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Friday, October 1, 1982

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| Socreds still striving to ‘punish teachers’

The reluctance of premier Bill
Bennett to call an election so far
can be attributed in large part to
the resistance the Socreds have
met from B.C.’s teachers op-
posed to the government
restraint plan.

B.C. Teachers Federation
president Larry Kuehn had told
Bennett at a special meeting
Sept. 24 that there was no way
teachers would accept the
Socred notion of restraint. The
Only way to reach peace in the
education financing dispute
would be for the provincial
government to completely
Testore the funding it had cut
from the province’s schools, he
Said.

‘We are not going to stand
by and watch the education
system destroyed by cutting out
services we think are essential,”
Kuehn said afterwards. ‘“We
will be continuing to pressure
the government by going to the
public, by getting them to de-
mand the quality of service we
know parents want for their
children.”’

Kuehn said teachers would be
taking ‘‘political’’ action’? by
‘advertising on behalf of
education”’ if and when an elec-
tion was called.

That response denied Bennett
the mantle of reasonable
moderator he’d been hoping to
wear to the polls following an

anticipated election writ Tues-
day.

His initial hope that school
boards would readily accept his
formula for cutbacks to the

education system was dashed
when trustees — many of whom
are regular Socred supporters —
balked at being forced into a
confrontational role with their
teachers and other school
employees.

It became apparent that
education minister Bill Vander
Zalm, despite his confusing and
often self-contradictory direc-

tives, was aiming to make
trustees the villians by forcing
them to attack salaries and
working conditions in an effort
to effect the drastic cuts involv-

ANALYSIS

ed in Phase II of the Socred
restraint program.

His arrogance in refusing
school boards other options,
such as transferring capital
funds to operating accounts,
backfired. He only succeeded in
alienating the largely conser-
vative B.C. School Trustees
Association, whose president,
Gary Begin, had publicly ac-

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cepted the idea of restraint, but
who had grown increasingly
militant in response to Vander
Zalm’s ham-fisted methods.

Begin was readily joined in
his condemnation of the Socred
methods by school trustees
naturally opposed to restraints,
such as the progressive majority
on the Vancouver school board,
and the Courtenay school
board. Forced to make cuts
under the threat of trusteeship,
they opted for cuts to services,
which raised parents, not so
much at the boards, but at Vic-
toria.

Seen in this light, Vander
Zalm’s latest legislation, handed

See SOCREDS page 2

No jobs

— page 3 —

for young

| Canadians}

Ea EEO i GAA Ra gn

ers from B.C.’s Arab community, anti-Zionist Jews and trade
unionists blamed the U.S. and Israel for the outrage, and called
on the Canadian government to formally recognize Palestinians’
right to an independent state.

About 250 people gathered at Vancouver's Robson Square Satur-
day to join the growing world condemnation of the slaughter of
hundreds of unarmed Palestinians in the refugee camps of
Shatila and Sabra in west Beirut the previous weekend. Speak-

— See pages 4, 8, 10, 11 —

betes

Ontario
unions
hit Tory

‘controls
- — page 6 —
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