The Canadian National In-
stitute for the Blind (CNIB) has
done a lot of good things for
blind people. But its decision to
close Queen Elizabeth Hall, its
personal care residence at 36th
and Main, is a bad thing; a deci-
sion made without full con-
sideration of the devastating ef-
fect it will have on its present in-
habitants.

The personal care residence
houses 58 people, 70 percent of
whom are blind and with 40
over 70 years old. It is also used
as an accommodation centre for
out of town people who come to
Vancouver for eye surgery or
mobility training.

~ Harry

Rankin

Its facilities include bowling,
cribbage, chess, the discuss
club, the literary club, the
matinee club, white cane con-
certs and exercise equipment.
And as Jean Swanson pointed

mittee On community services
when we met at the residence, it
has a family atmosphere and is
home to the residents.

Why would the CNIB want
to close up this residence when it
is providing such good services
and is so well liked by the
residents and supported by the
surrounding community?

The reasons it gives are that
(a) the provincial fire marshall
has ordered some fire safety
renovations — the CNIB

$500,000 and (b) the CNIB
wants to use the building for
other purposes, and (c) the
CNIB has decided to phase out
such centres across the country
and replace them with “‘integra-
tion into the community of
blind persons.”’

In my opinion these reasons
are unsound.

out to council’s standing com-.

estimates that these would cost |

‘Don't close QE
Hall,’ CNIB urged

It was. pointed out to our
committee on community ser-
vices that the CNIB could apply
to the provincial government
‘for funding to upgrade it to
meet fire safety standards. The
ministry of health last month in-
formed the Hospital Employees
Union that ‘“‘the ministry has
allocated sufficient funds to en-
sure that any non-profit facility
that requires upgrading can be
completed.’’ There is also
evidence to suggest that the cost
may be considerably less than
the $500,000 estimated.

It was also pointed out that
this so-called ‘“‘integration into

en

the community’”’ is entirely
misleading. These people are in-
tegrated now and happy with
their situation. They do not
want to move. They were never
consulted, but were just told
they would be removed “‘in their
own best interests.’’ The one
case where one of the residents
was taken out and “‘integrated’’
was a disaster. He was put in a
crowded hospital, where visitors
have to sit on the stairs while
visiting. There is no privacy and
bedtime is set at 7 p.m. or
earlier. ,

I do not think this personal
care residence should be closed.
The residents should be allowed
to live out their lives in the
modest comforts they now en-
joy. The CNIB should apply for
funding to the health ministry
and if that fails, some other
means should be explored.
Nothing should be done without
consulting the residents. The
help of the community should
be solicited with any problems
that arise. The public support is

- .there.

BCSTA deplores Socreds’
usurping of local autonomy

Angered by the loss of
autonomy under the provincial
government’s restraints on educa-
tion, B.C.’s school trustees have
demanded the withdrawal of
legislation which transfers their
powers to Victoria.

School board members also
demanded legislation clearly spell-
ing out funding allocations to their
pared budgets, at the B.C. School
Trustees’ Association’s annual
meeting in Vancouver last
weekend.

Delegates overwhelmingly en-
dorsed the positions, contained ina
late entry motion submitted by the
BCSTA executive. Although the
final resolution was watered down
somewhat from an initial motion,
its approval signified strong sup-
port for a leadership which has
grown more militant in the face of
government-imposed restraints.

Association president Gary
Begin, re-elected for a third term,
told reporters that provisions in the
recently enacted interim Education
Finance Act will make locally
elected school boards ‘‘merely a
group of puppets.”’

The new finance act is effective
for two years. It limits school fun-
ding to yearly increases in line with
the restraint program’12 percent

ceiling, and also transfers taxing —

powers of commercial properties
— which formed a substantial por-
tion of many school boards’
finances — to the provincial
government.

The act also grants the Social
Credit government new powers to
tell local boards on what programs
they can spend their money. These
changes have school trustees up in
arms, but the BCSTA has no plans
to fight the financial shortfall,
Begin said.

