VANCOUVER — “The need for day care and nursery school services far ex- ceeds current supply in all but a few areas of the city”. *“Vancouver’s child care system is ‘fragmented and maldistributed’ to the point where the word ‘system’ seems a misnomer for this conglomerate of arrangements’’. Harry Rankin “An almost total lack of gradual, planned development is apparent’’. ““A serious regional bias ex- ists in this city where day care and pre-school education are concerned . . . East Vancouver with 69 percent of the pre- school population has only 43.3 percent of the available places . .. Only 11.5 percent of East Vancouver’s pre-school children have places available in their region, compared to 33.3 percent of the children in Van- couver West.” “‘Child care workers are frustrated by poor working con- didtions and low pay.”’ The above are a few of the conclusions of a study by the Vancouver Council of Women into day care and nursery school needs and services in Van- couver, published last month. It also notes that ‘although, “tthe ministry of human resources operates an informa- tion service and, until recently, has followed a policy of pro- viding funding for non-profit centres that have successfully documented need and eligibility . .. for the 1980-81 fiscal year B.C. child care Socred disgrace no funds were allocated by the ministry for these purposes.” Some of the recommenda- tions of this study are: @ Equalization of oppor- ‘tunity for the healthy develop- ment of every young child. @ Co-ordination of pre- school services in the city and the naming of an early childhood education co- ordinator for each community. @ Continuation of subsidies for low income parents with the income ceilings raised con- siderably and indexed to the cost of living, with subsidies indexed to the cost of services. @ Training for pre-school teachers and assurance of good working conditions. My impression of this report and its recommendations is that they are good as far as they go but they don’t go far enough. I believe it should be the. responsibility of senior govern- ments to provide nurseries and day care centres no less than it is their responsibility to provide other forms of education. Payments by working parents should be minimal. To- day many young couples with children, or single parents for that matter, pay $275 or $300 for each child. I also believe that child care workers should receive a high level of training together with salaries comparable to those of school teachers to guarantee that children are provided with the best of care. TRIBUNE PHOTO — FRED WILSON An eviction notice to make way for redevelopment is becoming a daily Vancouver. But when tenant John Jewell and others in this 14 Ave and Commercial Drive building received theirs — to facilitate a suspect renovation project — they decided to use the occasion to focus attention on the city’s housing crisis. The tenants dubbed themselves “evictims” and last Sun- day held a demonstration-rock concert at the building which drew about 100 people. The band played from the top landing of the fire escape, where several speakers, including Greater Vancouver} > (Renters: Association president Tom Lalonde, also addressed the crowd. ' ‘Evictims’ won't leave quietly | A VSB blasts gov't ‘audacity’ in boosting school tax rate -Continued from page 1 $150,000 house an average of $162. School taxes which were $125 in 1980 will rise to $287 in 1981-after the homeowner grant has been deducted. In other areas around the pro- vince which haven’t experienced the same level of real estate specula- tion and dramatic increases in land values as in the Greater Vancouver and Victoria regions, taxpayers will be able to pay off most, if not all of their’ school taxes with their government. E Sen are many Lower Mainland school trustees who this week couldn’t find a cup small enough to measure the good faith of the Socred It was only two weeks ago that the government PEOPLE AND ISSUES been a little curious — if not particularly surprised met a mass lobby of trustees and Vancouver mayor Mike Harcourt by expressing all kinds of concern over the 100 percent and more school tax increases education minister Brian Smith, it is just too late to do anything this year. However as a measure of good faith, senior bureaucrat Jack Fleming was ap- pointed to study the whole education finance for- mula with a view to correcting the inequities next year. The increase in the mill rate, from 41.25 to 41.8, will add only about $10 to the average tax in the GVRD, but it makes the inequity worse and ed to be. Incidentally, the Socreds have explained the in- creased mill rate on the basis that property tax assessment appeals reduced the expected total of property tax values by $100 million, requiring an up- ward adjustment of the mill rate. That is an admission of what activists fighting un- fair property tax assessments have charged. Large corporations with expensive lawyers on retainers make it a business practice to challenge their tax assessments