4 z Pa a VSB ELECTIONS = ‘Reject restraint” COPE VSB slate urges If the Socred government’s refusal to allow school board elections could be com- pared to a crumbling dam holding back a boiling pool, then the fired school trustees, their supporters and a frustrated and angry public can be termed a torrent unleashed with the announcements of elections Jan. 30. Since the election writ was dropped Dec. 21, campaign workers for the Committee of Progressive Electors have worked overtime setting up the machinery essential to har- ness that anger and ensure the return of a COPE majority on the Vancouver school board “We already have the people on our side. Now it’s time to make sure that they'll be out on election day, when it counts,” Van- couver COPE Ald. Harry Rankin told a crowd of campaign volunteers at COPE’s election headquarters Jan. 10. The government’s about-face on elec- tions in the districts of Vancouver and Cow- ichan, where trustees were fired by Education Minister Jack Heinrich last spring for refusing to implement the latest in a yearly round of education cutbacks, can be attributed to the pressure they felt from that public, COPE leaders assert. But they also warn that public outrage over the initial firing of the trustees and the Socred’s cutbacks cannot by itself elect anti-restraint candidates, particularly in an election with little preparation time and one expected to draw a relatively small percen- tage of the eligible voters. For the COPE candidate, the appeal to Vancouver voters is straightforward: re- elect the trustees from the civic alliance that opposed further Socred cutbacks to your children’s education, and add to that five- person majority the other COPE candidates also committed to “‘fight for quality educa- tion.” The five incumbents seeking re-election are former board chairman Dr. Pauline Weinstein, vice-chair Phil Rankin, and trus- tees Gary Onstad, John Church and Car- mela Allevato. The arrogance and duplicity of our Social Credit government knows no bounds. For months it has been telling us that it will now allow Vancouver voters to elect their own school board and that we will remain saddled with a govern- _ment-appointed trustee who will run the school board for us. Now, suddenly it changes direction 180 degrees and calls an election. But the manner and method by which this elec- tion was called is nothing less than out- right Social Credit “dirty tricks,” reminiscent of former U.S. president Richard Nixon’s administration. Dirty trick No. 1: The election was announced just four days before Christ- mas and called for Jan. 30. Those dates were carefully selected. The effect was to give the Committee of Progressive Elec- tors, which has a majority on the school board, as little time as possible to prepare for the election. The cabinet knew that little or nothing could be done during the holiday season and that the COPE cam- paign wouldn’t get off the ground until well into January. That’s because COPE relies entirely on volunteer election workers and gets all of its election cam- paign money from ordinary people. The Non-Partisan Association, on the other hand, is financed by corporate dona- tions. It has at its disposal the whole Social Credit election machine and the media. It hires and pays its election workers. Also, the Social Credit government doesn’t want to give time for a wide public discussion of the real issues in this campaign. Those issues are that the res- traint in education must end and the cuts restored, and that Vancouver citi- zens must have the right to decide how education funds will be spent without interference by the Social Credit govern- ment. Dirty trick No. 2: Reports are that the government-appointed trustee has already overspent his budget. The cupboard will be bare by the time Vancouver citizens regain control of their school board and its budget. The government wants them faced with an empty treasury so that the wishes of Vancouver parents for an improved education system cannot be met. Dirty trick No. 3: In announcing the election, Education Minister Jack Hein- rich also stated that if school boards _ want to exceed provincial government Socreds try dirty tricks to swing school election guidelines for what they may spenad, they will have the right to raise additional funds through taxes. But.there’s a catch: additional funds may be raised only by taxing residential homeowners. The cor- porate business friends of the govern- ment are exempt. This is the dirty trick part of his announcement. It is a dirty trick because, first, it vio- lates the principle that business should : pay its share of education costs. After all, in our profit-oriented system, the whole purpose of education is to supply trained workers for industry and commerce. The employers are the greatest beneficiaries. Now more and more of the financial cost of education will be placed on home- owners and less and less on big business. Second, Heinrich’s announcement is aimed at driving a wedge between homeowners who are parents and home- owners who are not. The Social Credit government is still pursuing its main aim which is to cripple public education, to Harry Rankin finally abolish it and replace the whole system with. private schools where the education that children get will depend on the wealth of their parents. Dirty trick No. 4: The Social Credit government wants the election held on short notice in the hope and expectation that NPA supporters on the west side of the city will turn out at the polls while east side voters stay home. The battle plan is to have as quiet a campaign as possible, one that will arouse little citizen interest and result in a low voter turnout. The dirty tricks engaged in by the Social Credit government in this whole sordid affair are all the more reason why it should be given a decisive rebuff on Jan. 30. The means fo do this are at hand. Public opinion polls show that the great majority of Vancouver citizens opposed the arbitrary action of the Social Credit cabinet in removing our elected Vancouver school board. If that majority opinion can now be translated into united and determined action, majority opinion will prevail des- pite all the despicable dirty tricks of this government. 