EDITORIAL

Restraint in a new guise

The legislature in Victoria is now prorogued and it
will be another two weeks before a new session is
opened and longer before the budget is brought down,
setting the government’s economic direction for 1985.
But if Bennett’s televised address was intended as the
preview, the real thing is going to be more of Social
Credit’s disastrous economic program replayed in a
new guise.

However, it was dressed as “economic renewal”,
what Bennett presented Feb. 18 was the same Socred
restraint, at least for the majority of British Columbi-
ans.

For workers in the public sector, there was the clear
message: the freeze on wages will continue, tied to a
cynical government offer that if employees accept a
reduced living standard, they “might” have the possi-
bility of security of employment.

But what of the hundreds of teachers and support
staff workers who will lose their jobs if the proposed
government cuts for 1984/85 are imposed on school
boards? In fact, it was a measure of Bennett’s hypoc-
risy that for all the talk of “co-operation” and ‘“‘rene-
wal”, he barely mentioned the crisis in education
financing that the government’s restraint program has
created.

Worse, he offered nothing that would suggest that
the government has even listened to the demand that
has resounded across the province for an end to edu-
cation cuts. And certainly there was nothing to suggest
that the Socreds might re-think their priorities.

If there is to be any renewal, it must start with
education with a restoration of funding to at least 1984
levels, adjusted for inflation.

Instead, Bennett had only proposals for vague
provincial-federal programs as well as tax incentives
and new energy pricing regimes for the private sector.

But whatever few jobs those incentives will
provide — while helping to spur profit recovery for
the corporate sector — they will be paid at the
expense of continued cutbacks in education and other
government services. If the special economic zones
proceed, the cost will be higher still, paid at the loss of
workers’ rights. That much Bennett has made very
clear.

But the premier also had to be aware of a growing
disenchantment even among his supporters with the
direction in which the government is going, and a
growing opposition to his government’s policies. That
opposition is going to be critically important as the
new session opens and the Socreds proceed with their
budget plans.

NDP leader Bob Skelly no doubt echoed the senti-
ments of thousands when he called the government’s
restraint program “an unmitigated disaster.” But
many will expect to see the NDP opposition attack on
government policies and legislative programs become
a lot sharper in the days to come.

It wasn’t that the Socreds devised their programs
“in the smoky backrooms” without consultation —
the point is that Socred restraint from its inception has
been a program devised by and for the corporate
sector. It has victimized tens of thousands of British
Columbians through layoffs, closure of schools and
universities, the loss of vital services — and the loss of
more jobs as the effects ripple through the economy.
There can be little point in talking of reconciliation so
long as the government is continuing its course of
confrontation — with workers, with the unemployed,
with the entire education community.

Restraint is a disaster. And opposition to it is
mounting. Now it should be challenged and fought at
every turn — and finally reversed.

Irresponsible government

Canadian school children know about the struggle
in this country to achieve “responsible government”.
But they don’t have to look to the past to find an
example of irresponsible government.

Despite the widely demonstrated opposition of the
people of Canada, of dozens of organizations and
thousands of peace organizations, to the U.S. cruise
missile being tested in Canadian airspace and on Can-
adian territory, a third and fourth such test have been
permitted.

While former prime minister Pierre Trudeau spoke
at the UN Special Session on Disarmament of
“smothering” the development of new weapons, Mul-
roney seems intent on smothering Canadian inde-

‘pendence by allowing, despite protests, the Pentagon

to test the cruise first-strike weapon. Canada should
have an independent foreign policy, including inde-
pendent military policies.

That these tests go on over the opposition of most
Canadians is bad enough. That the Tory government
sneaks away out of reach of the electorate while its
defence department makes U.S. official announce-

" ments of two such tests within days of one another, is

an insult to public opinion and an abandonment of
duty.

This irresponsible government with its irresponsible
policies deserves the full brunt of the anger of the

majority of Canadians who want peace, not Reagan’s
wars.

THE DIVERSION OF PUBUC
SYVENDING FKoM LocrAc-
SERVICES TO THE MILITARY
HAS RESULTED IN SUBTLE
CHANGES

When do paper pollution and profit go together? When Moore
Corp., Ltd., Toronto, turns on its operations from South Africa to
Puerto Rico, from Sweden to Barbados, in all in 39 countries. Their
business forms and services to governments and business
brought them after-tax profit of $125,733,000 (U.S.) for the year
enced Dec. 31/84. A year earlier it was $98,590,000 (U.S.).

