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Rcieenanee ct ae

‘Ottawa should take over

cost of education needs’

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

The teachers of our province are so
alarmed about recent amendments
to the Public Schools Act (Bill 86)
that they are putting up $60,000 out of
their own pockets in a massive
public education campaign to
acquaint citizens with the dangers
inherent in this new legislation.

The features of Bill 86 that the
. teachers are worried about include:

e The provincial government has
abolished statutory provisions which
(a) limited the school tax to a
maximum of 18 mills, and (b)
required the provincial government
to contribute 50 percent of approved
education costs in the province.

e Beginning next year school

‘boards may increase their

expenditures by only 10 percent over
the previous year not 10 percent of
the total previous expenditure but

EDITORIAL

Peace - with bombs?

S ince the peace talks opened in Paris three weeks ago Wash-
ington’s emissaries have accomplished little or nothing to
narrow the U.S. “credibility gap.” Quite the contrary.

Propaganda-wise, the Vietnamese are still the ‘‘bad guys — who
don’t want peace,” and the U.S. the “good guys — who will do any-
thing for peace,” except halt their barbaric bombing and killing.

In point of fact the U.S. bombing of the Democratic Republic of
North Vietnam has been greatly increased and intensified since the
Paris peace talks opened. That alone is sufficient evidence of the
absence of any sincere desire for peace by the U.S. warhawks. The
fact that they are in Paris engaging in such talks at all is the result
of mass world-wide pressures and demands for an end to U.S. geno-
cide in Vietnam, and not by their own efforts or desires.

As aggressors on the soil of Vietnam without moral, legal, or
other pretext or sanction, other than Washington’s ambition to act
as a homicidal world policeman, dictating the internal affairs of
other nations and peoples, and unleashing a horrible saturnalia of
death and destruction in so doing, the U.S. peace mission is not in a
position to make any demands whatsoever upon North Vietnam.

The U.S. peace mission in Paris is not there to dictate peace
terms to the Vietnamese or anyone else, but as the representatives
of a government seeking to ‘“‘save face” from the disasterous results
of its own acts of aggression.

As such it is now confronted with a simple, and highly moral
demand from the North Vietnamese delegation, upon which the full
worth of its desire for peace can, and will be measured: ‘‘Stop the
bombing of North Vietnam — stop the ruthless and wanton killing”’
— A demand already approved a million-fold by world mass opinion.

Moreover, the U.S. cannot, as in its war of aggression upon
Korea and its two-year obstructive “‘peace’’ talks, piously drape
itself in a UN flag to hide its perfidy. This time it stands naked, and
pretty much alone in its murderous infamy. Of course, we in
Canada — for a $300-million or more annually in arms sales to assist
the U.S. killing in Vietnam, give our Washington ‘“‘neighbors” what-
ever “‘moral”’ or other aid we can. -

In the current federal election campaign Tory national leader
Stanfield declared himself as being ‘‘in full support of the U.S. in
Vietnam,” but cautiously added the vote-catching rider that ‘‘per-
haps the bombing should stop.”

This, while national Liberal leader Pierre Elliot Trudeau,
flitting from flower to flower in search of political nectar to sweeten
his glamor-boy role, when the question was put to him, says he “‘is
very much in favor of halting the bombing in North Vietnam.” A
day or two later, replying to the same question, Trudy says he
“doesn’t want to make any statement which might adversely affect
the peace talks, etc., etc.” Which means in both French and English
— and Washingtonese — “peace with bombs.”’

The world pressures which compelled Washington to sit down at
the peace table must reach an ever greater volume and momentum to
to enforce a halt to the bombing in North Vietnam — and to assure
the early realization of a just and lasting peace for Vietnam — and
the world.

_ Se
Page 2—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 31, 1968

“ec Tribune

st Coast edition, Canadian Tribune

_

We

= eae

Editor—TOM McEWEN Associate Editor—MAURICE RUSH
Published weekly at Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E. Hastings St.,
Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-5288.

Subscription Rate: Canada, $5.00 one year; $2.75 for six months.
North and South America and Commonwealth countries, $6.00 one year.
All other countries, $7.00 one year. Authorized as second class mail by the
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only 10 percent of those expenditures
approved by the minister of
education. Furthermore, the
increase, if any, must be raised by an
additional tax on property owners.

@ If school boards want to increase
their expenditures by more than the
10 percent mentioned above, they
can do so only if they secure the

. approval of their municipal councils

or by passing a referendum bylaw
approving such additional
expenditures or by securing the
consent of the minister of education.
Teachers say in any of these three
cases the answer would be ‘“‘no’’.

The teachers charge, and in this
they have the backing of many school
boards and parent teacher groups,
that the effect of this new legislation

“ will be to:

@ Place school boards in a straight
jacket and put a lid on expenditures
for education, the only result of
which can be that educational
standards will be lowered.

e Eliminate local experimenting
with new and advanced forms of
education, thereby causing education
to stagnate and fall behind the needs
of our time.

@ The minister of ‘education now:

has absolute power to decide how
much money will be spent on
education in all municipalities. The

autonomy of school boards has been-

taken away.

