McGeer's figures mask education cutbacks

“Declining student enrollment’
has suddenly become the cover for
the provincial government’s latest
campaign to lower educational
Standards and to shift a larger tax
burden on to local tax payers —
and to place the blame for it all on
local school boards.

School boards had until. last
Wednesday to complete final
budgets and in virtually every
case, the usually contentious

budget debates became doubly

Controversial because education
Minister Pat MCGeer had sent
pointed letters to every municipal

council instructing them to put”

pressure on school boards to.slash
costs.

The minister followed the letters
with releases to the press in which
he referred to past spending by
local boards, compared it with the

- decline in enrollment — and came

up with a distorted set of figures
which made it appear that local
boards were squandering public
Money, and were demanding
more.

All ‘that was added to the
provincial government’s 1978 in-

’ crease in the mill rate which is now

up to 42 mills, an increase of five
mills over last year and up a
whopping 60 percent over 1975.
The result has been the
repetition of a pattern that has
become all too familiar with the
present Social Credit government
in Victoria: cutbacks in provincial
government funding and increased
costs for local homeowners — and
all on the pretext of ‘declining
enrollment’’. é
According to the enrollment data
just made available by Education
Data Services, there was a 1.6
percent decline in total enrollment
throughout the province, although

the figures vary considerably from
area to area.

For example, 54 school districts
experienced a decline in
enrollment, while 19 showed an
increase. The remaining two
districts had stable enrollment.

decline, such as Vancouver and
West Vancouver, there are a
number of factors which affect the
situation as McGeer presented it.

The B.C. Teachers’ Federation,
in calling McGeer’s figures ‘‘in-
complete and misleading’’ noted

_, . the pattern has become all
too familiar with the Social
Credit government: cutbacks in
provincial funding and in-.
creased costs for local taxpayers
— all on the pretext of ‘declining

enrollment’.

Eunice Parker, chairwoman of
the Coquitlam School Board,
pointed out that, in most school
districts the decline has been slight
and has not allowed for any
significant change in general
budgeting.

“Tn our district as in most, the
enrollment drop has only been two
to three percent,” she said. “It’s
really not a situation in which you
can pull a teacher out.”

Parker also noted that local costs
have been kept high because the
provincial government, although it
has proclaimed all other sections
of the new Colleges Act, has not
proclaimed the section by which it
would take over the funding.

’ Consequently the board itself has

to meet the costs — and college

enrollment is increasing, not.

declining.
Even in districts where the
enrollment has shown a sharp

that the minister had failed to take
into account the effect of inflation
which, the BCTF said, had pushed
the Consumer Price Index up by 40
percent from 1973-77, the period
cited by McGeer.

““McGeer also overlooks the fact
that the costs of many items vital
to the functioning of schools —
heating, transportation, school
supplies and library books — have
risen far faster than the Consumer
Price Index,’’ BCTF president Pat
Brady said.

Just how misleading education
minister McGeer’s figures are is
seen when comparisons are made
between B.C. and other provinces,
in terms of per capita spending on
education.

According to 1976 figures — the
most recent available — per capita
spending on education in B.C. was
‘“‘well below”’ the national average.
B.C. was also below all other

provinces when education spen-
ding was expressed as a per-
centage of personal income or
gross provincial product.

Additiénal government restraint
in Victoria has compounded that
situation, the BCTF noted, with the
result that education spending has
not kept pace with government
spending as a whole. “In the first
nine months of 1977, expenditures
on education increased only 11
percent over the previous year,
compared with 15 percent for the
government as a whole,’ said
Brady.

The BCTF statistics clearly
revealed the cutbacks made by the
provincial government in
education spending which have
resulted in an increasingly onerous
burden being passed on to local tax
payers.

That burden is felt particularly

in a district such as Burnaby.

where, according to school board
chairman Barry Jones, the
provincial share of education costs

spending to make up for cost
overruns in other departments are
factors in McGeer’s pressure
campaign to cut costs,’’ Eunice
Parker said.

McGeer’s letter to municipal
councils, and the increasing tax
load on home owners has also
created a political situation which,
without complete information,
could only be amenable to the
Socred government. Obviously, if
they have only misleading figures
to go on, and if the provincial
government is cutting back its
share of education costs, tax
payers are going to demand that
local budgets be cut — and are
going to lean towards trustees who
advocate ‘‘cost-cutting’’.

The price education would pay
for such policies would ultimately
be drastic. It would mean bigger
classes, more unemployed
teachers, fewer programs and, in
the end, a vastly inferior
education. ;

And finally, it would be com-
pletely misdirected policy. The

In the school district of Burnaby,
the provincial share of education
costs has declined from 44

percent in 1973 to only 25 percent ©

in 1978.

has declined from 44 percent in
1973 to only 25 percent in 1978.
Behind those cutbacks, of
course, are calculated policy
decisions. ‘‘There’s no question
that funding for independent
schools and the need to make
further reductions in education

provincial government has a
responsibility to finance education
in this province. It must be com-
pelled to meet that responsibility,
to increase, rather than decrease,
its share of costs. Only that way
will “‘declining enrollment” mean
declining costs for local taxpayers.

Milwaukee vi

Extradited from Canada on the
basis of bogus affidavits and
Convicted by a racist court in
Fargo, North Dakota to two con-
secutive life sentences for the
alleged murder of two FBI agents
in 1975, American Indian
Movement leader Leonard Peltier
has sacrificed heavily for his
Service to the Native movement.

