‘Give us the theories, we'll do the job.’ Provincial school grant formula needs revision A thorough overhaul of the Provincial government's school grant formula was demanded this week by the Communist Party in B.C. “The school finance crisis is deepening just as we warned it would last spring’, declared Nigel Morgan, the party's Provincial leader. “In spite of the recent increases and adjustments, and the fact that Vancouver will be relatively better off under this year’s formula, thirty-eight (nearly half) the other School Districts have announced they are in real trouble. “A total of twenty-one Districts claim they will use up all the announced increase even before anticipated pay increases for teachers have been taken into account. “Under the new formula announced this week by the Department of Education from Victoria the provincial grant has been upped 8.6% from $11,960 per instructional unit to $12,990. Victoria has agreed to pay 75% of the costs of special classes, and ‘instructural units has been redefined to include 30 pupils in elementary schools and 20 in secondary. : “Vancouver will gain from both the increased allowance for special classes (of which there are 231 in the city), and the smaller instructional units. “Education finance is a problem for every government in Canada and a _ particularly serious one in B.C... Morgan said. “The present formula. if you can call it a formula. leaves school boards responsible for operation of the school system. but denies them the fiscal resources and authority needed to make their responsibility effective. “Victoria has a responsibility to ensure that education is ade- quately and equitably financed but the present arrangement’ seriously limits freedom of action by those charged with local administration of our schools. It needs a_ thorough- going overhaul and above all the channelling of more revenues from our. rich’ resource industries into education. Essen- tially more money is what the schools need. And. nothing less than that will do.’ Morgan con cluded. TENANTS Cont'd from pg. 1 investigated on the request of a landlord or tenant. It proposes that after making its investi- gation the Board send a copy of its findings and recom- mendations to all parties. Where a landlord fails to act in accordance with the Board's recommendations to City Council, City Council shall be empowered to publish the report of the Board dealing with the rent increase. “In our opinion.” says: the Tenants Council. ‘such a regu- lation would deal in a reason- able fashion with the number one economic problem facing the one- hundred thousand tenants in this CHV: ; Road blozk - PACIFIC TRIBUNE—DECEMBER 12 1969—Page 12 GIVEAWAY T0 U.S. B.C. short on gas for own use while U.S. grabs more By MAURICE RUSH Hearings which will have a major impact on the people of British Columbia are going ahead in Ottawa before the National Energy Board. The ~ Board is meeting to consider applications by five companies seeking licences to export about 9.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas to the U.S. over the next 20 to 25 years. The largest single application is that of Westcoast Trans- mission. whose application accounts for about one-third of the total gas wanted for export to the U.S. Westcoast wants permission to export 6,123,520.- 000 cubic feet of natural gas over a 20 year period to the El Paso Natural Gas Co. The B.C. gas will be. sold to the giant utility company for rates lower than those. paid by Vancouver consumers. Because of the lack of any national energy policy by the Canadian government, there is no idea of what Canada’s own requirements will be for natural gas over the next 20 or 25 years, and consequently, what portion of Canada’s gas reserves can be exported without endangering the national interest. The first session of the NEB hearings was taken up with arguments about Canada’s future requirements. The hearings opened on November 25 and are expected to stretch into the new vear. One of the most revealing aspects in the opening session of the hearings was a dispute between B.C. Hydro and West- coast Transmission © over previous contract arrange- ments. RK. = Kidd. BC. Hydro engineer. testified before the hearing that Westcoast had failed to live up to contract requirements for Hydro's thermal-electric plant during the last three years. Westcoast was shipping such large quantities of natural gas to the U.S., that the publicly-owned plant had to burn oil to generate power at a much greater cost. B.C. Hydro has never before revealed its diffi- culties with Westcoast in public. The significance of this dis- closure is that natural-gas rich B.C. can’t get enough gas to run its own plants because so much of it is being exported to the US. Another revealing aspect of the NEB hearing was the dispute which arose between B.C. Hydro and Westcoast over what B.C.’s gas requirements will be in the next few years. B.C. Hydro experts. said the province's requirements in 1974-75 will be more than 108 billion cubic feet. Westcoast. anxious to get-all the gas it can for its profitable export business to the U.S., argued that the province will only need less than 75 billion cubic feet at that time. * KOK The PT has warned repeatedly that the gas deals now pending, and the expansion of the north- south network of gas pipelines would endanger Canadian inde- pendence and integrate Canada’s economy with the U.S. along continental lines sought for years by U.S. monopolies. The danger of this develop- ment was. brought home last week. Canadian Energy Minister Greene who met recently with U.S. Interior Secre- tary Walter Hickel in Washing- ton. returned to inform the Cana- dian people, after his discus- sions in the U.S., that he was sold on the idea of developing our natural gas, oil. coal and hydro electric power on a continental basis. Greene's visit to Washington was to discuss the bid by U.S. companies now before the National Energy Board for huge quantities of Canadian gas, and the matter of oil exports to the U.S. However, it was clear from remarks at a press conference on his return, that the discussion went far beyond these ques- tions, and embraced _all-inclu- sive policy under which Cana- dian national interests will be further betrayed to the U.S. Greene told the conference he was taken by Hickel’s concept of “this continental economic Peace Vigil this Saturday A one hour Peace Vigil to protest the atrocities in Vietnam and to demand an end to the war, is being held this Saturday, Dec. 13, between 2 to 3 p.m. at the Vancouver Courthouse foun- tain. The Vigil is sponsored by the Peace Action League. ~ cient, approach." He explained the U.S. cabinet member's views as being that “the right thing to do was to use these energy resources in their most effi- economic way — _ the invisible national boundaries notwithstanding — and then both countries will benefit.” Greene told the press con- — ference he will support his American counterpart’s phil-_ osophy in his report to the Fed- eral cabinet, and that he favors ‘‘a joint Canadian-American partnership of mutual develop- ment of energy resources in the best economic way . . . rather than in narrow nationalistic terms.” The Communist Party in Canada has condemned the concept of continentalism as a sellout of Canada’s sovereignty and has advocated an east-west development which would see Canadian resources used to develop all parts of the country. © It has warned that under a policy of continentalism, Canada’s resources would be carted off to the U.S. and that Canada would be reduced to a raw material supplier for U.S. industry. Last weekend the NDP national executive charged that the proposal by Greene for a joint U.S.-Canada energy policy represents a ‘‘further reduction of nxenede to a resource base serving the United States.” The official endorsation of this policy by a Federal cabinet member makes it clear that the stakes in the present natural gas hearing are big. The real issue involved is basic national policy: Shall we adopt a resource policy for Canada; or a resource policy of export to the U.S.? That is the issue. THE CHILDREN OF VIETNAM SEND YOUR DONATION TO CANADIAN AID VIETNAM CIVILIANS, Box 2543, VANCOUVER 3, B.C.