LLL LUTTE {| EDUCATION COPE trustees warn of ‘precedents set by court judgment The Committee of Progressive Electors has struck a special executive subcommittee to plan further actions in support of the COPE school trustees, following a Supreme Court ruling which supported the provin- cial government’s firing of the Vancouver school board last May. Ina ruling handed down July 8, Supreme Court Justice Howard Callaghan rejected the suit launched by the five COPE trustees, which argued that their dismissal by order- in-council May 2 contravened the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and exceeded the authontty of the minister in the School Act. An appeal has not been completely ruled out, but the costs associated with the move — on top of the court costs COPE must pay on Justice Callaghan’s order — are prohibitive, said former board chairman Pauline Weinstein. “The ruling is disappointing, to say the least. The minister has been given with this judgment very sweeping powers, and local democracy could very well be threatened,” Weinstein told the Tribune. The eyes of the education community — members of which have been rallying sup- port for the fired Vancouver trustees, as well as those in the Cowichan district on Van- couver Island — were on the COPE court challenge, hinging as it did on local board autonomy and the devastating education cutbacks that have been the rule for the past three years. The nine Vancouver trustees were dis- missed after the COPE majority voted to defy government-ordered cutbacks to Van- couver’s schools by adopting a tax bylaw that reflected the board’s assessment of the budget needed to mantain classes and servi- ces for the 1985-86 academic year. The firing, followed by approximately one week with the Cowichan trustees’ dis- missal, came at a time when several boards around the province were locked into a bat- tle with the ministry over cutbacks. But, following the Vancouver dismissals, Educa- tion Minister Jack Heinrich extended dead- lines for two other “holdout” boards, Bur- naby and Coquitlam, until those districts voted to accept cutbacks budgets. The discrimination implied in Heinrich’s singling out the Vancouver, and subse- quently the Cowichan board for the most drastic actions, constituted one part of the argument levied by Vancouver city alder- man and COPE lawyer Harry Rankin in Supreme Court. Rankin argued the ministry’s discrimina- tion in that case constituted a violation of the Charter of Rights by denying equality of treatment to the citizens of the school dis- tricts who elected the trustees. Rankin also hit the section of the School Act allowing the dismissal of trustees. He said the section was at fault since it outlined _ two specific reasons trustees can be fired — when two districts amalgamate, or ifa board runs a deficit — and then goes on to give the government broad, sweeping powers to dismiss boards for whatever cause and install a government-appointed trustee. Because of the two specific instances mentioned, the section could be construed as being narrower in scope and Heinrich’s action could be considered illegal, Rankin argued. But Justice Callaghan dismissed all of COPE’s arguments, and in his judgment accepted the contentions of the govern- ment’s lawyers. “A perusal of the School Act makes it clear that the legislation obviously intended to vest in the Lieutenant-Governor in Council plenary authority over the opera- tion of schools and school boards. The removal of a board of trustees by the 2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JULY 17, 1985 Lieutenant-Governor in Council for failure to enact a budget which complied with a directive of the minister of education is clearly with the authority granted to it pur- suant to Section 15(i) of the School Act. Therefore the official trustee’s appointment is consistent with the purpose and objective of the Act,” Callaghan ruled. Justice Callaghan acknowledged the trustees’ contention that their firing violated the Charter of Rights, specifically, “that the appointment of the official trustee and the resultant dissolution of the elected Van- couver school board denies the residents and electors of the Vancouver school dis- trict the right of equal protection of the law, and the right of equal benefit of the law without discrimination. “But,” the justice wrote, “the Charter of Rights and Freedoms bestows no rights or freedoms on creatures of statute like the board or on members of the board in that capacity. “*. .1f they had the ‘liberty’ to be school trustees they lost it by their own unlawful acts when they failed to comply with a con- stitutionally valid statutory requirement,” he ruled. “Granted,” wrote Justice Callaghan, “legislative action could have been taken in order to ensure that School District No. 39 would continue to provide educational ser- vices to its students as required by the School Act. “However, considering all the circum- stances including the time constraints, the appointment by the Lieutenant-Governor PHILLIP RANKIN in Council of an official trustee effectively removing the elected school board members, was a reasonable limit prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. “The board as a result of its own intran- sigence and its failure to abide by the lawful directive of the minister of education brought about its own dissolution,” Justice Callaghan ruled. Weinstein said the COPE trustees — herself, Carmela Allevato, John Church, Gary Onstad and Phil Rankin — are con- cerned about the ruling as it applies to the Charter of Rights, since it appears to set a precedent allowing for the dismissal by senior governments of locally-elected gov- ernments. “Tt occurs to me that the government may be using this as a test case, and they hope in the future to replace all duly-elected boards with appointed trustees. It follows the system the Socreds have been practising since restraint was imposed, by taking more and more powers