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“VA oe a ws

ewe eee TT

The latest Vietnam casualty

—Seattle Post-Intelligencer

‘Dynamic Society’
has hollow ring

By JAMES BEYNON
The people of B.C. were subjected
to a three-ring circus in the
Legislature which would have been

- funny if it wasn’t our money, lives

and government that the Socreds and
the “Dynamic” Mr. Bennett were
Playing with.

; Mr. Bennett is building his
dynamic society’’ in B.C. oblivious
to the needs of the majority of
British Columbians, but keenly
aware of the needs of the monopoly
Mterests which he serves. In building
his “Dynamic Society” or a safe
harbor for monopoly interests

ennett does it on the backs of the
People,

«qt 8reat indictment of the
“Dynamic”? Mr, Bennett and his
Merry men were the figures given
ne by N-D.P. Member of
ature Tom Berger that in B.C.
< are 70,000 on Social Assistance
eee a further 60,000 on
; mployment insurance, a
Ombined total of 130,000 people.

When you consider that this

» hundred and thirty thousand people

BYE families and dependents, the
oe rises for those living on Social

SSistance and Unemployment
aeanes to around 450,000 or 22.5%
e a total population. For a family
a, ae a man, wife and child, —
= g the rate on unemployment

Uurance is a little higher than on

Ocial assistance — it is still under
a month.

na ees cost of living how far

ne 00 go for a man and wife who

aos $125 on Social Assistance or

ithe ee unemployment insurance, or

és See person who can receive up

bee on unemployment insurance,
On social assistance?

These figures destroy the myth

at Bennett has propagated of a

ete Society’. The Victoria

Sue has dramatically

effected this myth to those not

aa of the demonstrations and
ins at the legislature.

th

ae Campbell, the Honorable (?)
Fiver | Minister, stated he was not
lie. by the demonstrators and the
8ht of thousands who live in

eer Much like Marie Antoinette,

n the poor of France were

ees
_ Starving and had. not even bread to

eat,

vshe said “‘let them eat cake.”

The ‘“‘Dynamic’’ Mr. Bennett and
his merry men should learn from
history, for the callous Marie
Antoinette got her head chopped off
during the French Revolution.

Ina province as richly endowed as
British Columbia is with natural
resources it is criminal to have
people living on social assistance and
Unemployment Insurance. Our oil
and gas resourees provide the basis
for a vast petrochemical industry;
the coal and iron ore for a steel
industry; and the great forest
industry for finished wood products.
A government with the interest of
the people at heart would see that
these secondary industries were

developed.

But Mr. Bennett and the Socred
government dance the tune of the

monopolies who find it more ’

profitable to keep B.C. a storehouse
for raw materials which are
exported and the finished products
are imported.

, The people of B.C. are seeing |

through the lie of Bennett’s
“Dynamic Society”, for they are
being increasingly victimized by the
controlling monopolies with rising
unemployment, mass suffering,
higher cost of living, and the loss of
liberties with measures such Bill 33.

VICTORIA — The last act in a
dramatic series of protests against
provincial welfare allowances made
a dramatic impact on MLAs last
Wednesday when a protest took the
stage at the annual posh banquet for
MLAs staged by Premier Bennett at
the Empress Hotel’s Crystal

Ballroom.

-As MLAs started to bite into their
juicy steaks four men and two
women invaded the banquet hall,
marched across the stage with
placards reading: “15,000 mothers
and children are hungry,” “Stamp
out poverty in B.C.,” and ‘Campbell
says ‘let them beg.’”’

Since March 12 a group of Victoria
welfare recipients, mostly mothers,
and some social welfare workers,
have staged sit-ins, and sleep-ins
outside the legislative chamber,
seeking higher welfare payments
and other improvements.

:

RPF

KIDS WILL SUFFER

Socreds shift school

burden to home owners

By NIGEL MORGAN

Amendments to the Public
Schools Act, introduced in the
Legislature this week, have
been devised to get the
Provincial government off
the hook for financial
responsibilities it doesn’t
want to accept, and to shift
the growing burden onto local
ratepayers throughout B.C.’s
88 local school districts.

While the full impact will not be
known until the new system is
applied later this year, this is the
main feature that stands out from a
preliminary examination of Bill 86.
Noteable is the fact that it repeals all
former statutory restrictions on the
extent to which the Provincial
government can shift the incidence
of school costs from the Provincial
treasury to local homeowners and
ratepayers.

The, provision that the basic
Provincial grant to School Boards
will cover 50 percent of total basic
educational costs of the Province is
eliminated. So is the proviso that the
standard mill rate applied to taxable
property for school purposes shall
not exceed 18 mills.

The new amendments replace the
existing formula for determining
school costs and calculating
Provincial grants, substituting one
based on annual changes in ‘‘pupil
enrollment’”’ and the previous years
“approved operating costs’. Local
school boards are to have greater
responsibilities forced on them in
determining and raising the
revenues necessary for school
operations. School boards will
henceforth be a taxing entity in
themselves, with responsibility for
the separate school levy on the local
municipal tax bill.

