- ‘Keep Jericho’

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About 100 demonstrators, among them deaf students and their parents and members of Vancouver's
deaf community, protested Saturday at Jericho Hill School for the Deaf to head off the apparent deter-

mination of the provincial government to close the school.

B.C. Deaf Advocate photo

Socreds scuttling public transit

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

The provincial government has
decided to take over control of all
public transit in the province and
to compel citizens in each area to
pay the costs. This is the essence of
the Urban Transit Authority Act
introduced in the legislature on
June 3.

Under the terms of the Act:

e B.C. Hydro will be divested of
its transit system;

eA new Urban Transit
Authority of B.C. will be set up by
the cabinet to plan and fund
municipal transit;

e This new authority will consist
of members appointed from three
now-regional transit commissions
(still to be established), one of
which will be the Lower Mainland
Transit Commission;

e Transit costs in areas like the
Lower Mainland will be met by
surcharges on power bills, ad-
ditional gasoline taxes, additional
taxes on property or by borrowing.

This new legislation was_ in-
troduced just a few days after a
special committee of the provincial
legislature on crown corporations
had recommended that bus fares
be increased, that the transit
system be separated from B.C.
Hydro and the public transit in
Vancouver and Victoria be placed

under a new transit authority.

It is evident that the government
decided some time ago what it
wanted and was just waiting for
the report of the legislative com-
mittee before introducing this new
legislation.

The legislative committee also
stated in its report that B.C.
Hydro’s transit :operations last
year had a deficit of $62 million and
that $54.5 million of this amount
was attributable to transit losses in
Vancouver and Victoria.

The main thrust of this new
legislation is aimed at forcing
citizens to pay the cost of public
transit and take this financial re-
sponsibility of the shoulders of B.C.
Hydro and the provincial govern-
ment.

That may be a nice “‘solution”
for B.C. Hydro and the provincial
government but it is no solution to
our transit problem.

No transit system can operate at
a profit if it relies on fares alone. It
must be subsidized from other
sources. The question is: will this
subsidy come from senior govern-
ments or will it come from ad-
ditional taxes on citizens?

The provincial government has
given us its answer in this new
legislation. It wants out. As a
matter of fact, that has been the

objective of B.C. Hydro and the
provincial government (both under
Bennett Senior and Bennett
Junior) all along.

This is not what citizens in the
Lower Mainland have been asking
for and it’s not what we want. It’s
true we do want a regional transit
authority. But we want it under our
control and we want provincial
subsidies to meet both capital and
operating costs. There will be big
costs once serious efforts are made
to improve the bus-system (some-
thing that B.C. Hydro never did)
and once a light rapid transit
system is built.

Neither can be undertaken
without provincial subsidies or
alternately imposing excessively
additional taxes on citizens.

The provincial government
knows that citizens in this period of
economic recession, high unem-
ployment and declining living
standards won’t willingly under-
take additional financial burdens
to build a good rapid transit
system. Is this the Social Credit
government’s way of scuttling the
whole idea of improved public
transit? Since there is an over-
abundance of car dealers in the
provincial cabinet and since this
government has always been luke-
warm to rapid transit, there is
reason enough for this suspicion.

PEOPLE AND ISSUES:

About 100 deaf students, parents
of deaf children and members of
the deaf community demonstrated
last Saturday at the Jericho Hill
School for the Deaf to protest the
closing of the School for the Blind
and the threatened closure of their
school.

The Greater Vancouver Associa-
tion of the Deaf and the Jericho Hill
School for the Deaf Parents
Association, organizers of
Saturday’s demonstration, have
been demanding consultation with
provincial education minister Pat
McGeer over the future of the
school.

McGeer has not responded to the
requests for consultation and, the
demonstrators claimed, the school
is being phased out of operation.
The provincial education depart-
ment wants to phase out the school
and place deaf children in the
public school system, supposedly
to integrate the deaf and blind
more closely with the community.
The parents and educators at the
school, however, maintain that the
government is merely attempting
to cut costs and that the pro-
vincially run Jericho School is
necessary to give deaf children a
quality education.

Education department officials
have denied that the school will be
closed, but the parents pointed out
that school enrolment has dropped
from 200 to 165 in only three years
and that only three new children
will be admitted to the school next
year.

After a similar two year battle
with parents over the Jericho Hill
School for the Blind, the provincial
government announced last month
that the school will close at the end
of June. The School for the Blind’s
former buildings are being taken
over the provincial ‘Justice In
stitute’ which will centralize law
enforcement training in the
province. The demonstrators at the
school Saturday pointed out that
centralized training programs for
deaf and blind children were being
phased out, their resources were
being allocated to other centralized
programs in order to provide 4
high quality education.

The demonstrators have prom

ised further actions if education —
minister McGeer continues t0 |

ignore their requests for con:

sultation over the future of JerichO —

protest demands

Hill School and in the formulation? )
of a comprehensive, long-range —

plan for the education of de
children in B.C. :

Island CP meet urges
tabling of Forest Act

».. Ths Vancouver Island Region:of
the C$mmunist Party has called

for the tabling ‘of: the new ‘pro-~

vincial Forest Act for one year to
allow time for public study and
input.

