Cuts imperil kids’ health The Vancouver school board has decided to institute a number of cuts in essential health services provided to the city’s school children. The most serious one is the complete abolition of all fun- ding for immunization services. Other services that will be cut off completely or seriously reduced include dental services (preventive education teaching children how to take care of their teeth properly), help for children with mental health pro- blems and nutritionist consultation. The school board says it has to make the cuts because of the cuts in education made by and demanded by Bill Vander Zalm, the minister of education. I think this NPA dominated school board —_ sa Rankin a knuckled under to Vander Zalm far too easily, but it can’t be denied that the responsibility for these cuts rests primari- ly with the provincial government. It is allowing the health of our school children to deteriorate so it can get the funds to bail out the developers and bankers that got into trouble over their speculative enterprises at Whistler. The position of the school board seems to be: “If Vancouver wants to keep these health services for children, then let city council pay for them.’’ That is not the solution. The solution is to turn the heat on Vander Zalm and premier Bennett and tell them they can’t sacrifice our children’s health just to protect the pro- fits of some bankers and speculators. That is what the school board should be doing — arousing the people of Van- couver in support to these services and the demand that Bennett and Vander Zalm provide sufficient funds for their con- tinuation. An appeal has been made for city council to do something about this, since the school board won’t. Council has referred the matter to the committee on finances of which I am chairman. One thing we will have to do is send a strong delegation to Victoria with a strongly worded demand that the province pro- vide funds for these services to be con- tinued. The matter will come up in coun- cil again before the end of this month. GVRD rebuffs transit takeover | In a dramatic reversal of position the Greater Vancouver Regional District has re- jected the provincial government’s attemp- ted takeover of the region’s transit function, capping a month-long opposition campaign by a small minority of GVRD aldermen. A strong majority of municipalities voted to tell Victoria that its plan to Strip the region of control over the planning and marketing of the bus system is “totally unacceptable’? and have demanded a moratorium on changes to the current five-year agreement with the province, at the regular monthly meeting of the GVRD board of directors ‘Wednesday. Only Burnaby, Coquitlam and West Vancouver opposed the motion. Last month the GVRD was accepting as a fait accompli the total takeover of transit by the crown corporation B.C. Transit, a plan which entailed further cuts to bus routes and threatened property owners with a possible eight-mill tax hike. The board accepted the recommendations of the GVRD transit committee in calling on the provincial government to abandon its takeover program and demanding the cabinet negotiate with the GVRD on a new transit authority and an “‘acceptable” finan- cing arrangement for the region. Directors also decided to send speakers to all municipal councils outlining the GVRD Position, and instructed GVRD staff to in- Pearse campaign pays dividends The coastwide campaign mounted against the Pearse Report by the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union paid important dividends Friday as fisheries minister Pierre DeBane announced his rejection of Pearse’s licensing proposals. , DeBane emerged from a meeting with his minister’s advisory council, which includes representatives of 17 industry groups in- cluding the UFAWU, to tell a news con- ference that ‘‘Pearse is behind us.”’ DeBane said he is accepting the council’s recommendations that the licensing and fleet reduction aspects of the Pearse Report be scrapped. UFAWU president Jack Nichol, who co- chaired the advisory council during its study of Pearse, said later ‘‘the work the union has done in convening meetings and bringing fishermen together, whether organized or BRITISH COLUMBIA vestigate the legal ramifications of the government’s move, ; The GVRD position also follows urgings from the newly created Coalition to Save Transit, a 47-organization member group which held its founding conference at the Vancouver Indian Centre last Saturday. The conference was called at the initiative of four aldermen whosit on the GVRD tran- sit committee, in conjunction with the B.C. Public Interest Research Group and the In- dependent Canadian Transit Union which represents drivers in the GVRD and the Capital Regional District. At the meeting ICTU president Colin Kel- ly charged that Victoria has been involved in a “‘sinister attempt’’ to cut bus service ever since it created the Urban Transit Authority, Subsequently renamed B.C. Transit, to take control of the buses from B.C. Hydroin 1978. Kelly said the declining ridership in the GVRD system last year is part of the ‘‘self- fulfiling prophecy’? of the provincial government which has ordered through B.C. transit a further cut of 1,100 hours per week to the GVRD system, resulting in the layoff of 25 drivers Mar. 25. The union has since declared a ban on Overtime in response. In a move designed to head off opposition to the takeover set for Apr. 1,the minister unorganized, has certainly concentrated op- position.”’ Other major concessions made by the minister included a pledge to reject Pearse’s recommendation of experimental projects in privatizing the salmon resource through ocean ranching, Nichol said DeBane had agreed to con- tinue the Salmonid Enhancement Program when the current funding expires next year and had accepied the council’s view that Pearse’s recommendations on habitat be largely scrapped. But Nichol warned that ‘‘the industry will have to be diligent to ensure that scraps and bits of Pearse don’t creep into fisheries ‘policy. a . . ““As we develop our policy we will do it on our own without reference to Pearse. That’s what the minister said and we’ll hold him to ihe sh Pearse Report. responsible for transit, Bill Vander Zallt, announced Monday the appointments tothe transit advisory commissions set to rep! the transit committees in Greater Vancouvet and Victoria. ; The hand-picked commissioners include seven regional aldermen and mayors, cluding Vancouver mayor Mike Har who outraged aldermen opposed to ™ move by accepting his appointment on ™ grounds that the commissions would act asé “steering committee’’ to unite transit fue tions under a single