BRITISH COLUMBIA

=

Socred MLAs are plugging the con-
troversial “economic free zones” as a
means of relieving B.C.’s staggering
unemployment, members of the Lower
Mainland Regional Unemployment Coa-
lition (LMRUC) said Feb. 8.

New Democrats on the other hand are
completely sympathetic to the coalition’s
call for welfare rates to be hiked to the
poverty level, LMRUC spokesmen told
a press conference in Vancouver’s First
United church.

The coalition, composed of ‘five
unemployment action centres in the
Lower Mainland, the unemployed
committees of several trade unions and
representatives of First United, met with
six of the eight area NDP MLAs and
four of the 14 Socreds during the last
month. Meetings with two other Socreds
are scheduled.

“Basically, we want them to divert the
money that is in this province to labor-
intensive projects,” said Marty Smith,
business agent for the Carpenters Union
Local 452. :

“We said that there was money avail-
able for welfare rate hikes,” said Smith,
citing the $470 million used by the pro-
vincial government last year to help retire
B.C. Railway’s deficit, an amount the
group says is roughly equivalent to what
is needed to raise welfare rates.

But the Socred MLAs who agreed to
the meetings were “very defensive,”
denied there was additional money for ©
welfare, and defended megaprojects and
the proposed economic free zones as
major job-creators, the spokesmen said.

“They steered away from certain

LMRUC members (I to r) Ron Bonner, Marty Smith, Melanie Hess and Barry
Morris found Socred MLAs unsympathetic to poor.

Socreds against welfare
rate hike, lobby finds

issues. No way could we pin them down
on anything whatsoever. They’d just cite
ideological and political differences (with
us),” said Melanie Hess of the Van-
couver Unemployed Action centre.

“A common theme we found is that
there is no commitment to create jobs
(from the Socreds),” said Smith.

Ron Bonner of the New Westminster
Unemployment Action Centre and
Food Bank said talk about job creation
“obviously hit a sore spot” with the
Socreds.

When the group asked Surrey MLA
Bill Reid if the new economic zones
would allow trade unions in the located
industries, “he came right out of his chair
and said ‘no way,’ to that proposal,”
Bonner related.

“He then contradicted himself by

_ denying that his remarks denied workers

the right of free association,” said
Bonner later.

Vancouver unemployment centre
volunteer Gord Penner accused some
Socreds MLAs of coming up with “gut-
ter talk — the worst kind of arguments
you can imagine” concerning the plight
of welfare recipients.

United Church minister Barry Morris
said talks with NDP MLAs gave the
group the impression that the Opposi-
tion, may be looking at some different
approaches in the upcoming session of
the legislature.

Morris added that the frustration of
NDP members is such that the party may
even boycott the next sitting of the legis-
lature, and opt for an “alternative legisla-
ture” instead.

Vancouver trustees ©
reiterate ‘nocuts —
stance to Heinrich —

Backed by a unanimous vote from Van-
couver city council, the Vancouver school
board met with Education Minister Jack
Heinrich Feb. 7 and reiterated the vow that
no further cuts to city schools would be
made in 1985-86.

“We made it clear that parents and the
community support the boards’ position —
that, indeed, it crosses all political lines, and
that the minister should be aware of that,”
said board chairman Pauline Weinstein

later.

Heinrich made the surpirse announce-
ment that he would meet with Vancouver
trustees the previous week, following weeks
of political posturing in which the education
minister attacked the VSB and other B.C.
boards for their growing rebellion against
Victoria’s cutbacks. Throughout, the Van-
couver trustees insisted Heinrich meet with
the board.

Flanked by assistant deputy minister Jim
Fleming and other ministry officials, Hein-
rich made no comment but took notes as
Vancouver trustees and board officials gave
an item-by-item analysis of the district’s real
needs for the coming school term, Wein-
stein reported. 2

Heinrich’s officials also gave the board
the final figures for the next school
year — figures which, while not as severe as
initially projected, still mean Vancouver's
school system would be short $15 million by
the end of that term.

She said trustees — both the _five-
member majority from the Committee of
Progressive Electors and their right-wing
opposition from the Non-Partisan Associa-
tion — still plan to ask the ministry for a
1985-86 budget based on 1984’s level of
funding, with a “modest” three-per cent
inflation factor.

Hardest hit by the Social Credit cutbacks
would be the board’s special programs.
Weinstein noted the district accounts for 65
per cent of B.C.’s English-as-a-Second-
Language (ESL) programs, and the minis-
try plans to provide $5 million less than the
board has already spent to ensure the pro-
gram is maintained next year.

Heinrich was forced to cross a demon-
stration of angry parents whose mentally
handicapped children attend Oakridge

school, on his way into the school board
offices for the 32-hour meeting.

The minister also met with the district
parent representatives of the board’s school
consultative committee, where he was told
the city’s parents back the board in its stand.

