Who’s in charge of the bus
system in the Lower Mainland?
Many people would reply, ‘“The
GVRD’s in charge.’’ Unfortun-
ately that isn’t the case. Actually
the transit system is in the hands
of three different bodies:

@ The Urban Transit Au-
thority (now called B.C. Tran-
sit) is a body appointed by the
provincial cabinet. It’s in charge
of developing policy and coor-
dinating planning and funding.

@ The Metro Transit Oper-
ating Company, also appointed
by the provincial cabinet. It’s in
charge of the day-to-day opera-
tions of the transit system.

@ The Greater Vancouver
Regional District (GVRD). Its
responsibility is to decide on the
levels of transit services, sched-
ules and routes, after the other

Harry

Rankin

two bodies have made the major
decisions.

As you can see, the control of
the transit system is firmly in the
hands of the provincial cabinet.
This method of running the
transit system is fundamentally
wrong for at least two reasons.

The first is that with three dif-
ferent bodies involved in mak-
ing decisions, there is no end of
conflict. There is no central
body with authority to make de-
cisions on problems that arise.

Secondly, and even more im-
portant, control of the system is
not in the hands of the people it
is supposed to serve. The muni-
cipal councils and the GVRD

Give GVRDcontrol
of transit system

CRs he Sere ia ee

tora by the provincial cabinet.
Its one concern is to cut costs. It
knows nothing about our needs
and couldn’t care less.

Let me give a few examples:

e@ The citizens of the Lower
Mainland and the GVRD want-
ed aconventional (surface) tran-
sit system. The provincial cabi-
net, represented at the time by
Bill Vander Zalm, then minister
of municipal affairs, decided we
must have an elevated system,
even though such a system could
cost $200 to $300 million more
than a conventional system.

@ The residents and busi-
ness people on Commercial
Drive decided they wanted the
light rapid transit system to go
through a tunnel below Com-
mercial Drive. Vander Zalm de-
cided they must have an elevated

ij

system whether they liked it or
not.

@ Thelatest monkey wrench
thrown into the transit system
was a decision by the cabinet
that its operating budget must
be cut. This means a cut in serv-
ice. So our transit service is now
deteriorating. People are being
forced to pay higher and higher
fares for less and less service.

It’s time we got rid of this hy-
dra-headed monster that runs
the GVRD. And it’s time that
control be taken away from the
provincial cabinet.

The GVRD and only the
GVRD should be in charge of
the transit system. It can and
should set up its own authority

BRITISH COLUMBIA

Teachers fighting layoffs

Continued from page 1
visited by a ministry representative
last Friday following the court deci-
sion. The Cowichan and Grand
Forks boards were also due fora
visit from ministry personnel, who
were to examine the boards’
budgets and make cutbacks recom-
mendations to the ministry.

Vander Zalm has also threaten-
ed other boards with the same ac-
tion, if their suggested cuts are
deemed ‘‘unsatisfactory.”’

“1’m convinced we were singled
out because we put up such a
fight,’’ Courtenay trustee Wayne
Bradley told the Tribune Sept. 16.
But faced with the serious threat of
provincial trusteeship, the board
made its cuts before the ministry
visit.

The Courtenay board had refus-
ed to meet the deadline ponding the
decision of the VSB suit, and made
public statements calling for ‘‘joint
protest” from other boards against
the cuts.

The trustees also distributed
7,000 copies of a leaflet to parents
informing them ‘‘with regret that
your child will not receive the level
of educational services that you
elected them (the trustees) to
deliver, and for which you paid and
are paying through your taxes.

“‘There has been no prior con-
sultation to consider orderly and
efficient cost reduction with due
regard to the way the school system
functions or to the impact on
children,”’ the leaflet stated.

“Instead, it appears that the pro-
vincial government has announced
its cutbacks which, it has been sug-
gested, are aimed at maximizing
controversy that could be exploited
politically.”

Outlining the ‘hard facts’’ of
the situation, the leaflet noted the
board had already been forced to
cut $1.1 million under the initial
restraint program, and had been
told to roll back wage settlements
or fire employees under the threat

our property taxes?” the leaflet
asked.

