat Wilson, Susan Dahlen and

Tony Bjarnason. Each of COPE’s

eight area committees will name 4 representative to the executive at a later date.

AREA meet

Jack Webb, chairman of the San Franciscans for District Elections, will be the keynote, speaker at “Towards Area Representation”’, a conference sponsored jointly by the Area Representation Electors

‘Alliance and Vancouver Com-

munity College, Langara on Saturday, February 25, beginning at 9:30 a.m.

The-conference, to be held in the Main Theatre, A130, at Vancouver Community College, Langara, 100 West 49th Ave., will bethaired by Province columnist Chuck Davis and Vancouver Sun writer Mary McAlpine.

lsewhere in our issue, there is a review of the new book

by poet Dorothy Livesay who, as the reviewer notes, ‘iuncurred the wrath of the literary establishment” by attending, together with four other writers, the second world meeting of Writers for Peace in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Angered by the Canadian press blackout of the historic conference, Livesay published an article in the Toronto Globe and Mail explaining the conference, and appealing to the social conscience of other writers. But although the conference was held last June, and Livesay’s article published in July, the “wrath” of the more vocal mem- bers of the literary establishment has still not abated.

On the Toronto Star, staff writer Robert Nielson took the opening shot at the five Canadians who attended the conference, noting that they were the recipients of ‘‘a Communist free lunch’ for which they were returning the compliment by “‘cosying up to the officially approved authors of totalitarian Communist. states.” On the magazine Saturday Night, editor Robert Fulford bemoaned the fact that Canadians were not prone to the same anti-Communist excesses as Americans. He added that Livesay’s article in the Globe and Mail was “a huge, unintentional joke.’”’ But when Gavin Grant wrote an article in the Canadian Tribune Nov. 14, criticizing the column for its ‘‘strong McCarthyist tone”’ and its attempt to “discredit by innuendo,” Fulford fired back a reply, this time making it perfectly clear that, if most Canadians weren’t given to anti-Communist excesses, he certainly

» was. Here is his letter:

“In the issue of Nov. 14 you write: “‘. ..the columns (those by Nielson and Fulford) have a strong McCarthyist tone, including attempts to discredit by innuendo.

“T enclose (in case you discarded yours) a copy of our

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 24, 1978—Page 2

issue, containing the Notebook column to which you refer. Would you, if you can, underline in my column those words, phrases or sentences that you categorize as ‘in- nuendo.’ ,

“¥ don’t think you can. I don’t think there was any in- nuendo (in the usual sense of sly half-statement or near- statement) in my column. I think it was absolutely direct. But if you can show me where I was indirect or oblique (other meanings of innuendo) then I will rewrite that section of that column and republish it. I want to be as direct as I can in these matters. I think communism is a poison and you who support it are poisoning the waters of public discourse, and I don’t want anyone to be misled by innuendo, etc.

“As for ‘McCarthyist,’ I assume you, in the normal way of communists, are misusing this term. In proper usage McCarthyism means the practice of accusing someone of being a communist who is not. You, however, probably

think that McCarthyism means expressing dislike of ~

communism. Senator Joseph McCarthy did a great favor

_ for you people when he handed you a stick with which to

flail those who see you for what you are.” * * *

ronically, we note from recent press reports from

Switzerland that Alexander Solzhenitsyn about whom the same Robert Fulford said, ‘‘. . .it’s impossible to deny the truth of his indictment against communism and all those who actively or passively support it,” is again in trouble with the local tax authorities. This time they’re investigating vast sums that he deposited in Swiss banks between 1974 and 1976, before he moved secretly from Zurich to the U.S.

Readers may remember that in July of last year, Swiss taxmen seized “‘sizeable assets’ belonging to the Soviet dissident for non-payment of taxes and later, in December, announced that they were seeking $240,000 in unpaid taxes from him. ;

It seems that was only part of it. On January 30, the tax administration of Canton Zurich said that it was claiming nearly $2 million in outstanding taxes from Solzhenitsyn. The taxes are apparently due on “contributions” made by

Solzhenitsyn to a so-called “social fund for the political ” ~ persecuted in the Soviet Union.”

The tax scandal has raised a number of intriguing questions as to where all the money came from, and how much is really involved, given that the taxes alone amount to $2 million.

Fulford may find it “impossible to deny the truth of Solzhenitsyn’s indictment against communism”’ but Swiss tax accountants may very well find, in fact, that it was CIA money that was doing the talking.

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN ‘Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR

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