March 18, 1997

@- The Panther Prints

British Columbia ignores Environment isssues

By MARINA ANTUNES

(CUP) — British Columbia’s provincial government is quickly losing interest in environmental issues, critics say.

They are concerned with Premier Glen Clark’s cabinet shuffle that gave rookie MLA Cathy McGregor the environ- ment portfolio in January. For much of the NDP’s first term the portfolio was held by the high-profile Moe Sihota.

“[The government] is saying “We’ve done a lot for the environment and we’re putting it on the back burner,’” said Doug Ragan, director of the Environmental Youth Alliance.

Joe Foy, of the Western Canadian Wilderness Commit- tee, agrees the NDP has

pushed the environment aside and shifted priorities.

“Tt’s clear to me that right from the get-go Premier Clark supported organized labour and that he is definitely turning a course away from environmental protection,” he said.

But McGregor disagrees, and defends the NDP’s envi- ronmental record. “Our government has clearly not put envi- ronmental issues on the backburner, ’she said. ““That has been demonstrated by the continued commitment to many of the programs that were begun as a result of our first term in office. An example is the protected areas strategies and the land use planning process.”

Instead, McGregor argued, the nature of the environ- ment portfolio has changed. “I think we’re understanding that the arguments are and issues are much more complex and that there are relationships in all of our activities and we need to have a coordinated approach to dealing with sustainable develop- ment and a sustainable economy,” she explained.

Computer fees

There is a new idea in the workings at UPEI to con- trol non-academic use of the computer terminals and cre- ate revenue. The idea is imple- menting a user fee for the time spent at on-line. This would mean having the students pay for the time they spend using the computers through a method which has not been decided upon yet. This idea is still relitivly new and no deci- sions have been reached.

David Cairns, Assistant Manager at Computer Serv- ices expressed that this is not a likely possibility for the forth- coming year. There will be monitoring next year to create a base line for the research it would take to implement such a fee. “ There has been con- siderable discussion going on in the committee, and we are

very concerned about a new fee for students.”

There are different ways for the fee to be imple- mented. There are three main routes administration could take.

The fee could be in- cluded in tuition ona per course basis. Tuition would risea small amount in every separate course students registered in.

Another course of ac- tion that the fee may take is to go by an hourly rate. Students would be given a certain amount ofhours using the com- puters at the first of the se- mester and any use on-line beyond the specified time pe- riod would be charged to the student.

The other route would be to not change the present situation and create a new method of control.

There are a variety of

purposes for this fee. It would cut down onnon-academic time spent on the computer, there- fore making the computers more accessible for academic uses.

"The purpose is not to raise money, it’s to control use." said John Crosely, Vice President of Academic Sup- port .

Some other purposes for this fee are to cut down on wear of the computers and, therefore reduce money spent of the maintenance of the ter- minals and to create revenue . to maintain an acceptable level of technology on the terminals at UPEI.

Cairns expressed that faculty and school orientated organisations would probably not have to pay the fee . This idea is still in the discussion phase in the committee and there are no definite plans.