_—_—_—_—_—_—_—_$_——————————

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Assistant Editor — DAN KEETON
Business & Circulation Manager — PAT O’CONNOR
Graphics — ANGELA KENYON

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e’s known as something of a crusader
for “standards” in the media according
to Maclean's. But if his column in a recent
issue of the Nanaimo Times is any indica-
tion, applying his standards to the media
would result in a nation of Toronto Suns.

People and Issues

tion Minister Jack Heinrich’s foray into
the field of school budgets has been the prime
example, with the minister failing to take
into acocunt the effects of inflation during ©
the past decade.

As the B.C. School Trustees Association

Winner of the National Enquirer award
for objective journalism this month is
Stanley Burke, ex-broadcaster and current
publisher of the Nanaimo daily. Under the
heading “ ‘Lefties’ control our media,”
Burke rails against the coverage of the
recent Vancouver byelection which saw
the victory of Committee of Progressive
Electors’ Ald. Bruce Yorke.

Burke, of course, opposes Yorke’s re-
election, a position he shares with other
right-wing media commentators in Van-
couver and elsewhere. So those media per-
sonalities who engaged in red-baiting
during the Feb. 2 electoral race will be
surprised to be lumped into the publisher’s
blanket label of “lefty.”

But then, few of them could match
Burke’s capacity for anti-communist
venom. He begins by asking, “Can you

- Imagine the reaction in the media if a Nazi
offered himself for election in a Canadian
city? And the uproar if he were elected?

“And the consternation if it were found
the Nazi and his supporters actually held
the balance of power in city council?”
Burke asks, with studied incredulity. He
then compares this unlikely scenario to the
election of Yorke, “an admitted member

of the Communist Party (who) has just
been confirmed in his seat...and’ joins
three other aldermen who are known
communist sympathizers.”

We'll pass over Burke’s scattergun
assessment of the other three COPE
aldermen, smacking as it does of the usual
McCarthyist tactics, and head to the heart
of his commentary: that media reporters
are “biased” because they didn’t make
Yorke’s Communist Party membership
the issue in the campaign. :

“, ..It is my considered opinion that the
western media generally has a strong polit-
ical bias, and that the media of B.C. is
conspicuously slanted,” Burke complains,
citing his years of reportage as “‘qualifica-
tions.”

Burke laments that his colleagues failed
to see his parallel between fascism and
Communism: “I submit that the media
would have been filled with commentary if
any other extremist (sic) group took over
the balance of power in a major
city — Nazis, Klansmen, separatists, anti-
abortionists. .. When it comes to Commu-
nists, however...it is held that this is a
private matter and that anyone who raises
it is a ‘witch hunter.’ ”

“This (Burke contends) is a shocking
situation because membership in a politi-
cal party is not a private affair when that
party is dedicated to the destruction of the
democratic system as we know it.”

Evidently, most of Vancouver’s repor-
ters didn’t see it Burke’s way. Perhaps
having witnessed council democracy
increase noticeably since COPE aldermen
and their civic allies have gained the
majority, they dismissed the “Communist
menace” scare and gave some attention to
the civic issues during the campaign.

If that constitutes a bias on the part of
some reporters, we’d prefer the current
civic coverage — with all its faults — to
Burke’s brand of “objectivity.” Our sym-
pathies go to the subscribers of the
Nanaimo Times, with this note: if the pub-
lisher’s “standards” ever become accepted
wholesale in our media, we’re all in big
trouble.

eee. ee

ollowers of the struggle against the
Social Credit government’s cutbacks
to public education know how Socred
apologists for the ruinous “restraint” pro-
gram play footsie with the figures. Educa-

notes, the ministry also makes the claim |
that the government provides “82 per
cent” of the funding for education. The
implication is that taxes pay the small
remainder.

In fact, notes a recent issue of the
BCSTA Report, property owners pay the
bulk of B.C.’s school costs — 65.4 per
cent, as compared to 51.18 per cent in
Ontario, 45 per cent in Manitoba, 51 per

‘cent in Saskatchewan, and 44 per cent in

Alberta. So why the different figures?

Well, it turns out that the ministry
lumps in the income from industrial and
business taxes collected for education,

‘with the contribution — at 34.6 per cent,

it is decidely smaller than the Socreds
would like us to believe — from general
revenues. Readers will recall that the
government can do this since it seized
those taxing powers from local school
boards three years ago.

Putting it another way, the Report notes
that of the 1983 per-pupil cost of educa-
tion, B.C. taxpayers picked up the lion’s
share of the tab — $2,036.55 — easily
outstripping the next highest bill of
$1,593.74 paid by Ontario taxpayers.

4 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 27, 1985