British Columbia Protesters dog U.S. torpedo test at Nanoose By KIM GOLDBERG NANOOSE BAY — Peace and anti- nuclear activists who have long pro- tested the U.S. Nay’s nuclear vessels using the CFMETR underwater wea- pons testing range here believe they may have found a new angle for their protest. Last Wednesday, five members of Greenpeace and the Nanoose Conver- sion Campaign took three boats on to the Nanoose test range and refused to leave, claiming that the Department of National Defence (DND) does not have legal jurisdiction over the water. The demonstrators spent close to two hours on the range while the USS Birmingham, a nuclear-powered and nuclear-weapons capable attack sub- marine, was running submerged for a series of torpedo trials. As they headed out to the middle of the range, the protesters were flanked by a Canadian military cruiser which periodically blocked their path and commanded them over a bullhorn to turn back. The demonstrators ulti-: mately returned to shore because of rough seas and bad weather. Dan McVicar, commander of the Canadian Forces Maritime and Exper- imental Test Range base, said the five were “told they were trespassing on DND property and we couldn’t gua- rantee their safety.” The 130 square kilometre test site, which lies in a: heavily used section of Georgia Strait, is routinely cleared of unauthorized vessels by DND during weapons maintains that the test range is not DND property and that DND does not have the legal right to remove any ves- sels. testing. But Greenpeace Because of the danger of a vessel being struck by a torpedo, the anti- submarine warfare testing could be impeded if the military loses its author- ity to clear the range. “It’s wrong for Canadian waters to be closed off so that American vessels can test their weapons here,” said John Mate, Greenpeace Canada’s co-ordina- tor for the Nuclear Free Seas campaign. “Our commitment is to stop this . insanity of nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors in Canadian waters,” he added. “We plan to do anything we can to highlight Ottawa’s complicity in putting Canadians at risk.” If Greenpeace or other demonstra- tors ever did win such a court case against DND at Nanoose, then theoret- ically anyone could impede weapons testing there merely by taking a single vessel on to the range. McVicar said the only reason the protesters weren’t arrested Wednesday was because the sea was too rough to pull the military cruiser safely alongside the Greenpeace vessels to hand out arrest notices. Charges may yet be laid, he said. He also said the presence of the unauthorized vessels did not prevent the base from carrying out the sche- duled number of torpedo firings for the day. However, he declined to say whether the military continued to fire torpedoes while the protesters were on the test range. 2e Pacific Tribune, February 12, 1990 Provincial Education Minister Tony Brummet has announced that: (a) funding for public schools will be increased by $300 per pupil; (b) if school boards want any more money they will have to get permission from the electorate via a referendum. This is undoubtedly one of the most harmful decisions made by this government in the field of education, and it has made many over the years. First of all, the $300 doesn’t even begin to meet existing needs. Brummet said: “We are giving them everything they need.” But the fact is that two-thirds of the school districts in the province already find provincial grants for education so inadequate that they have to go to their taxpayers every year for more money. But the new rule providing that if school boards want any more money they must now have it first approved by a referendum (the date of which will be set by Brummet) is the nastiest of all. It takes away the right of elected school boards to set their own budgets. It will split and is designed to split communities down the middle, between those who see the need for keeping up and improving educational levels, and those education in B.C. — one where voters agree to pay more taxes to keep up educational levels, and another where voters turn down referendums and allow levels to drop. California has such who don’t. It will create two levels of regulations and education there is in a mess. Why is this: government introducing such a despicable act at this time? One immediate reason, of course, is to reduce its own financial responsibility for education. It has been feeling the heat — people want it to provide greater funding for education. Its method of getting out for under this is to shove the burden back on local taxpayers. Another reason is that this government doesn’t like the whole idea of public ‘Harry Rankin education. It goes along with the Fraser Institute in its advocacy of private schools — the user-pay idea. If you want your kids to have an education, pay for it yourself; the government has no responsi- bility. Its grants to private schools have increased much more than its grants for public eduéation. The Social Credit government over the years has made little effort to conceal its active dislike of teachers and academics. It seems to regard educated people as a threat to its political rule. The idea of referendums was thought up by Vander Zalm himself. In his Jan. 17 speech (on whether he would stay on as premier), he said: “As part of my government’s agenda, I would like to introduce a system of referenda for B.C. What better democratic process than to allow the