The central aim of this new
legislation is clearly to cut all
educational expenditures in the
province so that the rate of
contributions by the provincial
government can be cut down.
Secondly it is aimed at gradually
shifting the burden of educational
costs more and more to the local
homeowners. It’s a means of turning
the political heat away from the
government when parents demand
better education.

The bill was introduced in the last
weeks of the legislature and rushed
through before citizens had a chance
to learn what it was all about.
Teachers, school boards and parent
teacher groups were almost
unanimous in their condemnation. To
these groups, responsible for
education, it was like a slap in the
face.

The defeat of the Social Credit
candidate in the Vancouver South by-
election on May 21 was due in large
part to public anger over this attack
on our educational standards, plus
the provincial government’s freeze
on much needed classroom
constructions.

The people of our city and province
want and need better educational
facilities to meet the needs of our
modern society. This will inevitably
require more money. The province
should join in the growing demand
that educational costs be taken over
by the federal government, instead
of passing them on more and more to
homeowners.

The Vancouver East
Communist Election
Committee has announced
the opening of an election
headquarters at 1470
Commercial Drive.

COMMUNIST ELECTION RALLY
HEAR

STANLEY
RYERSON

Author of “Unequal Union”
Canada, will speak on “The Crisis of Confederation.”

SUNDAY, JUNE 2 - 8 P.M.

CLINTON HALL, 2605 E. PENDER
MEET THE VANCOUVER CANDIDATES

and authority on French

LABOR SCENE:

‘United effort can
win for all’ — IWA

The .strike vote now under way in the International
Woodworkers of America to back up negotiations in the Coast
wage contract dispute is expected to be completed this week.
It will cover some 27,000 Coast lumberworkers and a heavy
vote in favor of strike action is anticipated by IWA leaders.

Meantime, IWA Regional vice-
president Del Pratt has stated that
this year the IWA will be looking to
other union organizations for a
greater measure of co-ordinated
collective bargaining in pursuance of
their own wage negotiations. To this
end IWA Regional officers have
already conferred with three big
pulp and paper unions and with the
United Steelworkers at Cominco in
the Kootenays and Alcan at Kitimat
and Kemano.

The IWA leaders have proposed an
alliance of these big industrial unions
with the IWA in this year’s wage
negotiations.

Pratt also drew attention to the

recently concluded IWA 7-months

B.C. Interior strike which put a very
heavy strain on IWA financial
Tesources, cutting into the union’s
strike fund by approximately $4-
million. The IWA leader indicated
that should strike action become
necessary to win a new and
improved wage contract for the
IWA, that a maximum of solidarity
in financial and moral aid from other
unions will be required. In B.C. wage
struggles, as well as that of other
unions throughout Canada, the
financial generosity of the IWA is
already well known.

The three pulp and’ paper unions
moving into decisive wage
negotiations cover some 10,000
workers, while Steel wage
negotiations at Cominco and Kitimat
involve an additional 7,000, which
together with the IWA total
approximately 44,000.

This work force operating in co-
ordinated effort together in support
of justifiable wage increases in new
wage contracts, in the opinion of
many trade union leaders, could
confront organized monopoly in the
B.C. forest and metal industries with
a powerful economic force, unlikely

to be cowed by Bill 33 or a new’

Socred cabinet reshuffle which
combines the post of attorney;

. general and minister of labor into

one “‘judge and jury’ department of
anti-labor.

** * 3

Strike ballots are reported to be

going out this week to 24,000

members of the Canadian Union of
Postal Workers, and to 10,000
members of the Canadian Union of
Letter Carriers, asking authority to
call a national postal strike in
‘support of wage negotiations with
the federal government. These
negotiations with treasury
department officials have been
bogged down for months with’ no
satisfactory solution to postal wage
demands in sight.

National president William Kay
stated at the opening of the 10th
Convention of the CUPW that ‘“‘we
are on a collision course with the
government” and could be out on
strike by June 24. Kay also said that
in the event of a strike, ‘‘our
members will remain out until a first-
class agreement is signed’’.

Some politicians have expressed
fears that a postal strike might
interfere with their election
campaigns, but these are apparently
the least of the ‘‘posties’’ worries.

** *

Grain handlers at seven Vancouver
and New Westminster terminal
elevators voted in favor of a new
wage package this week which
provided for a 50-cent-an-hour wage
hike in a two year contract. Covering
some 550 workers, over 90% voted
acceptance of the new contract
which ups the old hourly base rate
from $2.96 to $3.46.

*

According to the May 18 edition of
the “AFL-CIO News”, almost every
affiliated international union of the
AFL-CIO has joined in the formation
of a ‘‘National Labor Committee for
Humphrey” for U.S. president.

Since Humphrey is fully
committed to the Johnson policy of
all-out war and aggression on
Vietnam, as is president George
Meany and his AFL-CIO Executive
Council, Canadian leaders of
international unions are asking the
question: ‘‘Where does that put
us?’’.

Spokesmen for B.C. labor in the
BCFL, the VLC, and individual
unions have already put their
position clear; unqualified
opposition to the U.S. war on
Vietnam,