“AG - Wednesday, Oct. 7, 1981 - North Shore News

Prime Minister ‘Trudeau’ says ‘government
aid. to homeowners hit by 22% mortgages
will. be strictly: limited. to: those few “in dire
Straits” . ‘Meanwhile, the ‘banks and other
mortgage lenders assure us that foreclosures
are presently negligible.

Both Ottawa and the financial houses
seem oblivious to the fact that they're sitting
on a time bomb with a short fuse.

There are two reasons.why foreclosures
are relatively few for the moment. Mortgage
interest rates have rocketed from around
14% to the current 22% only during the past

.12 months. Therefore, comparatively few
mortgages taken out at the old rate have yet
come up for renewal.

From the present month onward the
number of renewals is poing to rise rapidly,
especially in view of the large number of
mortgages issued latterly on one or two-year
terms instead of the traditional five-year
term.

The other reason is that homeowners
already hit are dipping into their savings and
even their private pension funds in order to
cope, as well as reducing other living
standards to which their incomes hitherto

had time to realize the full impact of
diminishing assets and forced economies
over the long haul on their personal lives.

When they do -- and as their numbers
mushroom in the months ahead -- fear, anger
and. cases of genuine hardship are likely to
_increase . significantly. If usurious interest
rates continue while bank profits remain at
record high levels, the eventual political
fallout may be heavy.

A government whose only message to the
victims of its policies is “get lost” has it
coming.

A mean snub

to behave in the West? At Saturday’s un-
veiling of the new Burrard Yarrows dry dock
Industry Minister Herb Gray's speech of
congratulations pointedly ignored the man
who worked long and hard to get the huge
project off the ground -- Capilano’s Con-
servative MP and former minister Ron
Huntington.

It was a mean, il-mannered snub.

i | sunday

1139 Lonsdale Ave.

News ooh Vancouver, B.C.
M 2H4

ews (604) 985-2131

ADVERTISING
NEWS 080-0511 CLASSIFIED
965-2131
CIRCULATION 086-6222
986-1337

Publisher Peter Speck

Associate Publisher Editor-in-Chief

Advertising Director
Robert Graham

Noel Wright Eric Cardwell
Managing Editor News Editor Sports Editor
Andy Fraser Chia Uoyd Patrick Rich
General Manager Creative
Administration Otrector
Bernt Hilliard Tim Francis
Production Director Photography

Rick Stonehouse Elisworth Dickson
Accounting Supervisor Circulation Director Purchaser
Barbara Keen Bran A Ellis Faye McCrae

North Shore News, founded nm 1969 as an independent community
newspaper and qualified under Schedule th Part ll Paragraph Il of the
bactne Tax Act is pubtshed each Wednesday and Sunday by North
Snore Free Press Lid and astibuted to every door on the North
Shore Second Claas Mall Registration Number 3665 Subscriptions
$20 per year Entire contents « 19681 North Ghore Free Prese (td
All rights reserved

No re opeorspsititity accagptad — ber UNBOhCteEd maternal ine hading

MANUBCHHPtS ANG pr tures which ahowtd be ac companed by a atanpad
nddeoaned envelope

VERIO CIRC ULATION 863 470 Wednesday 62.760 Sunday

<S SN G

THIS PAPER IS RECYCLABLE

- taxes.

entitled them. They have not yet, however,

Will those Eastern Grits never learn how -

‘BY BETTY GRIFFIN
(....well-known North
Vancouver crusader for
fairer homeowner tax
assessments) _

“The Blue-Rinse
Revolution” is how a recent
edition of the Washington
Post describes a revolt of
middle-class home-owners
and renters in a growing
number of municipalities
around Los Angeles against

‘the results of Proposition 13,

a deceptively simplistic
proposition of cut property
In reality _ it is a
bonanza _ for industry, and
apartment building owners,
but for homeowners it has
resulted in a growing burden
of property tax and drastic
cuts in municiple services.

It all happened in the mid-
70s when the price of
property in California took
off, just as it has done here
in the past year. So propery
taxes jumped, homeowners
howled and there was a
growing disillusionment with
government in general.

.“Proposition 13 was the only

opportunity available . to
voters to express their
general dissatisfaction with
government.”

While $7 billion was cut
from California’s property
taxes in the first year under
Proposition 13, the state
government had to provide a
“bailout” of $4 Dillion for
each of the first two years,

otherwise services would
have been completely
disrupted. However, this

poses a serious issue. Local
governments are threatened

Do B.C. Ferries accept tanks?

“He who rides a tigef can never dismount.”

proverb.

with a loss of control over
many of their .. programs
which means,of course, that
local voters also lose con-
trol. Services like’ sewers;
parks, libraries deteriorated
to such an. extent that
Governor Jerry Brown was
considering giving localities
the option of using the sales
tax, a regressive tax borne
mainly by consumers, not by
business. Many ~ localities
instituted user fees --
payments for garbage
collection, for use of parks,
libraries and other services.

WHO SAVED?