Curiously, it was a right-wing alderman
who gave one of the strongest speeches in
favor of backing the board after Weinstein
appeared before council seeking support
Feb. 5.

George Puil of the Non-Partisan Associ-
ation, a Vancouver school teacher for 27
years, said he was “appalled at how (Hein-
rich) seems to go out of his-way to mislead
the public and not tell them what things are
really like.”

Noting the cuts to-teacher staff and clean-
ing and lighting service at Kitsilano Secon-
dary school where he _ teaches, Puil
remarked: “I think that the academic area is
suffering and we’re suffering, and I have no
qualms about saying that.”

Council’s right wing joined the four
COPE aldermen and allies Mayor Mike
Harcourt and Ald. Bill Yee in unanimously
approving a motion that the provincial
government return full autonomy to the
province’s boards.

With the exception of Ald. Marguerite
Ford, the council also voted support for the
school board’s budget stance and called for
an end to Victoria’s education cutbacks.

On Saturday, some 200 secondary school
students braved a snowstorm and demon-
strated against the cuts in Vancouver’s Rob-
son Square, cheering school trustee Gary
Onstad when he vowed the board would —
not yield on its budget stance. Onstad
received prolonged applause when he called -
for Heinrich’s resignation.

Meanwhile the Metro Branch of the B.C.
School Trustees Association gave its full
support to a parents rally set for 2 p.m. at
the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver
Feb. 24.

At its Jan. 30 meeting the branch, which
comprises trustees from the nine Greater
Vancouver school boards, also urged all

Metro boards to submit both the short term

(January to June, 1985) and long-term
(July, 1985 to June, 1986) budgets to. the
ministry based on “at least the 1984 budget
levels, with an inflation adjustment.”

City council’s Feb. 5 meeting was not
only unusual in the degree of unanimity
reached on several key issues; it was
nothing less than remarkable.

Council unanimously endorsed a brief
(later presented to the Canadian Radio-
television and Telecommunications
Commission) which recommended that
B.C. Tel should not be granted any rate
increase over and above the four per cent
that it received effective July 1, 1984.

City council opposed any attempt by
B.C. Tel to introduce what is called “local
measured service,” under which every
local call is measured and treated like
along distance call, with the costs to the
consumer skyrocketing. The city also
asked that non-profit organizations such
as those that aid the elderly and the poor
be given lower phone rates.

City council also unanimously passed a
motion throwing its support bheind Van-
couver school board which is refusing to
cut back on education any further. Even
Ald. George Puil (don’t fall off your chair)
said that in this case he supported the

school board in its confrontation with the
provincial government!

After hearing representations from 18
different community groups about the low
welfare rates that destitute people are sup-
posed to exist on, city council also passed a
motion (with Ald. Marguerite Ford natu-
tally opposing) asking that the govern-
ment “raise welfare rates substantially.”

How could COPE, the Harcourt
indepdents, TEAM and NPA aldermen
reach such unanimity? The NPA-TEAM
Socred aldermen haven’t changed their
spots. Nor have they adopted COPE’s
platform.

The simple fact is that the groundswell
of public opinion against a further

Council on the right track with welfare, schools motions

increase in telephone rates, against further
cutbacks in education and in favor of
decent rates of welfare is of such dimen-
sions and still growing that those aldermen
couldn’t afford to ignore it.

The one exception is Ald. Ford. She has
obviously taken over the right wing stance
of former alderman Warnett Kennedy.
She has become our Vander Zalm on city
council. She was critical of the school
board, she tried to suggest that the Social
Credit government didn’t have the money
for higher education grants, and she pro-
posed that the way to increase welfare
grants would be to place a 10 per cent tax
on all working people.

COPE Ald. Libby Davies pointed out
that the cut in Vancouver school board’s
budget was $17 million, exactly the cost of
that silver-domed “golf ball’ that Social
Credit is building for Expo 86. Ald. Bruce
Yorke pointed out that to restore the cuts
made in education grants would cost only
two-tenths of one per cent of the provin-
cial budget. .

. wears political blinkers and regards her

I mentioned that the provincial govern-
ment took over and paid off the debt of
B.C. Rail, which amounted to $470 mil-
lion, yet claimed it didn’t have enough
money for education. Ald. Bruce Eriksen
pointed out that just about everyone now
understands that Expo 86 is being paid for
by (among other things) cuts in education,
and is gaining a bad reputation as a result.

But Ald. Ford could not see any of these
things. That’s understandable for one who

chief job as that of protecting the Socred.
government from attacks in Vancouver
city council. She must feel rather lonely
and isolated these days and she deserves
every bit of it. :

I think all of the NPA-TEAM-Socred
aldermen felt a bit chastized that day.
After all, they had just put on a mighty
campaign to replace Bruce Yorke with the
NPA/Social Credit nominee Philip Owen
in the Feb. 2 byelection. The voters this
time gave Bruce Yorke a 2,500 majority
instead of 220! \

2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 13, 1985