that -B:G-

fA FOR THe OLLEC: =<
PA A MRSS Ee op &
NOT

Adding their voices to those of students in Vancouver (above), students
hed on the administration last week

at the University of Victoria marc

demanding that there be no fee increase. Despite the protest, however,

the board of governors voted to raise

than 25 percent.

fees to $540 — a hike of more

Curriculum issue sparks .
debate at BCTF meeting

cont'd from pg. 1

scapegoats either for government
mismanagement or 4. sfor
irresponsible profit-taking by

‘business and industry.”

The BCTF president, who was to
step down from his post following
Wednesday’s_ elections, also
touched on what he termed ‘‘the
political extremism’’ reflected in
the controversial paper ‘‘Essential
Educational Experiences’’
although the debate on the paper —
held under the report of. the
professional development advisory

committee — indicated that the

criticism on the document was not
as bitter as some had thought.
The EEE, as the paper has come
to be called, was prepared by the
professional development advisory
committee on the basis of a
workshop held last year. Now into
its fifth draft, the EEE, while not
Federation policy, outlines the
committee’s response to the core
curriculum and presents a critical

Socred patronage charged

in land commission deals

As the Socred environment
ministry is rocked by charges of
scandal and corruption over the
continuing releases of agricultural
land from the land commission’s
“freeze’’, organizations

representing 75,000 people have

joined in a coalition in Chilliwack
to protest the actions of the
provincial cabinet and the land
commission.

Brought together by the Save the
Farmland Committee, the
coalition includes the Farmland
Defense League, SPEC, the B.C.
Wildlife Association, the Con-
sumer’s Organization of Canada
and about 13 other organizations.

Thenew coalition has called for a
full public disclosure of the reasons
for the unprecedented cabinet
action in overturning a decision of
the land commission to release
eight acres of land from the
agricultural freeze that will be
used for a new car dealership by
Brett Motors.

Brett Motors was a major
supporter of Socred MLA Harvey
Schroeder and supplied Schroeder
with his campaign office during the
last provincial election.

The blatant patronage in the
Brett Motors deal has outraged the
NDP opposition in the legislature
and environmental groups con-
cerned with the numbers of

EDITORIAL

cont'd from pg. 1
all corners of the province, and
from every industry, have rallied
to support their paper and ensured
its continued publication.

This year we are again asking
for that same devotion, hard work,
and self-sacrifice to guarantee that
the drive will go over the top and
labor will indeed
celebrate a major victory at our
windup banquet at the New
Westminster Arenex on June 25.

Last week we published the press
club targets and details of the
drive. I urge every reader and
supporter to throw themselves into
the drive with all the energy they
have. I appeal to readers
everywhere to give more this year
to guarantee that the strong voice
of this paper will continue to be
heard. It’s your paper. It’s now up
to you.

deletions from the land reserve.

Jack Auffray, president of SPEC
in Chilliwack and an active
member of the Save the Farmland
Committee pointed out in a letter to
the Tribune last week that the eight
acres granted Brett would render a
further 21. acres. non-farmable.
Chilliwack is presently losing 100
acres of farmland per year, Auf-
fray said.

In the legislature, the NDP
charged that the cabinet com-
mittee that heard the appeal by
Brett Motors had refused to hear
the arguments of the Save the
Farmland Committee and that the
committee heard only from Brett
Motors and MLA Schroeder. NDP
environment critic Bob Skelly and
Vancouver East MLA Alex
MacDonald accused Phillips of
collusion ‘“‘with those who are out
to destroy the land commission
act’’ and termed him “‘unfit to be a

minister.”

Even the Vancouver Province
was forced to editorialize last week
that “the precedent (the Brett
Motorsdeal) may give every Tom,
Dick or Harry entrepreneur cause
to believe that he can expect the
same friendly consideration that
the Chilliwack car dealer got.”

The Land Commission Act was
the creation of the NDP govern-
ment in 1974 and was in response to
the rapid erosion of arable land in
the province. With Canada losing
farmland at a rate of 250 acres per
day, the problem was particularly
acute in British Columbia where
only three percent of all land is
suitable for agriculture. Even at
that, the rapid development of
agricultural land was pwshing
farmers off the land and putting
food processors out of business at
an alarming rate.

Nielson’s first act as minister of
environment and _ minister
responsible for the Land Com-
mission Act was to fire four of the
five commissioners that had been
appointed by the NDP. Since that
time, the great majority of the
commission’s time has been spent
hearing appeals rather than:
reviewing the province’s 27 land
reserves.

The minister’s contempt for the

Act has also been shown in his
repeated warnings of major

- amendments to the Act, and in

particular of a change in the ap-
peals process that would
establishing regional boards of
appeal. That proposal would
emasculate the centralized
authority of the Environment and
Land Use Committee and the Land
Commission. and would speed up
the destruction of farmland.

While more and more land was
quietly being deleted from the
agricultural reserve and the Act
itself was being systematically
undermined, most public attention
was focused on the unending list of
scandals associated with Nielson’s
office.

In addition to the Brett Motors
case, Nielson was involved in Land
Commission decisions on behalf of
old Socred stalwart Harry Terry
when he made his bid to build a
racetrack on agricultural land in
Surrey.

Not long after, the Save the
Farmland Committee alleged
more collusion and patronage in
the application of the Sardis Land
Development Company to release
127 acres of land for their use. They
alleged that Nielson, Schroeder
and the company president, Wally
Johnston met to discuss the
deletion of the land from the
reserve before the appeal was
heard.

