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— page 12 —

— below, page 3 —

'Eull indexing or fight,’ ||
BCTF tells government >

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SOCRED MINISTER WOLFE .. .- confronted by 300 angry teachers at rally Saturday.

The provincial government got
a taste of what’s in store for it if
it refuses to resume full index-
ing of teachers’ pensions, when
over 300 angry teachers, undeter-
red by heavy rain, demonstrated
outside the Social Credit conven-
tion in downtown Vancouver
Saturday.

The action compelled finance
minister Evan Wolfe out of the
convention ‘session at the Hyatt

Regency to address the rally on }

the stairs of the old Vancouver
courthouse, where teachers stood
in the rain waving placards which
read: ‘‘Full indexing or fight.”’

However Wolfe said he wasn’t
going to commit himself to any
change in the capping of their
pensions at eight percent claiming
that ‘‘full indexing is not an
economic reality.”

Scores of teachers individually
pressed Wolfe on the matter, one
of them charging that if the gov-
ernment ‘‘failed to take into ac-
count rampant inflation, our pen-
sions will be eroded year by year.

“‘And that’s what we’re angry
about,’’ she declared.

Wolfe’s refusal to debate the
issue with Blakey at a pension ral-
dy in the Orpheum last Thursday,
as well as cutting out a scheduled
appearance on the Jack Webster
show with BCTF president Allan
Blakey, has spurred a “‘ground-
swell among teachers in the direc-
tion of a strike,’ Blakey said
when questioned about teacher
job action at the demonstration.

Earlier over 2,800 teachers,

z many of them retirees, travelling
= from as far away as Prince
© George, Vancouver Island, Howe
4 Sound, and from around the
* Lower Mainland, filled the Or-
£ pheum theatre for a mass rally
= Thursday.
2 ‘We won’t sell out our pen-
2 sioners,”’ Blakey told the capacity
F audience. ‘“We are going to act,
we are going to get our indexing
See BCTF page 12

Premier Bennett’s constitutional
proposals voiced at the Social
Credit convention have shown the
“‘bankruptcy and reactionary aims
of the Socred government’’, B.C.
Communist Party leader Maurice
Rush said Monday.

He termed Bennett’s call for a
60-day cooling off period. on the
constitution and the federal budget
a “‘stall”? which was intended to
‘‘give the Socreds time to campaign
for their reactionary policies.”’

Bennett used the convention
platform Saturday to call for more
constitutional conferences and said
that the government would seek to
“‘protect its own interests” through
other means should negotiations be
rejected by the federal government.

“The premier wraps himself in
the mantle of a defender of B.C.
resources—but in fact he is seeking
support for constitutional pro-
posals which would... leave
Canada as a series of almost auton-
mous provinces able to enter into
arrangements with multinational
resource companies without regard
for the interests of Canada or
B.C.,”’ Rush said. .

He emphasized that Bennett’s
proposals for constitutional
change — for provincial ownership
of resources, provincial control
over Supreme Court appointments
and the establishment of a new up-
per house made up of provincial or
regional representatives which
would have wide veto powers —
would lead to the ‘balkanization of
Canada to the detriment of all
Canadians.”’

An example of that was seen in
Bennett’s reaction to the federal
government’s acceptance of the
NDP proposals for expanded pro-
vincial control of resources, Rush
said.

Bennett dismissed the proposals
as ‘‘not going far enough’’, noting
that the absence of any arrange-
ment for hydro power and water

See CONSTITUTION page 12