Begin, accused the Social _BCTF reaffirms stand: ‘No contract rollbacks’ . The B.C. Teachers Federation will continue to rolibacks and the ‘‘dismemberment” of the province’s educa- tion system, BCTF president Larry Kuehn told reporters at a joint press conference with education minister Bill Vander Zaim following a two-and-one-haif hour meeting Aug. 26. Kuehn said the Socred government's options — a wage cut or mass layoffs, resulting in a greatly increased pupil-teacher ratio — were “unacceptable choices” to the province’s teachers. “It would be a disaster, and not a short-term one, for our schoois,” said Kuehn. While no job action has yet been planned, Kuehn did not rule out the option, noting that “when peopie get desperate, they may try a lot of things.” The BCTF has caiculated that teachers may iose an average of $70,000 in income over the next ten years if the current Socred roliback and continued restraint is applied. Vander Zalm for his part said he could not guarantee there would be no layoffs even if teachers accepted a wage roliback. In a related development, the president of the B.C. School Trustees Association, Gary oppose wage Credit government Monday of siphoning off tax dollars earmarked for education earlier this year to spend on other government Projects. KAMLOOPS — For the first time in 20 years provincial voters here will be presented ~ with a candidate from the Com- munist Party as the CP nominated 22-year-old Reg Walters to contest the Kamloops riding. Walters, an apprentice carpenter and a member of the United Brotherhood of | Carpenters is the fifth com- munist candidate to be named. cial leader (Vancouver-Centre), Port- Alberni school: trustee Gary Swann (Alberni), CP regional organizer Miguel Figueroa (Burnaby-Willingdon), and Vi Swann (Surrey). _ The CP has also announced that it will nominate in Van- couver East which, like Surrey and Vancouver Centre, is a two- member riding. The party will ~ only only be nominating one candidate in each, however. Walters was joined by pro- vincial campaign manager Fred Wilson in a press conference. here to outline the party’s ap- _} proach to the election cam- paign. “Qur overall objective in this campaign, is to ensure the | defeat of the reactionary, cor- . TuptSocred government in Van- couver,”’ Wilson said. “It’s a ‘government which has billions of dollars for coal companies | and mega-projects but which | has no money for health care and other social services. That government must go.”’ Wilson said that the Com- ‘Mmunists see their responsibility to this effort in the ‘“‘presenta- ~ tion of a radical alternative” to _ the policies of both the Socreds and the opposition NDP. _ _ Specifically, in Kamloops, Walters pointed out that the policies of the Socreds have only ensured that Kamloops now is in the unenviable position of | having the highest unemploy- | Ment rate west of the Maritimes. | And in Socred MLA Claude ~ Richmond, “‘it has a provincial representative who is totally oblivious to the economic chaos | wrought by the provincial government,”’ he said. | His own party’s economic policies will focus. on CP fields Walters in Kamloops riding Maurice Rush REG WALTERS . . . job crea- tion needed. repudiating the right wing “‘restraint’’ policies of the Socreds and on creating jobs through a new economic pro- gram, Walters emphasized. “Job creation must be a priority,”” he said. ‘And for Kamloops, which is a heavy resource extraction area, we will be campaigning not only to strengthen the resource base of the area but also to establish secondary industry to process the resources, under public ownership. “Revitalizing the. forest in- dustry would be an immediate priority and to that end we would work for the construc- tion of at least 50,000 new affor- dable housing units across the province, built by a provincial crown corporation. A large percentage of these would be built in the Kamloops area which would tackle not only the crisis unemployment levels in the forest industry but also the 40 percent unemployment rate among construction workers. “We will-also advocate the construction of a world class copper smelter in the Highland Valley or Kamloops area to pro- cess the ore that is now being shipped out in unprocessed or only semi-processed form,” he told reporters. ‘Walters emphasized that his campaign would be ‘‘a serious “‘We’re going to be using our campaign committee and all our election resources to ensure that the voters of Kamloops learn of our alternative to the economic crisis policies of the Socreds,”’ he said. Premier Bennett and municipal affairs minister Jack Heinrich have met with Jim Tonn, head of the Union of B.C. Municipalities, (UBCM) and concluded an agree- ment. The municipalities and the © citizens of the province weren’t consulted; it was a private deal bet- ween the two parties. It wasn’t so much of an agree- ment as it was a capitulation by the heads of the UBCM to just about everything the premier wanted. Bennett and Heinrich told the UBCM leaders that the govern- ment will be making further drastic cuts, including cuts in municipal. grants. Mayor Tonn and his bud- dies agreed, assuring the premier that they would cut municipal budgets and impose service cut- backs and staff layoffs. We will be, ‘‘cutting not just the fat, not just the muscle, but cutting into the bone,”’ Bennett told Tonn. And Tonn virtuously responded, “When times get tough, local governments must respond with tough measures.’’ Premier Bennett did not an- nounce that his “‘cutting to the bone’”’ would include any of his Own pet projects, which run into billions of dollars. He didn’t put a hold on the $126 million stadium that he is building free of charge and at public expense for his sports promoter friends. He didn’t an- nounce a cut or hold on B.C. Place which will cost the taxpayers hun- dreds of millions of dollars in sub- sidies to developers. He didn’t an- nounce any cut back in the Nor- theast coal project which will re- quire a subsidy of at least $1 billion from the taxpayers to Japanese and Canadian corporations. Nor did he Say anything about cutting back Expo ‘86 which we need like a hole in the head and which will also cost the provincial government, and Vancouver taxpayers a bundle. (Remember the scandals concern- ing Expo ‘76 in Montreal)? The premier didn’t announce that he - would scrap the elevated light rapid transit line and put up a conven- tional one instead which would save at least $200 million in costs. (I should also mention that the stadium and B.C. Place will cost Vancouver citizens anywhere from $200 to $300 million in new bridges and roads and could cause a doubl- ing of taxes). _ The premier is not cutting any of these projects which involve sub- sidies to his corporate backers, or to use a more accurate term, to his corporate welfare bums. The only Hee ee UCBM kowtows to “cutting to the bone,”’ that he is making is to services to people — health, hospitals, education, municipal grants, to mention only afew. — 2 The spectacle of the UBCM leadership figuratively kissing Premier Bennett’s feet and prom- ising to follow him in this “‘part- nership in restraint’ is sickening. Harry Rankin What they should have done is given the premier a good figurative, Kick in the you-know-where. If the UBCM leaders want the job of being hatchet men for the premier and his crew, then let them publicly announce their political affiliations instead of pretending that they are doing this to help - municipal taxpayers. The real issue is not a shortage of money. The real issue is one of TRIBUNE PHOTO—DAN KEETON — gov i | priorities. The money is there — it’S just a question of how it will be: spent. What premier Bennett is do- - ing is cutting services and imposing © wage controls so that the money: thus saved can be handed over to private corporations. It’s as simple as that. e How are we going to compel the premier to change his priorities — to put the needs of people ahead of subsidies to big corporations? ~ I don’t think it can be done by any One segment of our society ac- ting alone. Telling people to wait until an election comes and then kick out Bennett is not the answer either. What is needed is a broad coalition of all groups adversely af- fected by premier Bennett’s policies — (and this is certainly the majority of the citizens of B.C.). é COPE’S program for ‘82 A new deal for Vancouver COPE | Special Membership meeting Sun., Sept. 3 Templeton High School _ 127 Templeton Dr. Open in September _ Committee of Progressive Electors Election headquarters 2637 Commercial Drive 873-5221 ~ 12, 2.p.m.