The new provision for an annual
automatic review of basic
educational program costs
represents an advance, but the
arbitrary imposition of a 10 percent
limitation on local options
constitutes a dangerous
infringement on local autonomy to
decide the level and standard of the
educational program.

***

It is this provision which led a joint

meeting of the B.C. Teachers

Federation and B.C. School Trustees
Association to conclude that the new
amendments constitute ‘‘A powerful
instrument to subject education to
centralized, restrictive provincial
control, placing School Boards in a
straightjacket which the Minister of
Education may tighten or slacken at
will.’’ They see the proposed changes
as threatening ‘‘to destroy local
autonomy and impeding progress in
education in B.C.”

School Boards are to be given the
right to impose additional local taxes
to exceed the basic education
program — Set by law at not less
than 90% of the previous year’s
expenditures, But, if they want to
exceed by more than 10 percent, they
will have to either get permission of
local municipal councils, or place a
referendum before local ratepayers.
Until now referendums have been
required for ‘‘capital expenditures’’
only. Inclusion of “‘operating costs”
is a retrogressive step that can only
serve to retard educational progress.

Inclusion of kindergarten

operating costs (not previously es

shared by the Provincial treasury) is
an advance. Similarly the
amendment to permit ‘‘resident
electors’ (tenants) to run for School
Board. However, it continues the

‘unfair restriction which prevents

tenants (whose taxes are included in
their rental payments) to vote on
school money bylaws.

The new amendments will not

effect determination of ‘capital

construction cost’’ sharing, or

- change calculation of the sharing of_

auxiliary school costs (transpor-
tation, dormitories or health serv-
ices). Here, where an acute class-
room shortage already exists as
a result of Provincial government
witholding of construction monies,
(requiring double-shifting in many
areas next fall) — no solution is
provided. The Provincial gov't.
has the funds to build Columbia
dams for U.S. benefit, and to go it
alone in building the Roberts Bank
superport for the Kaiser-Nippon
trust, but nothing for urgently
needed school expansions.

_ The Bennett government must not

be allowed to extend the handicap
they are imposing on the present
school generation at a time when our
greatest requirement is for higher
educational standards. Public
pressure is needed to compel the
government to radically change its
policy for financing education. Local
taxes are already too high. And
double-shifting will work a real
hardship on students and parents
alike.

School Act amendments which do
not provide more money for school
purposes from the Provincial
treasury will not fill the bill. More
money has got to be found to meet
B.C.’s growing school and college
needs, and more money is available
if instead of giving away our natural
resources the Provincial
government taxes the raw materials
being exported for processing and
manufacture in foreign lands, and
base taxation on ability to pay. With
a $866 million budget surely the
money can be found to provide our
educational needs.

‘School Act changes pose
threat to education needs’

By JAMES MacFARLAN
‘Vancouver School Trustee
Bill 86, the proposed amendments to the Public
School Act, is an infamous document. It is designed to
destroy local school board autonomy, lower
educational standards and place a huge new burden on
local taxpayers.

The Socred government seems intent on denying the
young people of this province the type of education
which they must have. The Bill is part and parcel of a
most reactionary government. The attack on labor in
Bill 33 and this latest attack on educational needs are
closely related. They are the actions of a government
which serves the province’s giant monopolies and
their U.S. parent companies.

The new education finance formula not only means
a cut in educational services and sharply increased
school taxes, but like Bill 33, it attacks several basic
democratic principles. Just as the right to strike has
been fundamental to trade unions, the right of local
control has been fundamental to education.

The new legislation virtually prevents local school
boards from implementing educational change.
Democracy through local control is all but destroyed.
All guarantees of provincial sharing to the extent of 50-
percent of the basic cost of education in B.C. have
been removed. The government could cut its share to
twenty-five or thirty percent or less.

: The new formula is a device to hold education costs
at the 1967 level or below for the next few years. In

' Classrooms costing more than these amounts although

fact the total expenditure on education in B.C. could
be reduced each year if the new formula is rigidly
applied. This means that in spite of rapid inflation
school boards are expected to maintain or even
reduce current levels of expenditure.

The new formula is really step four in a concerted _
attack on education and a freeze on educational
projects. Step one was the present construction
freeze, step two the new- school building code which
reduced the size of classrooms. Step three was the
enforced limitation on cost of new construction to
$15,000 for elementary classrooms and $22,500 for
secondary classrooms. Boards may not build

present building costs are more than double these
figures. The new formula freezes overall costs of
operation at 1967 levels.

On summary, the sections of Bill 86 which deal with
education finance are restrictive and undemocratic.
They pose a threat to the educational needs of the
people of B.C. They reduce local control and greatly
increase centralization while shifting the cost of
education more and more to the local level.

It is not too late to stop these dreadful amendments
from becoming law. Act now. Phone, wire or write
the Minister of Education to scrap these amendments
and introduce an updating of the present formula
pending a full revision next year, following discussion
with school trustees, teachers, PTA members and
others interested.

“MARCH 29, 1968—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 3°