away from trustees,” she said. Weinstein said Justice Callaghan’s actions in awarding court costs to the government could have the effect of intimidating groups PAULINE WEINSTEIN seeking to redress through the courts wrongs suffered because of government actions. Commented trustee Rankin after the rul- ing was handed down: “I think there was room for a courageous decision — this wasn’t.” Meanwhile, government-appointed trus- tee Allan Stables — who, when installed ironically adopted a budget that avoided the cutbacks the Vancouver trustees had warned against — has. already made cuts totalling $3.7 million for the 1986-87 aca- demic year. Several maintenance staff, sup- port staff and vice-principals are to be laid off, and the sale of school properties is being pursued. Actions in support of the fired Van- couver and Cowichan trustees continues. In Vancouver, the Vancouver elementary and secondary teachers associations are running a lawn sign and leaflet campaign aimed at reinstating the trustees, and they plan to step up the campaign when the school year begins. At an emergency meeting the COPE executive struck a subcommittee to work with the organization’s education commit- tee on plans for the continued fightback. Board’s duty was anti-cuts fight Below, in abridged form, is the final statement delivered by me to the Supreme Court of B.C., with Mr. Justice Callaghan presiding, on June 25. The Committee of Progressive Electors members of the dis- missed Vancouver school board were chal- lenging the right of the minister of education to fire them since they were not appointees of the minister, but elected by the people of Vancouver. The legal team presenting COPE’s case _included Harry Rankin, Jim Quail and Phil- lip Rankin. In a judgment handed down July 8, Jus- tice Callaghan upheld the minister and dis- missed COPE’s appeal. RS The minister of education has been bent on a program of cutting back on education services to the children of British Columbia. Very substantial reductions in the quality of education have already occurred. The rights of children to an education capable of pre- paring them for life in our society were under attack. The cuts necessitated by the minister’s directive has the effect of putting an abso- lute lid on the amount of money a board can spend. Whether or not more money could be found, it could not be spent, unless the minister was prepared to relent in his insistence on cutting back education expen- diture. The minister was determined to see edu- cation spending reduced, and the money saved diverted to matters of higher priority to him. And he was determined to have the board do the “dirty work” for him. If at all possible. However, the petitioners (COPE school trustees) owe certain duties to the people who put them into office. They have a duty to stand up for the integrity of our public school system, in the face of what they and many others perceive to be unacceptable and unwarranted attacks from the ministry of education. They ran for office ona pledge to fight those cutbacks. The school board trustees, unlike Mr. (ministry-appointed trustee Allan) Stables, are not mere administrators put into place to carry out the policies emanating from Victoria, like a bunch of robots. They were elected to public office by the people of the district, and have a public duty to serve those people and to live up to the political mandate that they were given by being elected. That is the reason why we have elected school boards in this province, boards that are answerable to the people they govern. The petitioners and the rest of the school board were locked into a political struggle with the minister. So were several other boards across the province. At one point, there were more than 30 boards defying the ministerial cutback directives. This was no “political wrangle” in the perjorative sense that many people will cyn- ically dismiss nowadays. It was a political struggle based on fundamentally opposing views regarding the priority of public educa- tion, on the importance of programs designed to give a decent education to the children of the district, nearly one-half of whom do not speak English as their mother tongue. When the fight began to heat up, the minister pulled his atom bomb out of his hip pocket, and threw it at the petitioners and the rest of the Vancouver school board. In the face of the public outcry that this produced, he scurried off to make peace with as many of the remaining boards as he could. Mr. Stables. ..has co-authored a report calling for cutbacks of up to $20 million from the Vancouver school budget. How- ever, no sooner is he installed into office, | than he takes a look around, and concludes that it would be unthinkable to actually implement the cutbacks dictated to the board by the minister. He said this is in a letter addressed to all Vancouver school board employees. He was allowed to spent capital funds to increase the amount of expenditure, to reduce the amount of cutting back during the current fiscal year. That may be analogous to burning your furniture to keep your house warm, but in the end, it vindicates the position taken all along by the elected trustees: that the minis- ter’s directive would have forced reductions in educational services that were totally unacceptable, even to an appointed official trustee answerable to no one but the cabinet. The struggle between the parties was a political struggle, and a deadly serious one. It was no game. What the minister did was to short-circuit the political democratic pro- cess. Where he did not see himself to be win- ning the political struggle, he wiped out his opposition, deprived the city of Vancouver of its elected board, and imposed an official trustee who could not stand in his way polit- ically. He was prepared to attack the rights and interests of all of the people of Van- couver, in order to win the struggle. We do not believe, in fact, that he was won that fight.