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British Columbia

Council's rejection of fireboat

for earthquakes defies logic

Housing shortage protested.

Continued from page 1

@ A moratorium on closure of secondary suites and discontinuation of present suite review program.

e A rent regulation system to deal with excessive and unjustified rent increases. If there is no province-wide program, then the city should estab- lish a municipal rent review program.

Griffin noted that 1,500 units of affordable housing are threatened with demolition in the downtown eastside. ““Where will it end?” he demanded. :

“There are ghost towns in our neighbourhoods that are a constant reminder of our council’s failure to put the housing needs of Vancouver residents before the block-busting greed of developers,” he charged.

He also noted that Mayor Gordon Campbell had stated that it takes a long time to build affordable housing. “But that makes it all the more impor- tant that we protect what we already have,” Griffin said.

He charged that the Non-Partisan Association majority on council had refused to take action on demolitions and was continuing to carry out its review of secondary suites “even though neighbourhood after neigh- bourhood has warned you of the folly of this process.”

In addition, he noted, the NPA- dominated council, claiming that it has no jurisdiction on rent review, “has tried to pass the buck to the provincial and federal governments — and they've passed the loony back to you.” >

The crisis has hit every aspect of housing throughout the city as the population rises as well as house pri- ces and the number of affordable housing units declines. In key areas such as Kerrisdale, hundreds of suites are awaiting demolition for conver- sion into expensive condos and the overall vacancy rate is only eight suites in 1,000 — most of which aren't in the affordable range. Last month, the Royal Bank of Canada said that Vancouver had surpassed Toronto as the least affordable city in the country, primarily because of ris- ing housing costs.

But that crisis can be addressed — if there is the will to do so, Griffin said.

“The real question is: do you have the political will to deal with a very real and very destructive housing cri- sis?” he asked.

He said that housing groups realize that the crisis “requires initiatives from various levels of government.” But the city can make a start, he said.

“It is now up to this council to act — not talk,” he told aldermen. “And if you do not respond, our voi- ces and our bodies will be back — in these chambers. And you can be sure we'll be back at the ballot box in November.”

2 « Pacific Tribune, May 7, 1990

Vancouver city council is again discuss- ing steps to minimize possible damage and loss in the event of an earthquake. It has agreed, among other things, that Van- couver should build up to eight salt water

pumping stations, upgrade our bridges,

establish pumping stations on the Fraser River and upgrade sewer pumping stations. But the Non Partisan Association major- ity still refuses, for reasons that defy logic, to take the most important single step — namely acquire a powerful fireboat. That was one of the main lessons from last year’s tragic San Francisco earthquake. Vancouver had such a fireboat, worth over $2 million, but last year our NPA- dominated city council, over the objections of Committee of Progressive Electors aldermen, sold it to a private contractor for $142,500! That fireboat had the highest pumping capacity of any fireboat in North

Changes sweeping Soviet Union affect world, correspondent says

The shake-up in the Soviet Union is part of the fundamental alteration of one coun- try’s society, but it also affects the whole world, the Tribune’s Moscow correspond- ent told a Vancouver audience April 27.

“The Cold War world is coming apart,”

Fred Weir said in a talk that concluded the B.C. portion of a national tour.

And while the changes in the USSR mean the disintegration of bureaucratic socialism and Stalinism, they also herald new ideas, Weir said.

Weir, who has reported on affairs in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe during the past five years, acknowledged it is not a “comfortable” process analyzing the shake- up — but said the current crisis does not entail the end of the USSR or of socialism.

He characterized the current changes as having emotional, national and economic ramifications:

Economic: The current “emotional swing atmosphere” has Soviet citizens “going through a period of a bleak, black perspec- tive of their society.”

Actually, this aspect of the crisis points not to absolute failure but to the relative successes of Soviet society which made gains in industrialization and urbanization — and the creation of a “civil” society, Weir said.

Most Western media commentators fail to acknowledge the Soviet Union’s attain- ment of a civil society, and predict the total collapse of the country. But Weir noted the high degree of organization during last year’s strikes by Siberian coal miners, who saw to the protection of key industries and established local democratic controls.

“This is not the kind of revolution that destroys all structures, but is an evolving process in which all institutions are being stood on their heads,” Weir asserted.

National: Weir called it “the great myth of Stalinism” that a true confederation of

America. And where did that fireboat end up? You

guessed it. San Francisco city council’

bought it. The earthquake had knocked out its whole water system: It soon discovered that fireboats are the best equipment to enable fire trucks to get water from the sea to deal with fires burning out of control. So it jumped at the chance to pick up the fire- boat Vancouver had practically given away.

Vancouver city council could have bought back that fireboat even after selling it. But the NPA turned down the idea.

Salt water pumping stations are station- ary. They can also be damaged and ren- dered inoperative in an earthquake. It’s mobile pumping stations that are needed. That’s what fireboats are.

Scientists tell us that it’s not a question of whether or not we’ll have an earthquake in the Vancouver area. It’s just a question of

FRED WEIR

equal nations was created with the Soviet Union.

He said Soviet Russians did not “‘russify” other Soviet nations in the manner of the Czars. In Estonia, for example, 90 per cent learn Estonian as a language and take Rus- sian as a subject.

But when it came to the scientific, cultu- ral and political spheres, Russian was the language and an Estonian who wasn’t bil- ingual “couldn’t be the manager of the local grocery store,” Weir said. Western com- mentators talk of the breakup of the “Soviet empire.” But “I can’t think of any model of political economy that would apply to the Soviet Union as an empire,” Weir asserted.

No empire ships raw materials to its col- onies, as in the case of the gas and oil recent cut off by Moscow in its dispute over Lithuania’s declaration of independence. And in the Baltic republics, it’s generally the ethnic Russians who are menials while the

Vancouver fireboat awaiting sale in 1989.

when and no one can predict the date.

Should it come tomorrow and knock out our water system, where will we get the water to fight the fires that will inevitably result? We now have no fireboat, no alter- nate source of water for fire fighting. It will take years to build pumping stations and even then we have no guarantee they will be able to stand up in an earthquake.

When is the NPA going to give up on its obstinate and totally indefensible prejudice against fireboats?

nationals occupy higher social positions, he noted.

Weir said he had no quarrel with Lithua- nia’s right to independence. But Moscow is. passing laws to define secession and to allow republics to re-negotiate their status within the Soviet Union. By contrast, Canada does not have a set-up that recognizes Quebec as a nation, he noted.

Economy: The Soviet government has recognized the mistake of trying to create a “full-scale alternative to the world imperial- ist economy,” Weir related.

“They tried to create an egalitarian society and tried to compete with the world capitalist market,” he noted. j

That proved impossible. But in restruc- turing their society, Soviets must beware of the pitfalls of capitalist integration. “If they integrate with the world capitalist system, they'll be third-worlded overnight,” Weir warned.

Interestingly, many Soviet citizens seem to want to keep public ownership of indus- tries. A recent poll of Moscow residents Weir cited showed two-thirds opposed the concept of private property. |

Weir said he had no ready answers to the’ dilemmas facing the Soviets. But he said: “The only way out is for them to appeal to’ the working people to take control of their own industries, run them democratically and find the solution.” +

For at least 40 years; people have believed that the world has been divided into “two solitudes” — socialist and capi- talist, Weir observed. a

“If there ever was any truth in that, I think there is no longer.” ;

We are “increasingly living within the same global economy, rushing towards the) same sort of catastrophes — of ecology, of) undeveloped poverty — and if there are to} be alternatives, they’re going to have to be global alternatives,” he said.