BRITISH COLUMBIA School board firing violates Act The five Committee of Progressive Elec- tors’ Vancouver school trustees who have been arbitrarily dismissed from their elected posts and replaced by an appointee of the minister of education have decided to chal- lenge the dictatorial action of the minister in the courts. The reasons for this decision by COPE are both legal and political. The minister, in COPE’s view, has exceeded his authority in his attack on democratically elected school trustees. The minister, in firing the elected school trustees, acted under Section 15(i) of the School Act. This is a wide-sweeping, all- inclusive section which states that the cabinet may “appoint an official trustee to hold office in ‘a school district during plea- sure and to exercise in that district the pow- ers and duties otherwise vested in a board under this Act, and may fix his remunera- tion.” Nothing is said in this section about the circumstances giving rise to the right to exercise this power. However two other sections of. the School Act deal with the specific circum- stances under which a school trustee may be appointed. Section 78 says it may be done where new districts are created by the amalgamation or subdivision of existing districts. Section 238(4) says it may be done where a board faults on a debenture guaranteed under the Act. Neither of these circumstances apply in the case of the Vancouver school board. While the Act would appear to give he minister the unqualified right to dismiss any school trustees he doesn’t like and for the most spurious reasons, this untrammelled Harry Rankin power to dissolve a board without the necessity of indicating lawful grounds would appear to be contrary to the general scheme of the whole Act, which provides for the democratic government of school districts through the democratic, popular election of boards. At issue is the whole question of whether voters have the right to elect school boards or whether this is just a concession to demo- cracy that can be granted or withdrawn at 3:30 p.m. to step up the effort to ensure a success. know you won’t let us down.” BURKE Labor Festival Sunday June 2, 1985 Culture has always been a vibrant part of the progressive movement. One event of music and song which is a special tradition to us and our supporters is the annual Burke Mountain Labor Festival. This year’s festival will carry on the tradition of internationalism by bringing to you the East Indian Folk Dancers and the Chilean folk group, Kuyay Taripay along with Steve Gidora and Communique and several new and different acts. A special attraction for 1985 — International Year of the Youth — is a salute to International Children’s Day, with a special children’s hour between 2:30 and It’s all part of the great effort to raise $100,00 for the Tribune by June 22. At press time $44,223.33 had been turned in. With just five weeks to go, we all need As we have been saying throughout the drive. “We’re counting on you — we MOUNTAIN comes to Vancouver 9th Annual Burke Mountain New Brighton Park Vancouver (North of PNE on McGill between Renfrew and 2nd Narrows Bridge) Ez * SALMON BARBEQUE « TOURNAMENT * ‘starts at a.m., FEATURING Bring your lawn chair SAL UTES Communique In case of rain event will : be held at the Ukrainian eo ke Steve Gidora & friends Hall, 805 E. Pender Bay Street, Vancouver Kuyay Taripay ‘al: — eS pene Shea. Phil Vernon : , 104.9 Ca ; between 10.a.m. and noon 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. and many more on June 2 for location or phone 251-1186 2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 22, 1985 the whim of the minister of education. Can the minister use the School Act to violate the democratic rights of people guaranteed under the Charter of Rights? The Supreme Court’ of Canada has recently ruled, in the Operation Dismantle cruise missile testing casé, that the Charter of Rights applies to ministerial decisions and actions. Discrimination and unequal treatment is also an issue in this case. Why did the minis- ter dismiss the Vancouver and Cowichan school boards for submitting a budget based on their needs while at the same time offering concessions to other school boards (Burnaby and Coquitlam) who did the same thing? The minister is using one Heinrich-made edict in the case of Vancouver and Cowi- chan and another Heinrich-made edict in the case of Burnaby and Coquitlam. The courts now have the option of giving a strictly legal interpretation of the minis- ter’s action or of seeing it in the wider con- text of the democratic rights of Canadians. Education Minister Jack Heinrich has given the public four main reasons for his dismissal of the Vancouver school board. 