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LAs target { parents’ PST protest

WY parent sparks B.C.-wide demonstration

Katharine Hamer

News Reporter katharinc@nsnews.com

PARENTS from across the province got on the blower Tuesday, voicing their displeasure at the provincial policy of charging PST on school equipment.

72 Pages The Voice of North and West Vancouver since 1969 www.nsnews.com § ; FREE

The protest was organized by West Vancouver parent Richard Kinar, who was dismayed to find a lirge tax bill slapped on tep of the $30,000 he'd help raise tor playground equipment at Caulfeild elementary.

PST is charged selectively on school equipment, under guidelines which suggest disposable items such as chalk should be tax-free, white permanent fixtures, like playground equipment, are subject to taxation.

Two-thirds of the GST charged on school materiais is refunded by the federal government -— a policy not shared by the prov

Kinar and co-organizer Marion Cunningham distriluited information to Parent Advisory Committees (PACs) throughout B.C., asking parents to contact their local MLAs and the ministries of education and finance in Victoria on Tuesday

“Ir went very, very well,” said Cunningham. “(West Vancouver- Garibaldi MIA) Ted Nebbeling had his first phone call at 7 a.m., and F was on the phone all day.”

Ministry of Finance communications officer Colleen Davis said that a total of 24 phone calls had been received by the finance and education min- istrics.

“The numbers were quite low,” she said. “We were geared up for some- thing a littic more active.”

Kinar staged a press conference at Cauifeild school Tuesday morning which was attended by local news media, Around 30 parents came to hear Kinar, Ted Nebbeling, and West Vancouver School District 45 trustee David Stevenson speak.

Although he said he thinks the Parent Protest Day went “very well,” and was told by operators that phone lines were “much busier than usual,” Kinar is skeptical about ministerial promises.

“1 don’t have great hope,” he said, “(then-cducation minister) Paul Ramscy said in June that it was a fudicrous tax and that it would be reviewed.

“One way or another they should have got back to us by now. F per- sonally feel they've done nothing. I really don’t believe they’ve reviewed the issue, period,” said Kinar.

The creation of a PST task torce was announced shortly before the scheduled protest, which Kinar was then asked to call off. He did not do so.

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long protest. Most said th Nebbeling said he arrived at his office at 7:45 a.m. and the phone “didn’t

stop ali day.” ARGYLE Pipers’ Reilly Lochhead (right) batites Handsworth Royals’ Katherine Benjamin for the ball Thursday in the North Shore junior girls field hockey final at Hugo Ray Park. Tha teams shared

See Task force page S the title after the game ended in a 1-1 tie.