ee ae a eee 4 ee ee WLI J BRITISH COLUMBIA | Sis 2 August, he said: 734-8283. ers back board Teacher and campaign organizer Barrie MacFadden, with (left to right) Fiona MacFadden, Chloe Best and Erin MacFadden, with lawn sign. Signs demanding the Vancouver school board trustees be reinstated are springing up on lawns around the city in a self-described “low key” campaign that will heat up pending the outcome of a Supreme Court decision, says campaign leader Barrie MacFadden. MacFadden, first vice-president of the Vancouver Elementary School Teachers Association (VESTA), said the aim of the campaign is to build enough public pressure to force the reinstatement of the trustees, dismissed by Education Minister Jack Heinrich in May for refusing to implement government ordered school ctubacks. Currently VESTA and the Vancouver Secondary School Teachers Association (VSSAT) have distributed 500 lawn signs demanding, “Return our elected school board,” and some 5,000 shopping bags bearing the slogan at Granville Island market. “If nothing positive happens (with the Supreme Court case), then we'll expand the sign campaign just before school starts,” said MacFadden, saying the association will then approach other school employees groups — the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the Vancouver Municipal and Regional Employees Union, and the College Institute Educators — for support. The current target is to get out 1,500 signs by the end of Lawn signs and other campaign materials can be ordered by phoning VESTA, Homeowners pay bill for concessions to industry, business | Continued from page 1 The reason, say school board officials and trustees, is simple: the Social Credit government is shifting the burden of educa- tion costs from industries and commercial enterprises on to individual homeowners. “Socreds always have claimed, whenever we want to maintain or increase school or civic budgets, that taxpayers can’t afford the hike. Well, this certainly shows the lie behind the tax argument,” charged Coqui- tlam trustee Lorna Morford. Morford’s district — which includes the municipalities of Coquitlam, Port .Coqui- tlam, Belcarra ‘and Port Moody — faces one of the lowest tax hikes this year, with an overall increase of $.6 million. But, Morford notes, the school district received a $3.6 million cut to its 1985-86 budget. “Obviously, if the kids are getting less — much less — this coming school year, taxpayers shouldn’t be paying the same taxes they did last year,’ Morford, of the labor-backed Association of Coquitlam Electors, said. « In neighboring Burnaby, taxes didn’t simply stay static. Homeowners there have been getting tax bills close to $200 in éxcess of last year’s average. Burnaby residents Jeannie and George Teather ‘are angry after receiving a tax notice that hikes the school portion of their Vancouver Ald. Libby Davies concludes her two-part series, as Harry Rankin’s guest columnist, on the upcoming United Nations forum on women’s equality. As I mentioned last week, in 1975 the United Nations established 1976-85 as the UN Decade for Women with “equality, development and peace” as its themes. This July in Nairobi, Kenya, the official UN conference will review and appraise the achievements of the UN decade for women. In addition, women from around the world will gather at a non- governmental organization (NGO) forum to discuss the progress women have made and obstacles still to be overcome. (CCW), B.C. Chapter, has selected me as its delegate to Forum 85. This week my subject is the need for women to act against the danger of nuclear war and the militarization of space. Women around the world are strug- gling to defeat the threat of nuclear war, and the newest threat to world peace: the militarization of space. The CCW, in con- cert with many women’s organizations across Canada, is playing a key role in the massive campaign to halt the arms race. Canadian women know that peace and disarmament are the most important issues facing the world today, not only because nuclear conflict jeopardizes the very existence of our planet and of human- ity, but also because we are keenly aware that the enormous cost of militarism and nuclear arsenals is draining economic resources necessary for human develop- ment and proper health care, and to thwart poverty, illiteracy and inequality. In every Canadian city, the movement for peace, social and economic justice, and progress grows bigger with each year. Canada’s third largest city, Vancouver (population 415,000) serves as a good example of the mood of the Canadian people. Massive peace walks each year have The Congress of Canadian Women — Winning peace ‘crucial to equality’ costs of potential nuclear war into ensur- ing human equality and peaceful progress. . involved hundreds of thousands of people, under the sponsorship of a broadly based peace coalition, End the Arms Race, and Vancouver city council itself. The city of Vancouver has declared itself a nuclear- weapons free zone and has actively encouraged peace and disarmament. The people of Vancouver have proudly named themselves the “peace capital” of North America. Canadians everywhere have deplored the Canadian government’s complicity in the arms race, especially the continued testing of the U.S. air-launched cruise mis- sile. The Canadian peace movement is organizing around the demand that the government refuse to support and partici- pate in President Reagan’s ghoulish Star Wars plan. The $26-billion Strategic Defence Initi- ative (Star Wars) is sheer folly and insanity for any thinking person. The militariza- tion of space is scientifically questionable, morally wrong, and would be achieved only at a staggering cost