So, who saved the most
when the $7 billion tax cut
was made? According to the
Revenue and Taxation
Committee of the California

Assembly, only 24 percent”

or $1,7 billion went to owner

occupied residences but 40 .

percent or nearly $3 billion
went to those who use their
land for commercial pur-
poses. The balance of 36
percent shifted to Federal
and State governments.
“The percentage of
benefits from Proposition 13
derived by homeowners will
actually shrink as ‘time goes
on,” warns Consumer
Reports, September, 1979.
“The explaination for that
lies in the specific provisions
of the proposition. It rolled
back the value of property to
the 1975-76 level and limits
the property tax to | percent
of that value. It then restricts
future increases. in
assessments to just 2 percent
per year. But that program

— Chinese

Ten days after the Supreme Court judgement
on the federal Liberals’ constitutional package
there’s mounting evidence that Prime Minister
Trudeau now finds himself in that highly un-

comfortable posture.

The Court told Mr.
Trudeau that his con-
stitutional plans = are

technically legal but morally
wrong; that by trying to
railroad them through the
Canadian and U.K.
parliaments he is flouting a
hallowed convention that
such fundamental! changes in
the nature of Confederation
must have the agrecment of
the provinces.

That, of course, is cxactly
what cight of the ten
provinces and the official
Tory opposition in Ottawa
have been saying al) along
The Court's ruling was a
clear victory for them

Meanwhile, Mr Trudeau
ts hanging grimly on to the
thin legal collar around his
iger’s acck and vowing
charge on regardless as soon
as Parliament
October 14

But it grows more obvious
cach day that the tiger usell

personified by BC
Premicr Bill Bennett tn his
role as chairman of the ctight
Opposing = provinces tn
determined finally to unscat
him, if not actually cat tim
alive

After jyettng at high speed
around the country) con
sulaung his feNow premiers.
Mr Bennett has now firmly

reconvencs

announced that Mr. Trudeau.

has only two options: to
reach agreement with the
provinces -- or to put the
whole constitutional issue
indefinitely on hold.

Mr. Trudeau naturally
boasts that he isn't going to
do either. He’s going to ram
the package’ through
Parliament at top speed on
the strength of the Grits’
overall majority and fly it
over to London without
delay for rubber-stamping by
Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher's government.

At that point -- which is
likcly to come by the end of
this month — the choice of
different scenarios becomes
quite wild

Por starters, Ed Broad-
bent has withdrawn NDP
support) for the con.
stitutional bill unicss the
Prime Mimster agrees to

negotiate again with the
provinces That alone
wouldn't stop) the Liberal

stcamrolier in Ottawa, but it
would rob Mr Trudeau of
any shred of support west of
Winnipeg. where the NDP
strength hes The bill would
be reduced,

in effect, to an

Ontario Quebec New
Brunswick initiative

But wait what avout

Quebec? Claude Ryan,

applies only if you've owned
your house since 1975; if
you've bought it after that,
the value for tax purposes is
the purchase price plus 2
percent a year. This means
for instance, that if a house
valued in 1975 ‘at $50,000
was sold for $100,000, its
annual property tax would
rise from about $500 to
$1000.”

**Since houses in

Noel Wright

leader of the

Quebec
Liberals, has dramatically
joined forces with PQ
Premier Rene Levesque, Mr.
Trudeau's most implacabic
opponcot of all on the
constitution. Bearing in
mind that Quebec Libcrals
provide 75 of Mr. Trudcau's
parliamentary seats, Mr
Ryan has suddenly taken on
the role of a modern Brutus
to Pierre's Cacsar

If the prime = minister
survives these new hazards
at home. there are more
worries on the other side of
the Atlantic. Mrs Thatcher
has now told him that she'll
do her best but can no longer
guarantee what will happen
to oo unilateral Trudeau

California change ownership
every seven years on the
average, the total amount of
property tax paid. by
homeowners is bound to
increase substantially year
after year.”

“For business, however,
its a different story. The
ownership of large corporate
farms and _ industrial

properties such as factories
CONTINUED ON PAGE 48

package in the Mother of
Parliaments at Westminster.

Faced with these
problems, Mr. Trudeau has
hinted he might call a
national referendum or snap
election on the whole issue.
If he did, he might just
scrape a majority for
unilateral action — though
recent Gallup Polls showing
that four out of five
Canadians want provincial
consent, together with the
new situation created by
Ryan in Quebec, make even
that seem dicey.

In any case, the regional
breakdown would be
unlikely to change, leaving
the West and most of the
Maritimes / exactly where
they are ‘tdday. In which
event Mr. deau™ might
even decide to quit.

Should he nevertheless
triumph over all these perils

and bring a_ unilateral
constitution home by
Christmas, what next? The
mind boggles.

Outright defiance by the
cight dissenting provinces?
“Apprehended insurrection”
in Quebec? Newfoun-
dlanders manning the
barricades with fish knives?
Tanks rumbling into Regina.
Edmonton and (courtesy
BC Fernes) Victoria?

Given our native genius
for quict commonsense, tt
will doubtless all end much
less sensationally. But take
care, Mr Trudeau — that’s
no ordinary tiger you've
been trying to tame

Its name, in case you've
forgotten, is Canada

a Soe ot op cone RT
Se NEL aa ot ae REE RT ead A Oe

od

ee

ee STO