In earlier statements this year
Begin condemned the restraints as
“disastrous”? for the province’s
school children, since many boards
will have to cancel programs and
lay off teachers and support staff
beginning this fall.

The trustees’ low-key approach
to budget cuts, which Begin said
resulted from a ‘‘downturn”’ in the
economy, apparently hinges on

assurances from education
minister Brian: Smith that the pro-
visions of the interim act are tem-
porary. Smith, a guest speaker at
the convention, told the trustees
that local autonomy was a “‘totally
legitimate concern.

“‘We have to work with you to
establish methods of funding after
the restraint period ends,”’ he said
to the more than 400 delegates.

The minister’s remarks were in-
terpreted to mean that boards’ tax
bases would be returned when the
interim finance act ended. But
Smith told the press afterwards that
similar legislation could be impos-
ed then, saying, ‘‘I don’t guarantee
anything.”

If such is the case, then Smith
was taking a ‘‘two-faced’’ ap-
proach in his address to the trust=
ees, said Begin.

It was on the assurance that there
would be “‘life after restraint’? — as
Begin put it — that the delegates
voted first to refer the action mo-
tion back to the BCSTA executive
until Smith had had his say.

The subsequent revised motion
endorsed by delegates took some of
the punch out of the original ver-
sion. But the three-part motion still
called on the government to ‘‘res-
cind all legislation which gives ar-
bitrary powers to the minister of
education to make program and
funding decisions for which school
boards are held accountable to
their electors.”’

BCSTA leaders also left intact

the section demanding the ministry

‘restore local control of education
by returning to school boards the
tax. base that is needed to sustain
that control.”’

Delegates subsequently am-
mended ‘‘returning’’ to say
“‘guarantee,’’ thus muting the in-
itial demand for a return of local
boards’ industrial and commercial
taxing powers. The change was
enacted, according to Begin,
because some districts did not
benefit under the old finance for-
mula. The amended resolution em-
powers the BCSTA executive to
“‘examine’’ an equitable tax base

BRITISH COLUMBIA a

and arrive at a new finance for-
mula, he explained.

The: most significant change to
the motion was in the third part,
which initially called for the
removal of all ‘‘discretionary
power”’ from ministry officials to
allocate funds based on ‘‘political
patronage.’’ Begin had earlier rais-
ed this possibility because the
criteria for allocation of about $70
million in special grants is not spell-
ed out in the finance act.

The revised motion demands the
government ‘‘guarantee in legisla-
tion the criteria by which provincial
funds are allocated to schoodl
boards’? — details which the in-
terim finance act, like other pieces
of Socred restraint legislation, does
not spell out.

Dropped altogether was an at-
tion motion empowering the
BCSTA leadership to co-ordinatea
public information campaign on
the effects of the finance legisla-
tion, with association funds to be
set aside for that purpose. Instead,
local boards were encouraged to
conduct their own campaigns, with
BCSTA assistance.

Smith’s speech to the convention
and his subsequent remarks not on-
ly promised years of chopped
budgets — the minister also madeit
clear where those cuts could best be
made.

That area, Smith said, is
teachers’ salaries, limited by wage
control legislation to 10 percent in-
creases, plus or minus two percent.
Smith told the trustees, ‘‘I’d sug-
gest you’d be looking at about eight |
percent, and no higher.”’ He also
said teachers could increase ‘“‘pro-
ductivity’? by teaching larger
classes.

His suggestions were attacked by
both trustee and teacher represen-
tatives. Begin said it would be
“very difficult for teachers and
trustees to bargain in good faith.”

B.C. Teachers Federation presi-
dent Larry Kuehn said later
Smith’s remarks were “‘a ridiculous
and shameful statement from a
person carrying out the duties of
the education minister.’’ Increased
class sizes would decrease the quali-
ty of education, he said.

| t used to be that words such as “thypocrisy”’ and ‘“‘du-
plicity”” were sufficient, but with the advent of Bill
Bennett’s Social Credit government those words have
become vastly inadequate — especially in comparing the
Socreds’ words and actions on health care.

