Wednesday, October 28, 1992 PAGE = * = Op OurWiEWS Adrian RAESIDE National hangover at was supposed to be Canada’s coming out party has turned into its biggest hangover. Millions of dollars and 18 million votes later, Canadians have said ‘no’ to unity. The Charlottetown Agreement was defeated Monday, much to the chagrin of its proponents who fought for its adoption. The no vote doesn’t come without ramifications, however. Expect Quebec nationalists to seize the day, calling for a referendum on that province’s place within our nation. Expect aboriginal leaders to bang the drums of self-government, tying our governments’ hands through lengthy negotiations in an effort to promote an unrealistic agenda. Expect our politicians to look within themselves for answers that cannot be found. And expect a besieged Prime Minister Brian Mulroney to step down as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party after two ill-fated constitutional packages. The defeat of the Charlottetown Agreement isn’t cause for celebration. Instead, it is cause for concern. The message Canadians delivered through this no vote is that we — as a nation — are unable to reach a consensus, unable to look beyond our vested interests and unable to separate rhetoric from common-sense reality. We should not kid ourselves about this no vote, our future is in doubt. Now more than ever. Dear sir/madam : it interesting, it needs major revisions ond does nt meet our Teguiremeants at this tine. NOVA SCOTIA SASKATCHEWAN QUEBEC ALBERTA ie MANITOBA BRITISH COLUM S° Council expands its authority? You have to wonder if own house is in order and Castlegar council has taken up permanent residence in the Twilight Zone as it stumbles from one controversy to another. Just when the words Price Waterhouse are fading from the lips of Castlegar residents, council is once more the subject of coffeeshop chatter. What’s different this time is that council initiated the chin-wagging and it is about an issue only remotely Comments from the Crossroads free of criticism, cast an eye over the school district’s operations and came up with some suggestions. Among them: © school trustees should be elected, but only have the power to advise; ¢ the superintendent of schools be appointed by the province; * teacher contracts be bargained province-wide instead of locally; related to city business. I’m talking about council’s submission to the provincial government education ding review panel. Just how much does the City of Castlegar have to do with education funding, you ask? Well, it collects the school taxes from those property owners living within the municipal boundaries and then turns the money over to the Castlegar School District. That's it. But council, apparently content that its Councillor Lawrence Chernoff — burned once by the Price Waterhosue issue and now twice shy — quickly distanced himself from the report, which was presented by Councillor Doreen - Smecher. (Actually, the report was two parts: the first containing the controversial recommendations about school district operations and the second about education funding. please see NORMAN page 7 wee ee ee ee] Street TALK Peter Zaytsoff Castlegar “No, it was the general talk d the province.” Nick Bonderoff Castlegar “No. Canadians felt Quebec was getting too much.” Louise Ferworn Castlegar “No. From what I saw, everyone was ready to vote no.” Margurite Genero Castlegar “No. Because it was a bogus deal.” Question: Are you surprised by the rejection of the Charlottetown Accord? Jim Farrier Robson “No. People are fed up with the politicians.” @ Wednesday, October 28, 1992 Other VIEWS! Please address all letters to: Letters to the Editor Castlegar News P.O. Box 3007 Castlegar, B.C. V1N 3H4 or deliver them to 197 Columbia Ave. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and not longer than 300 words. Letters MUST be signed and include the writer's first and o last names, address and a telephone number at which the writer can be reached between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. The writer’s | name and city or town of residence only will be published. Only in exceptional | cases will letters be published anonymously. Even in those cases, the name, address and phone number of the writer MUST be disclosed to the editor. The News reserves the right to edit letters for brevity, clarity, legality, grammar and taste. Letters tcoWHE EDITOR Can’t judge whole by actions of a few To the Citizens of Castlegar; During the recent byelection, Doug Green, (CURB's chosen candidate) was criticized by several council members for running on non issues, ie: honesty, openness and common-sense. If you were at the Oct. 20th council meeting or got a chance to see it on Shaw Cable, you would have seen a good example of why CURB was started and is still needed. Acting Mayor Jim Chapman was asked the following question by Peter Popoff (who should consider joining us as he has many of the qualities CURB stands for), “Do all the (councillors) share the same opinion that was expressed on behalf of the city at the recent provincial government’s Education Funding Review Panel in Cranbrook?” Acting-mayor Chapman started to look for a way around Popoff’s question. He stated that Popoff should ask the councillors individually after the meeting. When pressed a little more, he said he did not deny that there was some controversy over this issue but still would not answer. Coun. Kirk Duff, to his credit, tried to get the record straight. This was the reason I asked all the candidates at the recent all- candidates-forum that if they were elected would they be on council just to make friends or would they be there to represent the people and stand up and be counted. What I meant by this was that the acting mayor should have had no problems stating that the delegation was authorized to present the report and that it was passed by a majority of the city council, although council members X and Y went on record against presenting the report. With this kind of information, we will be able to support the councillors that do stand for the Castlegar we want. By the same token, we will see the councillors that have confused ideas or do not understand the