1. He claims that the Vancouver school board acted illegally, that it violated the rule of law. There is no law which states that school boards must submit budgets dictated by the minister. The Vancouver school board was elected to administer the Van- couver school district and it drew up a budget which would enable it to do just that. 2. Heinrich says that the Vancouver school board submitted a “political” budget, whatever the hell that means. All budgets are political in the sense that they are submitted by elected governments. Is Heinrich trying to tell us that the budgets imposed by his Social Credit government are not political while those introduced by — the Vancouver school board are political? Heinrich’s act in dismissing the school . board was a politically partisan act of the ~* most crass nature. 3. Heinrich claims he had no alternative. This statement is down right false. He had several alternatives (all of them undemo- cratic, of course.) He could have brought in the new legisla- tion to force school boards to do his bid- ding. He chose not to because this would have led to wide public discussion and debate. He could simply have prepared a new budget and imposed it on the Vancouver school board. He chose not to. He could have secured a court order compelling the Vancouver school board to carry out his edict and introduce the kind of budget he wanted. He didn’t. Instead he fired the whole board. His reason? He wanted to get rid of the COPE majority, which has acted as a politi- cal thorn in the side of Social Credit because it strongly opposes the government’s attempt to abolish public education and replace it with private schools. 4. Heinrich claims he had to fire thea school board because municipal councils must set the mill rate by May 15 and they couldn’t do it without a school board budget. This argument is also completely false because, as already pointed out, he had several other alternatives to settle the issue before May 15. : We have a dictatorial government, let’s face it, that is determined to hang on to power no matter what happens. If its con- — tinued existence is endangered by the demo- cratic process of elections, then elections will be abolished, or manipulated to prevent any opposition victory. It has already taken a big step in that direction by increasing the size of the legisla- ture by 11 new seats, nine of them in Social Credit strongholds. The abolition of the Vancouver school board was one more step on the road to a corporate Social Credit state in B.C. Further court action set over firing of trustees The firing of the Vancouver school trus- tees by the provincial government was set to come under strong attack from parents, teachers, students and trustees at the first public meeting by the government-appointed administrator of Vancouver’s _ schools Tuesday. Those groups were ready to converge on the meeting by Allan Stables, the trustee appointed by Education Minister Jack Heinrich, to demand an accounting of the “political” firing of the nine-member board. Public outrage over the firings, which were followed a week later by the dismissal of the Cowichan school board, were further fueled by Stables’ admission to Vancouver school board staff last week that he could not implement budget cuts that would increase class sizes and lay off hundreds of teachers. In a letter Stables said he had conferred with senior board staff on how to chop $7 million from the budget the fired trustees had sent to the ministry in defiance of Hein- rich’s “compliance” budget. “When I saw the magnitude of the staff cuts, I realized I had no choice. Some way would have to be found to avoid the layoffs,” he confessed in the letter. In effect, Stables’ budget for the 1985-86 school year exceeds the ministry’s limit of $171 million by $7 million, through the use of “‘non-shareable capital funds” the trus- tees say they were told by Heinrich were not available for operating expenses. Trustees from other boards, notably in Heinrich’s Prince George riding, said they had been told the same thing by the minister. The revelation renewed charges that the Vancouver board, with a five-member — majority from the labor-backed civic alliance, the Committee of Progressive Elec tors, were the political targets of the educa- tion minister long before the budget fight came toa head. An opposition trustee, Ke? Denike of the Non-Partisan Association, . backed the COPE trustees in their charge that the capital fund was denied the board. Meanwhile, the Vancouver trustees have taken the ministry to court over their dis’ missal. Their case, which is expected to be — heard in about a week in B.C. Supreme — Court, argues that the School Act did not give the minister the authority to dismiss boards for non-compliance on budgetary matters. q The case will also cite the Charter of a Rights, noting that the minister’s action 19 ordering boards to adopt a tax bylawcomp> lying with the ministry’s directive violates the right of trustees to engage in a free vote Those arguments will be repeated whed the fired Cowichan trustees take their caS® to court. The trustees initially had vote€ against the bylaw, but the board chairma® had ruled it valid and sent it on the Ministry ¢ to meet the May 1 deadline. _ Heinrich had challenged the bylaw 1” court, which ruled it invalid and ordered the trustees to meet again. They did, and vot against the budget, after which Heinti dismissed the trustees.