_The last few weeks have been replete with examples.
First there was the government’s own cheerleader paper,
the B.C. Government News, which quoted finance
munister Hugh Curtis with typical self-praise. ‘Health care
in this province is the best to be found anywhere in the
world,”’ he claimed. ‘‘The government undertakes today
to maintain the integrity of that service.”

He added, unabashedly: “Despite our revenue con-
straints, necessary improvements in the health delivery
system must proceed. Offsetting economies must be made
elsewhere in the budget so that vital health services to
British Columbians can be maintained.”

Bad enough that those comments came just a few
months after the government, already the only one in the
country to impose both medicare premiums and hospital
insurance charges, increased those charges by as much as
76 percent.

But then came the hospital cutbacks, forced on boards
as the Socreds tightened the budget screws. The loss of
beds around the province is now well over 1 ,200 and cuts in
staff are twice that number. Not only is the integrity of
health care gravely threatened — but so are the lives of pa-
tients, according to the president of the B.C. Medical
Association. As we noted at the Outset, words like
“duplicity” lose any meaning or proportion when put up
against Socred actions.

It was with those thoughts in mind that we looked over
an invitation we just received from Vancouver General

| inate as tina Sanaa ES
SS
Hospital to be there on June 7 at 10:30 when Socred health
minister Jim Neilson and universities minister Pat McGeer
open the first phase of the Laurel Street project, now near-
ing completion. No doubt the two of them will tell us of the
great things being done by the Socred government, while
just across the street, nurses and hospital workers are get-
ting pink slips, beds are being closed down and the lists for
surgery grow longer and longer.

This is one invitation we’ll decline. We’re afraid that
we’d be overcome with nausea — and then be unable to get
treatment because of Socred cutbacks.

* * *

A call last week from a staff worker at the Vancouver
Status of Women inquiring as to a memorial for
Nelson Clarke gave an indication of the influence that this
man had on the lives of many people, spanning three
generations.

A tenants activist, a one-time Saskatchewan alderman,
and above all, a Communist leader and thinker, Nelson
Clarke died in Toronto May 2 following a heart attack. He
was 67.

Like many of his generation, he came to the progressive
movement during the depression years, and his years of
working in the Canadian youth congress and in the cam-
paign to aid Spanish democracy culminated in his decision
to join the Communist Party.

The provincial leader of the CP in Saskatchewan for 11
years from 1946 to 1957, he also served one term as an
alderman in Saskatoon. In 1962 he moved to Toronto

where, following a brief stint as editor of the Canadian
Tribune, he became the Communist Party’s central
organizer, a position he held until 1971.

He also left an imprint on the theoretical work of the CP
and his elaboration on the party’s solution to the constitu-
tional crisis, published as Two Nations — One Country,
was one of several pamphlets which he wrote.

In later years he was among the founders of Toronto’s
Federation of Metro Tenants Association and worked for
several years with both that organization and with com-
munity legal services.

Tenants Association president Dale Martin, one of
several people who honored him at a memorial in Toronto
May 5, paid tribute to him as a man “‘who lived his ideas,

--. . Who had the ability to embody history in his work for |

social change.’’

* * *

T hey had a lot of money riding on the timing of her entry

into the world — her parents had organized a pool with
the money going to the Tribune’s fund drive — but in the
end, she fooled most of the would-be bookmakers. For
Megan ‘Rose O’Connor, the first child for Tribune
business manager Pat O’Connor and his wife Wendy, was
nearly two weeks early when she came into the world at

2:30'a.m. Saturday, May 15. She weighed seven pounds
(3.2 kg). :

Despite the early arrival, however, both she and Wendy
are doing well. And to Megan goes what is probably a
singular honor — even as she was born, she became a press
builder for the Tribune. We hope she’ll continue that
proud tradition.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE— MAY 21, 1982—Page 2