’ Posed by the ministry

Clad in various articles of black clothing including, in an ironic comment, graduation gowns, some 200 students at Vancouver

Technical School joined students across Vancouver in a sit-in protest Jan. 3 against government cuts.

Rallies re-echo VSB demand

Student sit-ins across Vancouver and an angry parents’ meeting last week marked the growing consensus among British Columbians that the Social Credit govern- ment’s highly unpopular restraint program in education has got to end.

And as Education Minister Jack Hein- Tich drew fire for his desperate attempts to defend the Socreds’ gutting of public educa- tion, B.C.’s trustees met to map a province- wide response to the cutbacks.

The public protest in Vancouver, com- plemented by meetings and rallies in other

Lower Mainland municipalities, Van- couver Island and other B.C. centres, has forced the min- ister to finally agree to meet face to face With the Vancouver School board this Week,

The threat of trus- ; teeship being im- PAULINE WEINSTEIN Still stands, but the backing of parents, teachers and students of the VSB’s refusal to budget for next year’s cutbacks make that Option highly untenable.

Student rallies on school grounds after Classes ended Jan. 30 saw organized action by student leaders replace the previous Week’s spontaneous walkouts. While turn- outs for the “black day” protests were lower than the numbers who walked the previous Week, several of Vancouver’s 18 secondary Schools saw hundreds occupying school Cafeterias and hallways.

Some 500 students took part at Glad- stone Secondary, more than 300 protested at Vancouver Technical and several other campuses saw turnouts of at least 100 stu- dents, said Tim Pelzer of Student Alliance for Vancouver Education (SAVE).

He also reported that the three major anti-cutbacks student groupings — SAVE, S.O.S. and Students Against Cuts — agreed to merge in a new coalition following a

‘Meeting Jan. 31.

“The sit-ins were successful, despite the fact that many student council’s didn’t par- ticpate and considering the negative media Coverage (of the walkouts),” said Pelzer. “And those sit-ins have laid the foundation for future actions.”

At Vancouver Technical, students donned black clothing or sported black armbands

during a three-hour demonstration in the school cafeteria.

Student Larry Taylor reminded the sev- eral hundred students filling the cafeteria that “every letter we write to them (Victoria) must be answered. That’s a big pain to them, but what they’re doings a big pain to US?

Heinrich’s recent attempt in a speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade to justify his government’s education policies left obser- vers unimpressed as educators, joined by media commentators, pointed out the holes in the Socreds’ claim that education funding is adequate.

That point was raised again by Van- couver School Board chairman Pauline Weinstein at a special meeting called by the school board’s School Consultative Com- mittee, in Charles Tupper school Jan. 31.

Taking issue with the Socreds’ claim that only $8% million is cut from the district’s 1985-86 budget, Weinstein said the figure, according to the calculations of school

- board staff, amount to a $17 million cut-

back.

She reiterated the board’s determination to demand funding to meet the 1984 levels, with a three-per cent inflation factor. “And

that’s not saying it’s what we need, that just.

allows us to maintain what we have.”

The audience of 1,700 stood and applauded as Weinstein declared, on behalf of the five Committee of Progressive Elec- tors trustees, ““We were elected on a plat-

form of no further cuts and we will carry out our promise to the electorate.”

The mainly parent audience gave the same reception to a strongly worded speech

TRIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN GRIFFIN

by VSB superintendent Dante Lupini who”

read the resolution adopted by all the pro- vince’s 75 school superintendents calling for an end to the restraint program.

Parents, several of whom lined up at the microphones to demand the cutbacks end, signed their names to giant sheets of blank paper lining the gymnasium walls and took up a collection to pay for a telegram demanding the ministry, on behalf of the assembly, “stop further cuts in education in B.C. and return autonomy to local boards.”

A meeting of the executive of the B.C. School Trustees Association last Saturday resolved to hold a special general meeting of the province’s trustees to plan a united response to the cutbacks, set for Mar. 1-2.

This Thursday Heinrich, who for weeks had refused the VSB’s entreaties, will meet with the board.

“We finally got to him, and he’s going to have a tough time justifying his actions. We’ve got our statistics,” said Weinstein.

‘VSB officials suspect the minister may counter with a demand that the VSB sell off its property holdings — but board officials are prepared for that, said Weinstein.

“We've held onto those lands because you never can be sure when you'll need a new school,” she said, adding that the hold- ings include the revenue-paying land under the Kingsgate Mall.

PARENTS RALLY. . .resounding support for school board opposition to cuts.

TRIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN GRIFFIN

Save Meares vow backed

Lawyers for the Clayoquot and Ahousaht Indian bands were back in B.C. Supreme Court Monday in an effort to win a stay of proceedings against an earlier decision giving MacMillan Bloedel the right to log Meares Island as the campaign to pre- serve the island continued to capture public attention.

Representatives of more than 10 tri- bal councils from this province and the Yukon vowed last week that they would give the Nuu-Chah-Multh tribal council and the two bands their full support to stop the logging despite the ruling Jan. 25 by Justice Reginald Gibbs that aboriginal claim to the island had been extinguished by the Crown. ;

An appeal has been launched to the B.C. Court of Appeal and laywers were seeking the stay this week to prevent any logging before the appeal is heard.

Indian leaders including James Gosnell of the Nishga Tribal Council and James Mathias, chief of the Squamish band declared their intention to “take a stand” on the issue and called on MacMillan Bloedel to “step back from the brink’. The forest multi- national’s insistence on logging has provoked widespread opposition, not only from the Tofino area but from around the province.

Support for the Indian leaders’ cam- paign also came this week from Maurice Rush, leader of the B.C. Communist Party and NDP leader Bob Skelly.

“The Native people of B.C. are fight- ing a just struggle to preserve their abo- riginal rights to Meares Island against the corporate greed of MacMillan Bloedel which is determined to log. ..” Rush declared in a statement Jan. 31.

“Their struggle deserves the support of all British Columbians because it is a fight for justice and to preserve B.C. for its people.”

He emphasized that a halt to logging was essential until the land claims issue was settled, adding that any action to begin logging “would negate the fight for aboriginal rights.”

But even from an environmental point of view, logging of the island is “criminal” he said.

“Corporate greed has already devas- tated much of our forest lands. They must not be allowed to devastate Meares Island.

“If B.C. is running short of logs .. (then) let the provincial government and the forest monopolies halt the mas- sive export of logs to Japan and China,” he said.

Rush also cited [WA president Jack Munro’s support for Meares logging, saying it was “regrettable” that Munro “has come to the defence of MacMillan Bloedel.

“The labor and people’s movements should give their full support to the struggle of native people to preserve the island,” he said.

NDP leader Bob Skelly in a weekend press. conference was also critical of Munro for his claim that support for aboriginal claims would threaten loggers’ jobs.

Calling Munro’s remarks “incor- rect,” Skelly stated: “By recognizing aboriginal claims we’re going to resolve some of the outstanding problems that have faced this province for the last 100 years.”

Although Skelly did not rule out entirely any logging of the island he did state that “sufficient cause has been made to leave Meares untouched.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 6, 1985 e 3

valine.