and lower their taxes, but they are never opposed by municipalities or school boards. This year there were an unusually large number of cor- porate appeals on machinery assessments, which ap- ply only to school taxes. And the result of that cor- porate manoeuvering is a $10 bill for every homeowner in Greater Vancouver. * * * the recent television, billboard and newspaper ad testimonials for the Vancouver Sun must have facing homeowners in the GVRD. But, bemoaned - demonstrates what a farce Fleming’s study isintend- eaders in the Lower Mainland who have seen — to see B.C. Government Employees Union gen-- eral secretary John Fryer gracing a number of the ads. : Now John Fryer has never been one to shun publicity, whether in his capacity as BCGEU general secretary, his current position as visiting lecturer at the University of Victoria, his post as president of the National Union of Provincial Government Employees or whatever else. Bur in the context of this and the BCGEU’s feelings about Southam’s other newspaper, The Province, his testimonials for the Sun — like the Province, not exactly a friend of labor — must raise a few eyebrows. _ Both Fryer and BCGEU have on various Oc- casions taken issue with the anti-labor bias of the Province and last month, the union called on its members to cancel their subscriptions and boycott the paper in protest over an incident involving the Brewery Workers and the BCGEU. And now we have Fryer appearing in an ad for the Sun, presumably as part of the paper’s drive to boast circulation. Strangely enough ever since Southam Inc, took ownership of both the Sun and the Province, rumors have persisted that the newspaper conglomerate would shut down the money-losing Province, leav- ing Vancouver with only one paper and a lot less newspaper jobs. The rumors aren’t exactly groundless - Southam president Gordon Fisher himself commented that the Province was on an ‘‘ir- reversible downhill slide.’’ Are we to conclude that Fryer has now joined the Southam campaign? . PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 24, 1981—Page 2 homeowner grant. (The homeowner grant remains set at $380.) What was particularly galling to COPE trustee and VSB finance chair Philip Rankin, is that the pro- vincial government’s contribution to the largest school district in the province has dropped from 72 per- cent in 1968 to zero in 1981. “In fact, the Vancouver school district will be paying 100 percent | of its operating costs - and it will be sending 2.6 million dollars back to the provincial government this year,’’ he said. ‘*While we are going to be pay- . ing the full cost of operating the Vancouver school system, the pro- vincial government is making all the decisions in educational mat- ters,’ COPE trustee Wes Knapp said. He noted that memo 144, which was circulated by education minister Brian Smith, set rigid time allotments to programs, called for mandatory consumer courses while leaving no room for locally- developed programs. “It appears we have no signifi- cant decision-making in education,” he declared. — VSB chairperson Pauline Weinstein blasted the education minister for his ‘“‘audacity’’ in rais- ing the mill rate despite demands for tax relief from a recent lobby of Lower Mainland school trustees and Vancouver mayor Mike Har- court. - Trustees from nearly every Lower Mainland municipality, together with mayor Harcourt, went to Victoria’last month to de- mand relief from the excessive and inequitable increases in school taxes that Lower Mainland municipalities would face as a result of soaring land values, But far from offering some redress, Smith instead increased the mill rate. ‘‘We shouldn’t be paying more than a 14.9 percent increase in school taxes (the increase resulting from inflation and some new | ? y : DR. PAULINE WEINSTEIN... VSB won't be ‘bullied’ by Socreds. COPE-initiated programs) and that works out to about five dollars _ -for every Vancouver taxpayer,” Rankin said. oF “Yet if Vancouver were an in- dependent school, we would by” receiving $33 million - not giving back 2.6 million to the govern- | ment,”’ he added, referring to the $600 per student given independent — schools by the Socreds under the Independent Schools Support Act. The government’s finance policies also came under attack by COPE trustee Mike O’Neill, who accused the government of ‘taking _ money from the education budget - _ and putting it into edifices and coal deals. said. the mill rate. Failure to do so could result in any board being placed under trusteeship by the provincial — government although Rankin — noted that if all Lower Mainland “Meanwhile, we are made to be | the scapegoats because we have tO — collect the increased taxes,” he - Under the Public Schools Act, school boards have until May 1 to pass the enabling bylaw to increas¢ wer ms Bs 2Ssem pone S&P Pe. > OQ ctthmp Oo sO > | Ost Oo << O&O ———oO = OFF Oo 7 ——t ry ib mA TH Af at boards did not comply, “I doubt whether they’d throw the whole GVRD under trusteeship.”’