ramifications of what they are voting on. To put it short and sweet; if we do not know how each councillor votes, it is much pa judging the whole by the actions of a ‘ew. Walter Flux Vice President, CURB Castlegar Smecher merely the messenger for city council The present tempest in a teapot over Councillor Doreen Smecher’s report to the provincial government obscures broader and more serious concerns. “Nobody likes the man who brings bad news,” said the Greek philosopher Sophocles, some 2,500 years ago. Other, more modern perhaps and therefore more enlightened, favor killing the messenger in preference to receiving the message. Coun. Smecher seems to have joined the list of candidates for slaughter. Why, I cannot comprehend. The report is concise and to the point and it took me (a not particularly fast reader) about three minutes to grasp its contents and generally agree with the implications. That is, on the basis of claims of personal rights, individual and _ collective responsibilities in the provincial educational system have become dangerously eroded and must be addressed immediately. The areas of responsibility have become so fractured that boards and bureaucrats are serving several masters, which in fact often makes them accountable to none, particularly in finances. That is, the ball doesn’t stop here, it never stops at all. When I came to Castlegar to teach in 1947, Stanley Humphries chaired the unpaid school board for the newly united School District No. 9 (Castlegar). School inspector Mike Clay was responsible for this district, as well as the Lower Arrow Lakes, Grand Forks and Boundary and every school and every new teacher got an annual report. Charlie King ran the board office with one part-time secretary and drove school bus for some while. The ball stopped at the principal’s office, which remained long in authority and teachers were responsible for the success of their classes. It was the same throughout the province. The areas of accountability were clear and co-operation in the pursuit of a common cause — education — was the accepted norm. The numbers of students has increased greatly in the interval, but bureaucracies have exploded, while co-operation and trust have disappeared in clouds of suspicion and empire building. A recent article entitled ‘There are no quick fixes to the mess we are in’, columnist and critic Link Byfield, writes: “No matter where you turn these days you find an explosive mood of pent-up rage among normal, child-raising tax-gouged people. We are tired of living in a social anarchy... There is now a paranoid determination, very evident in media and education cliques, that however angry we are, we must above all else refuse to restore the oppressive conformist of the 50s. We must not return to sensibly rigorous schooling, sensible legislation... and sensible limits on government. These, they charge, are reactionary attempts to ‘turn back the clock’ and ‘hide from modern complexities.’ Instead, we should press on, they say. Where, we ask. They never answer.” Unfortunately, this soaring bureaucracy, this flight from responsibility and accountability, is not peculiar to the educational system. It is endemic in our entire culture (using the word loosely). It is dangerous illness in our society. Murdering the messenger does not change the message. It’s time, Mr. Editor, that we looked out and listened to what is happening around us now. John A. Charters Castlegar Norman continued from page 7 Smecher was to present the first and Mayor Audrey Moore the second, but when Moore was un- able to attend, Smecher presented both parts on behalf of the city). Chernoff argued that he didn’t have enough time to digest the re- port’s ramifications. Fair enough. Sometimes things are presented that appear innocu- ous and really aren’t. But you have to wonder if the other mem- bers of council were asleep at the wheel when this report came be- fore them. Couldn’t the councillors see that the report is inflammatory? Take this line: “The trustees are little more than a political group that often comes to the table with a single agenda and purpose.” With one swipe Smecher tarred every school trustee, in effect ac- cusing them of subordinating edu- cational issues to their own politi- cal objectives. Does council really believe this? Certainly the school board is political — trustees are elected, af- ter all — but then so are council- lors. There’s more than a little irony in Smecher accusing trustees of being politically motivated in light of the Price Waterhouse findings on council's political interference. As for a provincially-appointed superintendent, no thanks. I’d rather have direct access to the superintendent and locally-elected trustees, than to have to go through Victoria. Case in point: the Kinnaird El- ementary Parent Advisory Coun- cil has been trying for years to get a light at the corner of Columbia Avenue and 24th Street. The district highways manager was supposed to get in touch with us about it. That was nearly a year ago. If that’s provincial gov- ernment response to local con- cerns, I don’t want it. Smecher’s proposal for a provincially-appointed superin- tendent contrasts sharply to the way the Castlegar school board se- lected its new superintendent, Everette Surgenor. Some 13 people sat in on the in- terviews with the three prospec- tive candidates. I know. I was one of the 13, representing parents in the school district. The rest of the interview team included representatives from teaching and non-teaching staff, the administrators’ and, of course, trustees. All the various stake- holders in the education system. (This method also contrasts sharply with the way Castlegar council selected its administrator, : Gary Williams. There was nowhere near the same communi- ty involvements.) As for local bargaining, the city knows better than anyone its pit- falls. After all, it was Castlegar coun- cil that set the standard for the whole of the West Kootenay- Boundary when it agreed to the above-average 11 per cent wage increase over two years for its CUPE workers. Not only does it seem that council is taking up permanent residence in the Twilight Zone, but it is doing so inside a very fragile glass house.