resulting in mas- sive cuts to social programs. A United Nations report estimates that the nations of the world spent more than $800 billion for military purposes in 1984, or about $166 for every human being. The U.S. military budget has increased 70 per cent since 1980. At no other time in our world history have the united actions of ordinary people been more crucial. Defence spending doesn’t create jobs and human progress — it kills them. The actions of women and men in solidarity with each other throughout the world are © essential to divert the threat and massive babies per year die before their first birth- day. Almost one-half billion people suffer from hunger and malnutrition, and half the world’s population does not have safe drinking water. Three-quarters of the third world have no sanitary facilities. provide essential food and health needs of all third world countries is much less than _ the $100 billion spent in 1983 on nuclear . devices. It is abundantly clear that the price of human suffering and injustice is the cost of the arms race. women cannot properly advance under the economic and political burden of the arms race. The realization of our full human potential as women, and the right to education, health care, jobs and free- dom from oppression, are overshadowed and denied us by the menace of the arms race and the militarization of space. women around the world — particularly our sisters living under South Africa’s apartheid — and women struggling to free themselves from oppression, must act together against the danger of nuclear war and the militarization of space, simply because our future for a safe, secure world depends upon us winning that struggle. Our equality is meaningless until we have thrown over the threat of nuclear war in the pursuit and realization of full equality, development and peace. Women applauds the efforts of women around the world to attain the goals and objectives as set out in the UN Decade for Women. We stand committed to making these goals for equality, development and peace a reality. interested group on my return from Nairobi. In developing countries 11 million Yet the cost of a 20-year program to The equality and development of Women in Canada, in solidarity with To this end the Congress of Canadian I would be happy to give a report to any 2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JULY 3, 1985 bill to $477 from $312 last year. The Teathers acknowledge that the assessed value of their land went up this year — to a net taxable value of $78,850 from $65,000 — but point out that the land that holds their small bungalow has been assessed higher in the past. “A few years ago our land was assessed at $90,000, and we paid far less in taxes then,” said Jeannie Teather. “The fact is that the Socreds have already decided what they need to pay for all the goodies for those big business gents, and we get to foot the bill.” Education Minister Jack Heinrich made the hiked assessments excuse during debate in the legislature June 24, when opposition New Democrats attacked the government for giving breaks to business and loading the burden onto residences. But officials at the Burnaby school board agree that assessment hikes, by the provin- ces’ B.C. Assessment Authority, don’t account for the district’s tax wallop. “If your assessed value had stayed the same, you'd still be paying a lot more in school taxes this year,” said board public relations officer Elliot Grieve. In 1983, Burnaby residents paid an aver- age $567 on a school budget of $60 million. By comparison, they pay $574 for school services which now, thanks to government cuts, are funded by a $54 million budget. “Tf it had been under the old forumla, the average tax would be $501. But the restraint program has really changed the rules,” said Grieve. — Grieve was referring to amendments made to the School Act last year which shifted a greater percentage of education costs from industrial and commercial prop- erty taxes onto residential taxes. Victoria seized that taxing power from local school districts shortly after the restraint program was imposed in 1982. ’ Those taxes are now ploughed into gen- eral revenues, out of which the provincial government determines how much will go ~ to finance education. In Vancouver’s case, the district now must tax residents for 43.1 per cent of the budget, slashed by $14 million this year, said board secretary-treasurer Alic Patter- son. : “Although our budget has gone down, from $185 million to $174 million, taxpay- ers are paying more because of the changes - in the cost sharing forumla,” said Patterson. Before the formula change, the province picked up 63.4 per cent of the district’s costs. The figure has been reduced to 56.9 per cent. Patterson, who has worked under government-appointed trustee Allan Sta- bles since the education ministry fired the nine-member board in May for refusing to implement government cutbacks, pointed out Vancouver residents paid an average of $168 for schools in 1984. They now pay an. average $225, a 34-per cent increase, he noted. A brief by the Union of B.C. Municipali- ties to Finance Minister Hugh Curtis last fall noted that the government’s taxation system exempts some $26 billion in actual industrial property values which, if included, would yield $150 million in added revenue. The brief also pointed to changes in the Assessment Act that upped the exemption value on machinery to $50,000, and the exemption value on improvements to $10,000, from a previous $1,500. The UBCM went on to note that while homeowner grants, which help reduce taxes, apply to only one residence per Owner, companies are allowed assessment exemptions on each “parcel” of land.