NDP critic Bob Skelly brought
another scandal into public view
when he told the legislature about
the application of Dayhu In-
vestments to build on the Ferry
Marsh in Delta. Skelly asked
Nielson if it was true that he had
met the developer, Bill Wright, and
had been taken on a tour of the
property.

Wright, as it turns out, was a bag
man for Nielson in his Richmond
riding during the last election.
Skelly read into the legislative
record a financial appeal from the
Richmond Social Credit
Association over. the signature of
Wright.

The Ferry Marsh development
has also come under sharp
criticism from environmentalists
because it threatens wild life and
fishing stocks in the lower Fraser
estuary. Talks are currently being
held between the B.C. government
and the federal ministry of the
environment to improve
management of the estuary

evaluation of the education
system.

The paper has come under
considerable attack from a
number of quarters, notably right-
wing Sun columnist Doug Collins
who labelled the report ‘“‘Marxist.”’

Some of the criticisms were
echoed on the floor of the meeting
although frequently they were
more of form than of substance.

Maple Ridges delegate John
Collins, suggested that the EEE
was ‘‘slanderous”’ to teachers and,
as such, was “beyond revision’
and should be scrapped and a new
committee established to draft a
report.

Frances Worledge, who co-
chaired the committee which
prepared the EEE, responded that
such a characterization was
completely one-sided and pointed
out that the document was not
nearly so critical of the educational
system’ as was another, more
comprehensive and scholarly
report, prepared last year by the
Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development, an
international body of which
Canada is a member as are most
western industrialized nations.

The report, she said; was
prepared by a number of in-
ternationally known experts from
several countries.

“Tn fact,” she added, ‘‘if we had
waited two months, we would not
have had to write the EEE — we
could have taken the OECD report
and selected extracts from it.”

Worledge also emphasized that
delegates could “frame the EEE
report or arrange a public burning.

‘“‘But the issue won’t go away nor
will the problems that it
discusses,’ she warned.

Although the meeting did not
move to any formal motion on the
committee’s paper, delegates did
endorse a number of recom-
mendations from the Federation’s
executive committee on the
curriculum issue, some of which
become immediate policy and
some of which will go to local
associations before discussion at
the representative assembly of the
Federation in May.

The representative assembly is a
smaller, delegated meeting of the
Federation. Two such assemblies
are held annually.

The first recommendation en-
dorsed by the meeting stressed
that the role of the provincial
ministry of education in school
curriculum “‘should be to facilitate
the development by the public of
broad general goals and policies
and to facilitate the efforts of
trustees, teachers, parents and
students in their pursuit of goals.”’

The recommendation was aimed
at establishing what the BCTF
considers to be the ministry’s role
in curriculum development in
contrast to the apparent attempt
by the ministry to establish cen-

‘tralized control.

Another recommendation, also
adopted by delegates outlined
several educational goals which, it
said, should be aimed at ensuring:

e For each student, the op-
portunity for successful par-
ticipation and for the enhancement
of his/her self-esteem regardless
of aptitude or background;

e Equal opportunity for all
regardless of learning disabilities
or abilities, or interests and
aspirations;

6 Protection from
discrimination on the basis of:
place of birth, place of residence,
sex, age, race, religion or
socioeconomic status;

e Thataction be taken to reverse
the effects of past discrimination;

SS 4
BILL BROADLEY

o Provision of lifelong access to
public education;

o Provision of programs that
increase students’ options rather
than limit them;

o Equal opportunity for all
children to develop capacity for:
intellectual and cultural growth,
recreation and leisure activity,
happy family relationships,
productive community life and
participation as citizens in a
democracy ; 1

o Opportunity for parents,
students and teachers to develop
objectives and programs;

o Adequate teacher education
programs in universities;

o Adequate funding for the
continued professional develop-
ment of teachers.

A number of other recom-
mendations, presented on behalf of
the professional development
advisory committee are to go to
local associations for discussion
before presentation to the
representative assembly in May.

Much more specific in their
intent, they included the principle
that BCTF members not use
provincial tests, that the concept of
a provincial core curriculum is not
acceptable as well as other

proposals.
One of the nine recom-
mendations — emphasizing the |

value of school-based testing —_

was taken off the list of future
recommendations and was to be
debated at the current meeting.
In placing it for immediate
consideration, delegates stressed
the importance of making it clear
that the BCTF “is in favor of

‘testing but we will not accept the

conditions imposed by provincial
testing.”

Another resolution, expected to
be of particular importance for the
future direction of the BCTF was
one submitted by the Burnaby and
Coquitlam associations, calling for
BCTF membership in the Public
Sector Employees Coordinating

.Council.

The BCTF is currently an ob-
server on the council but the term
for such status expires May 8, 1977
and is non-renewable.

Although the resolution was to be
debated in the first session on
Monday, time ran out and a motion
to alter the agenda to allow for
discussion on the issue early
Tuesday did not get the required
two-thirds majority.

Formed last year, the B.C.
Public Sector Employees Coor-
dinating Council includes as
members the B.C. Government
Employees Union, Hospital Em-
ployees Union, Canadian Union of
Public Employees, Office and
Techinal Workers, Local 378,
Association of University and
College Employees, Vancouver
municipal and Regional employees

union, Registered Psychiatric

Nurses and the Service, office,
Retail Workers Union of Canada.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 1, 1977—Page 3