people a direct say in issues a government may wish to advance at time of election?” Plan echoes Fraser Institute : Pm. : -TONY BRUMMET ... school referen- dums show Socred dislike of public education. » What hypocrisy! If the government is so committed to the “democratic process” of referendums, why doesn’t it allow B.C. -citizens to vote on whether provincial grants for education should be increased or decreased? Funding for education in B.C. today is well below the national average. Why didn’t it hold a referendum on: (a) whether B.C. Place should be sold at all; (b) whether the government should sell this $2-billion property for $125 million to a Hong Kong billionaire and at the same time agree to decontaminate the soil at a cost of over $100 million? (This property has been given away for nothing.) The government should be told in no uncertain terms that its funding is completely inadequate to meet today’s education needs and that it should leave school boards free to make decisions about tax increases as they have in the past. If school districts are denied the right to set tax increases, will municipal councils be next? Residents nix privatized recycling Pack it in, Vancouver east side residents told a city meeting Feb. 7 on a proposed garbage recycling plant slated for the area adjacent to the major public park in the Strathcona neighbourhood. Residents from both the Cantonese- and English-speaking communities told assist- ant city engineer Dave Rudberg and his colleagues that a moratorium should be placed on the $8-million resource and rec- overy plant, and the money used to fund environmental organizations and an expan- ded, city-run, at-source recycling program. They also adopted a motion demanding the city hold another public meeting in the city’s west end. The plan was criticized for being a weak answer to the region’s crushing garbage problem by the dominant Non-Partisan Association on city council, and a means of privatizing what should be a publicly owned and run service. “We should recycle the money from this process. It should not be going to the United States to buy condos, it should be coming back to us,” declared Dave Pritchett, a member of the Vancouver and District Labour Council’s transportation of dan- gerous commodities committee. “You’ve got a fight on your hands if you try to put it near Strathcona Park,” parks commissioner Pat Wilson declared to cheers from the audience in the Strathcona school auditorium. Wilson said the plan grew out of propos- als early in the decade from companies such as Genstar which were trying to urge city council to privatize Vancouver’s garbage collection system. The dominant Non-Partisan Association on council sees in the “lure of private capi- tal” an answer to its own lack of a compre- hensive recycling program, Wilson, a member of the Committee of Progressive Electors, charged. The meeting was part of a series that saw 400 residents pack the Britannia commun- ity centre the previous week in a united demand to scrap the resource and recovery plant, which they say will cause noise, exces- sive pollution and increased truck traffic through the district. The meetings were council’s answer to demands by vocal citizens’ organizations opposed to the program under which a suc- cessfully bidding private firm will collect office and apartment garbage from the downtown core and truck it to the plant for separation. The city has imposed a condi- tion of 30 per cent recovery, with the remaining 70 per cent trucked to the Burns Bog landfill. That process means the privatized service will skim off only the most profitable recyc- lable items, citizens groups charge in demanding the city expand its own planned blue-box service which includes at-source separation. Another negative feature of the plant is the possible creation of refuse-derived fuel pellets, which environment. groups warn will be loaded with toxins released into the atmosphere when the pellets are burned. - The plant is part of the Greater Van- couver regional district’s recycling program, which also drew residents’ fire over features such as the Burnaby incinerator and the trucking of refuse to the unpopular landfill at the Interior community of Cache Creek. Famed geneticist and broadcaster Dr. David Suzuki told the engineers the plant is based on the assumption of continuing eco- nomic growth, “and we can not continue to perpetuate the notion that growth is the be-all and end-a!l of our society.” “The challenge for all of us is to undergo a massive lifestyle change,” he declared. Suzuki urged the city to place a morato- rium on the plant, and instead fund envir- onmental groups like SPEC with the challenge that they go out and educate peo- ple to significantly reduce the amount of garbage. Dale Edwards of the Vancouver Recy- cling Group said later that citizens should write, or better yet, phone the mayor and alderman demanding the resource recovery plant be scrapped. In a recent poll conducted by the group and University of B.C. faculty and students, residents of the west end and downtown core backed recycling their garbage by 89 per cent. Few were aware of the resource recovery plant proposal, but 64 per cent knew of the upcoming blue box program to be implemented for single-family residences in May. Bouin Le erasiet nt By Of the 346 people who responded, almost 90 per cent said-they would willingly-separ- ate household and office waste if the city instituted a pickup system.