At the region’s annual meeting at
the Tally Ho Hotel in Nanaimo, the
CP delegates expressed deep con-
cern at the developing crisis in the
forest industry caused by massive
overcut and inadequate reforesta-
tion, improper logging methods
and wastage.

Party members reported in-
creased environmental and pollu-
tion problems on Vancouver Island
and decided to work for an end to
all marine sewage outfalls and for
the establishment of land-based
disposal systems.

Delegates also noted with con-
cern the massive military buildup
in Canada and the increased

danger. of war. The meeting
resolved to redouble efforts
against the Trident nuclear sub-
marine, the neutron bomb and the
cruise missile. It called for full
support from the Canadian govern:
ment for the United Nations

Special session on disarmament.

Organizationally, the Party
reported increased activity in the
Vancouver Island region with 2
new. Young Communist League
branch formed, expanding Party

organization on northern Vancou- |

ver Island and three candidates
nominated for the coming federal
election. The candidates are Mark
Mosher for Nanaimo-Alberni, SY
Pedersen for Comox-Powell River
and Ernie Knott for Cowishan,
;Malahat, the Islands.

Ernie Knott of Victoria was re
elected secretary of the CP’S
Island region.

f anyone ever doubted that the Trudeau government not
only represents the interests of big business but is also
directly identified with those interests, then those doubts
would surely have to be dispelled with the spate of corpor-
ate appointments recently bestowed upon former Liberal
cabinet minister Donald MacDonald.
The appointment to the board of directors of McDonnell-

Douglas, the giant aircraft company, of the former defence .

minister did arouse protest in Parliament since the federal
government is about to squander millions on several fighter
planes which, of course, McDonnell-Douglas would dearly
love to supply. Unfortunately, none of the MPs questioned
the fact that money was being wasted on military aircraft,
but at least they did question the propriety of MacDonald’s
appointment.

Just as significant, however, was the appointment only
three weeks before of the same Donald MacDonald —
remember, he was also the minister of energy, mines and
resources — to the board of Shell Canada, the wholly-owned
subsidiary of one of the largest multinational oil companies
in the world.

We can’t help thinking that the fact that MacDonald.

occupied the energy ministry only three years ago had a lot
to do with the fact that the controversial, and now
discredited, National Energy Board report — completed,
after some study, in 1976 — echoed exactly what the oil
companies themselves had been saying: that Canada would
face dire shortages of oil by the mid-1980’s. As a result, the
oil companies got exactly what they wanted, namely a new
round of price increases and special exploration incentives.

We haven’t seen the consequences yet, but we note that"

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—June 9, 1978—Page 2

MacDonald has just been given still another directorship —

this time with Boise Cascade, a major forest products

corporation with operations in Ontario and New Brunswick.
* * Cd * *

Wee some 16,000 young people from all around the world
converge on the Cuban capital of Havana for the opening
of the 11th World Festival of Youth and Students, among
them will be the popular ensemble Bargain at Half the
Price which will be travelling as a group along with the

' Canadian delegation. Interestingly enough, Bargain, as it is_

known throughout much of the labor movement, was for-
med just shortly after the last World Youth Festival in Karl
Marx Stadt in the GDR in 1973, and the aims of the festival
represent what the group has been working for ever since
its formation.

Bargain director, Steve Gidora, tells us that the group
travelling to Havana will be made up of 13 performers and
two technicians. But as he points out, getting them there
will cost money — and you can help out by getting tickets to
their performance this Friday, June 9 in the Queen
Elizabeth Playhouse, where they will be joined in concert
by Flying Mountain. The time is 9 p.m. and the tickets —
available at People’s Co-op Books and all Vancouver Ticket
Centres — are $4 for adults and $3 for children.

* * * * *
1soon the issue of the World Youth Festival, we reported
some weeks ago that the Parti Quebecois government

had undertaken to finance the travel costs of Quebec
delegates as well as to provide administrative expenses for

,

the Quebec Festival Committee. But now, sadly, we have to
report that that has changed. Vancouver Festival Com:
mittee chairperson Karen Dean tells us that the Quebec
government has withdrawn the financial support — ap-
parently because of divisions within the PQ cabinet over the
issue.

Although the decision has created financial difficulties
for the Festival Committee, it has not diminished the wide
interest in the Festival and the support it has garnered from

- many organizations throughout Quebec.

* * * * *

e have a note from Cora Phillips, in Vancouver General
Hospital, asking us to convey on her behalf, her ‘‘sinceré
thanks for the beautiful cards and flowers sent to me bY
comrades and friends.”’ :
Cora is in the Centennial Pavilion of the Vancouve!
General in Room 688 West, during regular visiting hours-

~ JIRIBUNE

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR

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