authority. - Harcourt defended his position while voting in favor of the motions at Wedm® day’s GVRD meeting, denying the “Judas charge levelled by alderman Harry : at the Tuesday meeting of Vancouver “llY council, _ Rankin was part of the group of five aldermen, including Surrey’s Bob RO Vancouver alderman and transit comm vice-chairman Bruce Yorke, Ioco-Buntzi representative Harold Weinberg and Georg’ Helenius from Bowen Island. The latter fou! are GVRD transit committee members W9 initiated the campaign to fight the transit takeover. ' If the provincial government proceeds with its plans, it will do so now in the face opposition from the regional government and a growing citizens’ movement. al Although the advisory committee suv ceeded in torpedoing major sections of the report, it recommended that DeBane adopt about 70 proposals aimed at improving 4& ministration and research. gt. | DeBane had given the committee until Noy. 30 to develop replacements for the Pearse proposals on fleet reduction. In the meantime, the coastwide Pearse Fightback committees are expected to continue thei! work to develop alternatives as well. When DeBane made his first trip to B.C last November, he warned the industry hé would allow little time in implementing thé In the meantime, the union led 4 coastwide campaign for a one-yeal moratorium on Pearse that won the suppolt of the NDP, other fishermen’s organizations and a score of communities, including Val couver. T he story — headed ‘‘On-the-job unemployment”’ in the version we saw — must have been doing the rounds in various newspapers since a number of readers around the province drew it to our attention. It’s about the lack of unemployment in the USSR which it attributes to the inefficiency of both Soviet workers and industry. To give the claim credence it cites Yuri Andropov’s calls for greater production and more efficient use of resources. According to the report, which credits the Boston Herald as its source, the reason that there is no unemploy- ment is because the Soviets have ‘achieved a system of on-the-job unemployment’’ — placing two workers in a job where, if workers didn’t “loaf? so much, only one would be required. You have to give credit to the original editorial writer - who was obviously given the task of explaining in a new way why there was no unemployment in USSR — at a time when, as the report candidly acknowledges, the chronic problem in the west is unemployment.” If it were true, it would still speak volumes about socialist society that it is prepared to put the employment needs of the people before the economic balance sheet or profits, which are the only determining factors for everything in this free enterprise part of the world. And it may be “‘no solution’? for the Boston Herald; but we’re damn sure the unemployed would rather have a job, however inefficiently it may have been created, that face the prospect of staying in the unemployment lineup with two million other Canadians. But even the most perfunctory look at statistics would have revealed what the Boston Herald didn’t care to know — that the USSR has not only created a job for every new worker but has also turned those new jobs into increased output. : A story from the Vancouver Province Nov. 21, 1982 — PS ae kere rE ee PM SAR SR ES TR PI AE PEOPLE AND ISSUES [Rick eGo RAP YR SeO RE REST ROR SENOS LSI ths SMNDTE TUES (ae ETE ironically, it talks of the Soviets’ ‘‘slow growth” — reports that the USSR gross national product rose by 2.8 percent during 1982 while output per worker rose by two percent. Obviously, if there were two people for every job, there would neither be any economic growth nor increases in per worker output. U.S. figures, reported to us by Trade Union Research Bureau director Emil Bjarnason, dramatize the contrast: in the bastion of the capitalist economies, the GNP declin- ed by two percent in 1982. In Canada, according to the Financial Post Feb. 19, 1983, the GNP declined by a whopping 5.9 percent, com- paring the third quarter of 1982 over the previous year. And real gross national product per employed person is estimated to decline by some two percent when final figures for 1982 are compiled. Beware of editorial writers defending unemployment. They’re usually trying to sell you more of it. ca * * t was less than a week after we reported Minnie Vainio had been hospitalized that the stroke which she suf- fered took its final course, ending her life on Feb. 20, just three months short of what would have been her 80th bir- thday. Acaininite woman who was a familiar sight to many at Tribune financial drive events, she brought with her from Finland a socialist heritage and spirit that remained with her throughout her life. Born in the village Savitaipale, on May 26, 1903, sheand two of her brothers were orphaned 15 years later during the Finnish Civil war when White Guards murdered both her father and mother and another brother. -after another. ! Immigrating first to Port Arthur in 1926, she came to Vancouver a year later and quickly became active in various workers’ organizations including the Finnish Organization of Canada founded by an earlier generation of Finnish immigrants. Both she and her husband Carl, who survives her, remained members for more than 40 years. Less than a decadelater, she joined the Communist Par- ty of Canada and took part in its various campaigns, in- cluding support for the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion fighting in Spain. At the time of her death she was a | member of the Niilo Makela Club named after the Finnish-Canadian hero who was killed in action in Spain. In later years she spent much of her time on the Tribune campaign and was a prominent fund raiser in one drive Osmo Lahti was to pay tribute to her at a memorial at the Bell Funeral Home Thursday. It was the family’s re- quest that donations in lieu of flowers be made to the Tribune. * * * Vv ancouver alderman Harry Rankin, whose column appears regularly in the Tribune, was back in the courtroom and city council chambers again Tuesday — sooner than he should be, according to his wife Jonnie — after spending six days in Vancouver General Hospital last week undergoing treatment with anti-coagulents to pre- vent blood clots in the veins of one leg. Although the recurring affliction is under control, Harry is apparently packing a footstool around with him for a while to relieve the pressure. That, together with the blood-thinning medication he is still taking will un- doubtedly occasion some comments from the NPA op- position in city council — and some biting retorts from Harry in return. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 25, 1983—Page 2