2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 15, 1986 Joining them in the race — all pro- claimed at a special COPE nominating meeting last September — are Chris Allnutt, Sadie Kuehn, Bill Darnell, and Dr. Charles Ungerleider. i Opposing them is a slate selected by the heads of the right-wing Civic Non-Partisan Association (NPA), the business-backed alliance with four incumbents from the former school boards. Those four — Jona- than Baker, Graeme Waymark, Bill Brown and Ken Denike — are all seeking re- election. Of the other five NPA candidates, several are what Weinstein and senior COPE staff term “retreads,.” They include Pam Glass (“who’s run for every office in the pro- vince,” commented Weinstein), and Brian Hannay, both former trustees. Hannay was defeated in the 1984 civic election. Also running are Carol McRae and Dr. Jack Rosenblatt. The latter appeared before a commission called by teachers and par- ents last fall into the dissolution of the elected board and supported the firings. — But the NPA is clearly pinning its hopes on its highest profile candidate: the presi- dent of the B.C. Mining Association, Tex Enemark. ' The right-wing alliance hopes that Ene- mark, who last year gained some attention by purportedly attempting to seek a “dia- logue” between the board and the educa- tion ministry, will tip the balance of power in its favor. But Weinstein notes that three NPA candidates — Rosenblatt, and incum- bents Baker and Waymark — are vulnera- ble because all have spoken out various time against the widespread demand for rein- statement of the fired trustees or for new elections. However the NPA presents its candidates and policies, it’s clear they represent Socred policies and their defeat will send a message to the Socreds that will be taken into account in the upcoming provincial elec- tion. COPE’s leaflet spells out the candidates’ policies: a return to boards of the power to tax industrial and commercial properties, and relieve the burden placed on residential taxpayers, adequate funding for English as a second languages (ESL) services, local control over budgets and the use of school property, and a restoration of “healthy staff relations.” COPE has already found its support. Ina survey of selected households in 50 polls Jan. 2 and 3, COPE found that 73 per cent of those polled were aware of the coming byelection and the issues behind it. COPE workers also found, however, that of the respondents, some 80 per cent had no © children in Vancouver schools. COPE campaign workers say that shows that the support for the COPE school board is there. The task is to convince voters that, whether or not they are parents with child- ren in the school system, their vote counts in the drive to reject once and for all Socred restraint policies. The campaign swung into high gear last weekend with the distribution of most of the 50,000 leaflets urging Vancouver voters to “return your COPE school board.” The remainder of the leaflets are being distrib- uted this week. The next phase of the brief campaign began Monday with volunteers staffing phones in the daily telephone canvass to _ establish the basis of support among the Vancouver electorate. It runs from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on week nights, and all day on Satur- days and Sunday, until Jan. 27. Also ready for distribution are hundreds of large and medium sized lawn signs, and window signs are reportedly in production. On Jan. 30, “E Day,” hundreds of volun- teers are needed for scrutineering, phoning and other activities to pull out the vote, COPE staff stress. They point out that, internally, the sup- port is there. The forces involved in the unprecedented unity forged in the byelec- GARY ONSTAD CARMELA ALLEVATO CHRIS ALLNUTT tion to re-elect Ald. Bruce Yorke — including the Vancouver and District Labor Council, the B.C. Federation of Labor and the civic unions, as well as several NDP constituency associations — have commit- ted their forces to the school board race. But it’s the people — who through the commission and several newspaper polls — and attendance at rallies last summer and fall, expressed their anger at the Socreds’ disbanding of the elected school board — who will make the difference, said Wein- stein. through cutbacks, as the elected school board had maintained, and in fact had to run up a $7.1-million deficit to cover — government underfunding, Weonstein said: “We have been vindicated as a board. “There’s that sense among citizens that _ what was done tothe Vancouver board was undemocratic. This election constitutes a tremendous victory for the people — for — parents, teachers and trustees — all of us. COPE is Icoated at the Maritime Labor — Centre. The phone number is 251-1774. Noting that appointed: trustee Allan _ Stables could not come up with any savings —