enh

 

 

the Other pres s Wed. Feb. 4, 1976

page 3

tudents storm legislature

 

Jim Bennet adresses crowd.
[photos courtesy Martlet]

Me

UVIC Students rally outside
Legislative buildings [right]

 

 

VICTORIA (CUP)

The provincial legislature here
was surrounded Friday by three
to five hundred vehicles in a

‘protest against Social Credit

plans to substantially increase
car insurance for British Colum-
bia drivers.

Cars, trucks, jeeps, vans, and
motorcycles displaying various
anti-Socred signs ignored traffic
lights, and honked their horns as
the two-mile-long motorcade
wound its way through down-
town Victoria to the Legislative
Buildings.

Thronging the steps of the
seat of government, the crod of
about 750 young people de-

manded to see Pat McGeer,
minister responsible for ICBC,
and shouted down his executive
assistant, Jim Bennet who told
them he could only refer their
questions and suggestions to the
minister, McGeer, he said, was
in Vancouver.

He also claimed Premier Ben-
nett (no relation) was not in the
building although a policeman

- later told Martlet reporters he
“suspected Bennet was in the

Legislature.

Opposition MLA’s addressed
the crowd and were cheered
when they slammed the Socred’s
implementation of the new rates.

NDP. MLA Charles Barber

Nurses out in cold

TERRY GLAVIN

Over 400 nursing students
picketed outside BCIT on Friday
Jan. 24 in protest over the
government’s plan to close down
their training facilities, located
at the former Willingdon school

for girls.

Ihe Provincial government
plans to use the facilities as a
remand centre for juvenile de-
linquents, and the changeover is
set to take place on Match 1.

The nursing students had
been assured by the Registered
Nurses Association that the
BCIT nursing program would
receive accreditation providing
the program would use the
Willingdon facilities by Sept. 1.

The BCIT nursing program
has’ been shifted from one
temporary facility to another
since 1967.

At the present time, the

Willingdon site is the residence
of 60 students, a school for over
100 nursing students, and is
used for recreational purposes
by 1000 students a week from
Moscrop, BCIT, and BCVS.

According to Attorney-Gen-
eral Garde Gardom, though the
delinquents will be moving in by
March 1, the BCIT resident
students will be allowed to
continue at the site, living in
another section of the building.

In a telegram to Education
Minister Pat McGeer, BCIT
Student Association president
Steve Brown protested the gov-
ernment’s arbitrary decision to
transfer authority over the site,
stating that *‘ this decision was
made with complete disregard to
these people’’.

A meeting has been planned
between Department of Edu-
cation officials, the Principal of
BCIT, and nursing representa-
tives for this week.

sarcastically told the crowd they
were being unkind to the cabinet
when they chanted ‘‘We want
the Socreds out’’.

‘*They have real trouble un-
derstanding,’’ he said sincerely.
“If you were a millionaire’s son,
you’d have trouble understand-
ing too.”’

He called the increases ‘‘un-
wise, unfair, and unnecessary”
and told the crowd to keep
making noise until the govern-
ment ‘‘gets the message’’.

Conservative leader Scott
Wallace accused the Socred
administration of being ‘‘hasty
and heartless’’ and predicted
this was ‘‘only the first boot in

 

wi

the rear end’’ for the people of
B.C.

UVic student president Clay-
ton Should said he saw no reason
why cheap government insur-
ance can’t work in B.C. when it is
working in Saskatchewan.

He also accused the Socreds of
eliminating the only real alter-
native to car travel if bus fares
are increased by B.C. Hydro as
expected,

Asked by a member of the
crowd why the government
didn’t stay within the 10%
federal price control ceiling (as it
tried to do by rolling back B.C.
teachers salary increases recen-
tly), Bennett claimed the con-

trols did not require a corpor-
ation, government of private, to
lose money.

Demonstrators challenged
what they called*the myth of an
NDP deficit, claiming the So-
creds were using the initial
capital costs of the insurance
corporation to make the NDP
look bad.

Bennett agreed to pass on an
obviously well-supported de-
mand to put the ICBC question to
a referendum.

A number of speakers pointed
to the obvious discrimination the
increases represent for young

cont'd pg. 5

 

 

 

 

BCIT nursing students picket outside Willingdon school for girls. [photo courtesy of the‘‘Link’’.]

nsdn Neamt