The board noted that a further
$300,000 cut is expected for
January, and ‘‘we will be required
to operate on less money_in 1983
than in 1982, in spite of escalating
costs which lie beyond the control
of the board or its employees.”’

Noting that the board ‘‘cannot
unilaterally reopen contracts, nor
can they arbitrarily fire people”’ the
trustees said closed schools,
classrooms, departments and
reduced access to school facilities
were in the offing.

‘We urge you to maintain close
contract with your child’s school to
monitor the effects of the pending
cutbacks,’’ the leaflet advised, urg-
ing parents express their concern
“about the long-term effects of
these cutbacks,”’ to the local MLA,
the education minister and the
premier.

The Comox District Teachers
Association agreed at a packed
meeting last week to hold the line
against government pressure for
contract concessions and erosion
of working conditions, including
the notion of surrendering profes-
sional or non-instructional days, in
order to allow cuts.

Jellie told the local press she felt
the teachers “‘have to take that
stand”’ because it would be difficult
to reinstate items surrendered dur-
ing the ‘economic crunch.”

Vander Zalm’s draconian ac-
tions, and his refusal to com-
promise even with parties which
support the notion of restraint,
have raised storms of protest in
several quarters. B.C. | School
Trustees Association president
Gary Begin joined others when he
accused the Socreds in a letter Fri-
day of ‘‘political game-playing.’’

About 500 students at Edward
Milne secondary school in Sooke
staged a morning walkout Friday
following an announcement the
previous day by principal Jim

which know what kind oftransit to mnit. ’ ; of trusteeship. Gauley that teachers would be laid somewhat suspicious since
the people want have the least to She = peepee “School taxes were levied, based off for five days each until layoffs include three ex-pr esidents
say. fine. Then we could tackle the onamill rate which wasestablished | December. _.Of the teachers association.

The way things stand now, all problem of making the whole | tocover the budget yourboardap- _ Student council president Rob _—At press time, teachers in the
major policy decisions about the system more economical and proved in May. Since wehave been Thompson stressed the action was Langley district had begun a fing
transit system are made in Vic- more efficient. ordered to roll back our budget, against Vander Zalm and not the day walkout, expected to continu

should we not expect a rollback in teachers, and Gauley expressed his _ up to and including Monday.
3 —_—.

sympathy for the action. ‘If thé)
contact other schools. . . the pf?
test could very well spread,” I)
said. —
Vander Zalm himself was neal
300 teachers who booed his spe!
opening a new campus of the Ea
Kootenay community college
Cranbrook Saturday. The teache®
stood by the roadway leading tothe
campus, holding replicas %)
gallows from which hung pap)
dolls bearing the word
“education.” a
The Vancouver and _ Distit!
Labor Council voted Tuesday @
hold a meeting with school uniol
to protest the cuts. ‘
BCSTA spokesman Stevé
Bareham said Wednesday t
most boards have filed revis®
budgets with the ministry, and tht!
several were entering into negote:
tions with teachers with the aim)
securing an agreement to give
five paid “‘professional’’ days be
ween now and December.

. But George North, head of ti)
bargaining committee for the B.C.
Teachers Federation, said tht
BCTF remains opposed to takilé
off non-instructional days. 1
federation .also has consistent!)
refused to reopen the 1982 waét
contract ‘‘despite considerabl
government pressure to do so,”
said.

Meanwhile, the federation *
continuing its legal action
the Abbotsford School Boat)
which issued layoff notices to %
teachers in an “arbitrary, and
think illegal fashion,”’ said North:

Several BCTF locals have sup:
ported the Abbotsford Teachet’
Association, as have about 2,
local residents who packed a publi¢)
meeting Monday, he said. 4

North said the Abbotsfof
board’s actions of laying 9
teachers without regard to senionilY
— one teacher has 31 years —W
“totally reprehensible,’’ and

| f others have been following the newspaper account of
the fund-raising efforts of the Sea Shepherd Conserva-

home in Vancouver.

munity, had passed away Sept. 20. She died quietly at her ~

tion Society, they must have been a little curious — as we
were — as to how the $60 raised by society members Paul
Watson’s and Tate Landis’ Vancouver-Nanaimo swim
suddenly burgeoned into $10,000.