But now, after the January 27
acquittal of -attempted murder
Charges by a Milwaukee court,
Peltier’s supporters feel that the
tide has turned and that his
freedom will soon be secured.

Steve and Lorretta Robideau ~

and Naroque Duenas, members of
the tireless Peltier Defense
Committee that has established a
network of support groups across
the continent, passed through
Vancouver this week to bring the
news of the Milwaukee victory and

_ Taise funds for Peltier’s next day in

Court, the appeal against the
Murder convictions. nite
Peltier’s appeal hearing will
Open April 10 in St. Louis, Missouri,
Robideau said, but it will be con-
Siderably strengthened by the
acquittal in Milwaukee.
The Milwaukee charges were for
the alleged ‘attempted murder of
© policemen in 1972. These and
other charges of attempted murder
In Seattle in 1975 — since dropped
— were used to extradite Peltier
‘from Canada to stand trial on the
third set of murder charges in
Fargo. At the Fargo trial the at-
tempted murder charges were
Used to impune Peltier’s character
and contributed to his conviction,
even though he has now been
Cleared of both sets of charges.
Peltier’s appeal will also be
based on the evidence of the

. Supposed ‘‘eye witness”’ to the 1975

Pine Ridge (Wounded Knee)

GTOrY its Op

i i i or January trial in
Leonard Peltier (right) with a supporter at the y
Milwaukee where he was acquitted of attempted murder charges that

were used to extradite him from Canada.

murders, Myrtle Poor Bear, who
admitted to have fabricated
evidence against Peltier after

being intimidated by FBI agents.

“The Milwaukee acquittal has
been uplifting for Leonard and has
given us all strength,’ Robideau
said, but the decision should
provide a measure of con-
sternation for ~ Canadian
authorities. With Poor Bear’s
confession, the dropping of the
Seattle charges, and now the
acquittal in Milwaukee, all of the
evidence used to extradite Peltier
from Canada has been siete

number of influential voices 1
east including the federal NDP
convention, the Vancouver Labor
Council and the Communist Party,
have already demanded an in-

vestigation ‘into the extradition
hearings and the apparent
collusion of the Canadian justice
department in fabricating the
evidence against Peltier.

As the Robideaus and Duenas
recapped the many incidents and
turn of events through Peltier’s
struggle for freedom, a pattern of
desperate persecution emerged, so
haphazard and, hurried that at
every turn more incriminating
evidence against the FBI, and not
Peltier, has been exposed.

Of four AIM members charged
with the Wounded Knee deaths,
three have since been acquitted.
The two FBI agents said to have
been attacked, it is now known,
were the attackers in an attempt to
disrupt a Native spiritual

Peltier defence

ceremony. Poor Bear, who at first
swore to having seen Peltier shoot

‘at the FBI agents, now admits that

he was some miles away from the
incident.

A similar story of intimidation
and fabricated evidence was
related in Milwaukee. Peltier was
accused of pulling a gun on Ronald
Hlavinkas, a 34 year old ex-police
officer, ina Milwaukee restaurant.
However the officer had con-
veniently had his memo book that
recorded the events destroyed by
his pet dog, and through the course
of the trial subsequently related no
less than three different sequences
of events. Although the officer
denied beating Peltier, he could not

_ otherwise explain why he booked

off patrol for three days due to
swollen hands. Hlavinkas’ partner
admitted to the court that Peltier
was beaten and kicked extensively
during the arrest.

The defense then brought for-
ward two witnesses who were
patrons in the restaurant at the
time of the incident who testified
that Hlavinkas and his partner
were the agressors. The final
testimony for the defense was from
Hlavinkas’ ex-girlfriend who
recalled that the arrest frightened
the officer. She also testified that
Hlavinkas had in his possession a
large picture of Peltier, given to
him by the FBI. ‘

With the strong evidence that the
encounter and arrest had been
previously planned by the FBI, the
jury had no choice but to bring in a
“not guilty” verdict.

Peltier was present at the
Milwaukee trial that drew hun-
dreds of supporters and .demon-
strators. A series of rallies were
held surrounding the trial that
featured speakers such as Dick

Gregory, Bill Hampton, brother of
slain Black Panther Fred Hamp-
ton, lawyer William Kunstler and
AIM leader John Trudell.

Now back at the maximum
security penitentiary at Marion,
Illinois, the Defense Committee is
anxious for Peltier’s safety. ‘You
walk a straight line in that place or
you end up in the hole,”’ Duenas put
it bluntly.

The committee is putting its
hopes on the possibility of freeing
him on an appeal bond in April,
although that will likely cost them
upwards of $200,000.

The appeal hearing is April 10,
but the best that it can produce is a
new trial based on the new
evidence. The Defense Committee
is hopeful, but they are aware that
there has never been a shortage of
evidence.

The Peltier case has in fact
exploded beyond the perimiters of
law alone, and like so many other
political trials, his fight has
become that of his movement.
Peltier represents the ability of the
Native movement to fight back
against genocide, and that is why
the FBI has gone to such lengths to
suppress him, and why AIM has
rallied to the defense.

And so while the lawyers present
the legal arguments in St. Louis, it
is likely the pressure outside of the
courtroom that will be decisive.
Letters demanding clemency for
Peltier can be sent to Griffen Bell,
U.S. attorney-general, Washington,
D.C, 20530 and Laurence Traylor,
Office of Pardon, Washington, D.C.
10530. Munds are also needed to pay
for the defense and to raise the
appeal bond; donations can be sent
to the Leonard Peltier Support
Committee, Box 1, Port Angeles,
Washington, 98362.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 24, 1978—Page 3

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