6 = Terrace Review —- Wednesday, September 18, 1991

EDITORIAL

"

gy he Mifistry of Educatiofi seems to be in an < T unparalleled state of confusion these days, and- jts lack of direction is spreading out through the - system in waves.

Flogging the public service has always been a popular pastime among elected governments, but ordering boards to stay within compensation limits set after they’ve signed contracts with teachers could have been designed to create uncertainty and stress labour relations. That can be added to the fact that most boards in the province are, like School District 88, left holding a surplus from the past fiscal year and are now examining it as though it were an unidentified specimen in biology, uncertain whether it will hatch or vanish. These surpluses occurred because the ministry charged into the dual entry primary program from the Year 2000 recommendations, were unable to calculate the budget effect for individual boards

through the block funding system, and then backed out of

the program because it wasn’t working in the classroom. Now the ministry has decided to delay putting the Year 2000 recommendations for intermediate and graduate level courses into action for a year and appointed an industrialist, Edgar Kaiser Jr., to review the recommenda-

tions. Educators will undoubtedly be waiting with interest

to discover what Kaiser can add to the work done by Barry Sullivan, the man who wrote the recommendations and one of the best minds to appear in B.C. public life during the past decade. .

The system, with the Year 2000 money held back, surpluses floating around individual districts, and negoti- ated salary increases in limbo, is awash in unspent money that has already, we think, been committed. Teachers in Terrace, and the rest of the province, are refusing to re-

negotiate their contracts, apparently expecting a change of

government soon: that will dispense with need to go through with what can only be a very distasteful exercise for both sides. Trustees here are annoyed about what they perceive as a belittling attack on their elected authority, and the entire province is essentially in a holding pattern, waiting for the fog to clear.

When a majority government holds on to power until its mandate nearly expires, its authority is increasingly reduced to nothing. Political insiders in Victoria are

saying the election will probably be called today. It’s well overdue.

CCNA /.

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VICTORIA — Throughout the troubles and tribulations of Bili Vander Zaim, and especially since his resignation as Premier of B.C. in April, most of his former colleagues and Social Credit Party brass have tried to pretend that he is no longer a factor in the election which must come this year.

His friend and successor, Rita Johnston, has adopted the line that Mr. Vander Zalm is history, and she wants only to talk of the future for this great and wonder- ful province, blah, blah.

She and her handlers maintain that ethics and the questionable conduct of politicians are not an issue, that things have changed now that the disgraced ex-premier is out of the way, and that it was only the Lower Mainland media that cared about that sort of thing anyway.

But the revelation on Thursday that police had formally charged Mr. Vander Zalm with breach of trust over aspects of his involve- ment in the sale of Fantasy Gardens has dragged back into the limelight him and all he and government stood for.

And as far as the Socreds are concerned, the timing is lousy.

Mr. Vander Zalm is innocent until proved to be otherwise, and I seek not to prejudge the case in any way.

But in assessing the political damage, it is obvious that just the fact that a criminal charge has been laid afler a six-month probe

_ by a special prosecutor is bad

enough for a partly struggling to find some miracle which will bring it re-election.

_The last thing the Socreds

The view from Victoria —_

by John Pifer

needed in the run-up to the elec- tion call was this forceful

reminder to the electorate of what

their 1986 decision wrought.

Amid the flurry of press confer- ences and statements about the Zalm charge on Thursday, there was evidence that Mr. Vander Zalm is not going to pull his punches in a planned book about his time in office. :

As reporters and cameramen encircled him to capture his brief

response to the charge ("I am not ©

guilty. I have never breached any trust", etc.), there was an unfam- iliar face in the throng.

It was the ex-premier’s ghostwriter, Paul Nielsen, a 48- year-old right-wing community newspaper columnist who is writing the authorized biography of BVZ.

Nielsen, an interior designer turned columnist, a father of 12, and a failed federal candidate for the Progressive Conservative Party in Vancouver East, told me that he and The Boss were hop- ing to have Vander Zalm’s ver- — sion of events on the bookstands by Christmas.

"We're looking at more of a biography than an autobiography, because basicaliy we’re looking at a guy who just can’t bring himself to say anything bad about anybody. We talked about it, and I said, "If you’re going to tell the whole story, there are some people who are going to be a little concerned.’ But in the third person, we can do il."

Niclsen admits that the Vander Zalm book tay be published _ before resolution of the current ctiminal charge. "We're covering

Bill Vander Zalm’s side. Our intention is to try to get his side of the story out, but to do it in such a way that it doesn’t look like this man is sort of clawing back. And he just won’t do that. He just doesn’t have a mean bone.

"The story has to be hold. Some of these guys know what they’ve done, Vander Zalm has made mistakes and we know it. But it just bothers me that when Vander

‘Zalm is down, they just keep

kicking and kicking and kicking.”

There may be some Socreds, elected and otherwise, who are going to be awfully worried abou! what kind of spin The Zalm is going to put on the whole affair. And you can bet the family silver that at least one chapter is going to lay a lot of blame for Mr. . Vander Zalm’s woes on the media.

Parting Thought: After several false starts, it looks likely that Premier Johnston will call the election whilst mingling among

‘the politicians and officials in

Victoria this week for the annual convention of the Union of B.C.

* Municipalities.

But all of that could change yet again depending on the results of the flurry of public-opinion poll- ing currently under way.

One recent poll which had the two parties only five percentage points apart, with 27 percent undecided, shows the confused Stale of the populace — or at least of the 507 people called by those pollsters.

Anyway, the only poll which counts, of course, is the one of. Eicction Day. |