Isn’t it incredible, you might ask, that it took only two
days for the $60 donated in a somewhat desultory response
to the swim — to become $10,000, raised in a flood of “‘un-
solicited’’ donations? You might also ask, did it have any-
thing to do with another event that took place during those
two days — the “‘red paint bombing’’ of a Soviet ship, also
by Paul Watson?

Intriguing questions, indeed.

Readers may recall an item in this column more than
four years ago when Paul Watson’s name was also men-
tioned. Then, Watson had just been dismissed from the
Greenpeace organization apparently for ‘‘criticizing the
organization’s internal corruption.”’ But in leaving, Wat-
son had revealed that at one point in its chequered history,
Greenpeace had accepted a major donation from Ed Daly,
president of the CIA-backed World Airways in revurn for
focusing its anti-whaling campaign solely on the Soviet
fleet while ignoring the Japanese.

In an article in the Georgia Straight, Watson wrote:
“Within a day of being in Hawaii, Greenpeace knew the
location of the Japanese fleet. Within easy reach and yet
Greenpeace did not pursue. Why? Because fuel was donat-
ed by Ed Daly of World Airways on the condition that the
Russians be the ones harassed.”

Now, it is 1982, of course, and Watson is trying to raise
$30,000. He needs the money to fuel his Sea Shepherd pro-
test ship which he hopes to take to the annual Labrador
seal hunt.

PEOPLE AND
ISSUES

He hoped to raise it by the cross-channel swim that end-
ed last Sunday, but according to a story in the Sept. 13
Province, the response was something less than inspiring
and only one donation of $60 camein. In fact, Landis sub-
sequently wrote a letter to the paper in which he acknowl-
edged that indeed only $60 was raised but protested the
Province’s ‘‘negative’’ approach.

But then on Tuesday, only two days later, Watson an-
nounced that $10,000 had suddenly come to the Sea Shep-
herd society in unsolicited donations. .

In the intervening two days, however, Watson had
undertaken a rather more dramatic stunt — although it
was one significantly outside his normal jurisdiction. On
Monday, he and two others led a ‘‘bombing raid’’ on a
Soviet trawler which Canadian military officials have
claimed is a Soviet intelligence ship. Flying low in their
light plane, the three dropped 16 light bulbs, each filled
with red paint, and watched them smash to the deck of the
ship. The escapade had nothing whatever to do with the
seal hunt but it grabbed TV time and newspaper headlines
all over the continent.

And the following day Watson announced that his Sea
Shepherd Society fund drive had reached $10,000.

Curious, you might say.

* * *

e had a sad call this week to tell us that Rose Smith, a
supporter of the Tribune virtually from its inception
and a long respected figure in the progressive Jewish com-

Born in Gomel, Russia in 1899, she married her hus-
band of 66 years, Abe, only 17 years later, on the eve of the
Russian revolution that was to transform history.

_ Her family’s revolutionary traditions came with het
when she emigrated to this country in 1925 with Abe and 4
young son and daughter. And they remained with her
throughout her life. She was a member of both the United
Jewish People’s Order and the Communist Party for
many years and maintained her membership in the party’s
Olgin club at the time of her death.

A memorial will be held for her on Sunday, Sept. 26 at
7:30 p.m. at Apt. 0903 — 5603 Balsam in Vancouver.

* * *

he last time Canadian Union of Postal Workers pres!-

dent Jean-Claude Parrot spoke in Vancouver, it was tO
a tumultuous public meeting in 1978, called just after the
federal government had brought down strike breaking leg-
islation forcing the embattled union back to work. Just 4
few months later Parrot was sent to prison for his refusé
to carry out the government’s orders-in instructing his
members to return to their jobs.

Since that time, Parrot has been a prominent spokes-
man of militant policies in the Canadian labor movement,
a stand which last May won him election as a vice
president of the Canadian Labor Congress in an histori¢
vote that broke the administration slate.

The CUPW leader will be returning to Vancouver Sept
30 to speak on Canada in Crisis: A Working People’s R&
sponse at 7:30 p.m. in Tupper school, 419 E. 24th Ave:
The meeting is sponsored by Trade Union Forum an
there will be an admission charge of $5, or $3 for students,
seniors and unemployed. ; ‘l}

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 24, 1982—Page 2