This study investigated fees in public schools in seven school districts of British Columbia. A conceptual framework was formulated from issues in the literature on privatization, principles of taxation, school fee law and practices, and the public/private sectors of education. The framework was then applied to study the occurrence of school fees in public education and their effects on students. Purposive sampling techniques were employed to select districts, schools, and personnel for the study. Selection criteria included size, wealth, location and ethnic composition of districts and schools. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a total of fifty-four professionals including school district officials, school administrators and teachers. The data were analyzed using qualitative techniques. Explanations for current fee practices included: 1) financial and budgetary limitations; 2) the philosophy of users' pay; and 3) an educational policy on voluntary educational pursuits. Fees as a source of revenue to maintain, improve and introduce educational services occurred in four categories: curricular, extracurricular, incidental, and supplementary and special. Administrators at the district and school levels emphasized that fee waivers, bursaries and reimbursements could be applied where necessary. However, costs could not always be absorbed by the school and, needy students were not always easily identified. Schools varied in the degree to which they experienced fee administration difficulties. Most principals indicated that the elimination of all school fees would result in curtailment or discontinuation of certain activities and items. Educators agreed that psychological and social effects from charging fees were also important concerns. Main conclusions are: 1) the benefit principle and ability-to-pay principle are both used to justify school fees; 2) school policies and laws define the application of fees according to required and non-required curricula, thus fees are encountered chiefly for course electives and voluntary activities; 3) by charging fees, schools are able to provide resources necessary for student programs and activities; 4) fees can negatively impact on student participation and psychology. Two policy directions are suggested based on the principles of benefit and abilityto- pay: the maintenance of current levels of fees and the augmentation of fee in public schools.

This thesis examines gambling in British Columbia and reviews the failed Seaport Centre casino proposal for downtown Vancouver. The third wave of gambling sweeping across North America started when the state of Nevada re-legalized casinos in 1931, and underwent a major boom with the introduction of the first state lottery this century in New Hampshire in 1964. Since this time, virtually every state and provincial government in North America has introduced some form of legalized gambling. This thesis examines the third wave of gambling, and the rise of the urban casino which began to emerge in the late 1980's and early 1990's. The rise of the urban casino provides policy makers significant urban planning considerations. First, a review is conducted of the literature on gambling, illustrating the new phenomenon in gambling - the urban casino. Second, an analysis and history of gambling in Canada and British Columbia is explored. Third, a case study on the Seaport Centre casino proposal for Vancouver's downtown waterfront is documented, illustrating the issues associated with urban casinos from a planning perspective. The thesis documents the history of gambling in North American society. The current gambling wave sweeping the continent has been described as the third wave of gambling. Driving the most recent wave of gambling has been governments revenue imperative, promotion of gambling interest from business and certain interest groups and consumers demand for gambling games. As casinos moved to the forefront of the gambling explosion, the rise of the urban casino provided complex urban planning considerations. The case study on the Seaport Centre casino proposal for Vancouver provides a good framework for understanding the issues associated with urban casinos, many of which are local in nature. While the Seaport Centre proposal ultimately failed, the comprehensive analysis the City of Vancouver conducted serves as a useful guide for policy makers to understand the issues associated with an urban casino.

Limited research has been conducted into First Nations' healing, particularly in the area of First Nations' spiritual connection. First Nations' spiritual connection is perceived to be important from a counselling perspective. The intent of this study was to construct a fairly comprehensive guide of what helps and what hinders spiritual connection among members of British Columbia's (BC's) First Nations, through a First Nations' voice. Eleven adult members of First Nations living in BC were interviewed to obtain information in the form of critical incidents regarding what helps or what hinders spiritual connection. From these interviews, 29 categories were described as what helped or hindered spiritual connection. These are: ceremonial activities, Elder's teachings/guidance, establishing a connection with nature, prayer, family connection, changing thinking, spiritual beliefs, supernatural experiences, residential school, helping others, seeking help, dreams, role model, spiritual practices, self awareness/self acceptance, receiving your name, cultural preservation/ reclamation, sacred object, First Nations' traditional beliefs, alcoholism and drug recovery, visions, establishing social connection, creative activity, philosophy of life, joining organized religion, teachings/guidance, cultural connection/cultural awareness, relationship to the Creator, speaking a traditional First Nations' language. The findings of this study contribute to the field of counselling psychology by providing a reasonably comprehensive scheme of categories and themes that describe, from a First Nations' perspective what facilitates spiritual connection.

Greenways are linear open spaces, sometimes called "Green Links" which connect parks, Nature preserves, cultural features, historic sites, neighbourhoods, schools and shopping areas. They are often located along either natural corridors like ocean fronts, rivers, stream valleys, ridgelines, or built landscapes such as rail rights-of-way converted to recreational use, canals, trails, scenic roads, lanes or dedicated or shared streets. In the city of Vancouver there is a great opportunity to establish a link between Trout Lake, located in East Vancouver, and False Creek, located in the heart of Vancouver. The mission for this thesis project is to design a greenway connecting Trout Lake to False Creek with special focus on ecological enhancement and stormwater management. The Route itself has already received citywide support in City Plan approved in 1995. The Greenway, as indicated in the report, will connect Trout Lake to False Creek via the Grandview Cut. With city policy supporting the greenway, the bulk of the thesis is incorporating ecological enhancement and stormwater management into the design. Stormwater from the Trout Lake watershed will be brought to the surface, cleaned through biofiltration by wetlands, and used to sustain a stream, which flows year round to False Creek. By design the stream will be able to support a number of fish habitat, such as Coastal Cutthroat, Coho Salmon, and the endangered Salish Sucker, to name a few. As the Greenway reaches False Creek Flats there is an opportunity to daylight (bring to the surface) two of Vancouver's historic lost streams: China Creek, and Brewery Creek. The study begins with a series of large-scale context analyses, looking at how the proposed Grandview Greenway fits into the city of Vancouver as a whole. The analyses include topography, hydrology, watershed boundaries, utilities, openspace, circulation, structures, zoning, and how cultural views and perceptions of the environment have changed over the past 50 years. Trout lake watershed in its built form is the next area of focus. Starting at the individual lot, an analysis of the current condition is identified as it relates to stormwater management. Suggestions are made to increase the amount of groundwater infiltration, while reducing the amount of surface runoff collected in the watershed. Runoff calculations for the watershed illustrate the limits to the proposed system ie. the maximum size of wetland needed to store and treat all stormwater runoff before it enters Trout Lake, and the minimum flow the creek will require during summer dry periods. All calculations support the feasibility of the proposed greenway in its entirety. Route options are explored to connect the stream to the Grandview Cut, followed by the detailed design of the Grandview Cut to accommodate the stream, pedestrians, cyclists, the existing rail line, and wildlife. Once in the False Creek Flats, route options are once again explored to link the stream to False Creek. Now in the industrial section of the greenway route, the form of the stream changes from a model of a natural system to that of an urban canal. This allows the system to accommodate more water, while using less total land area. China Creek Park is the next detailed design focus. The goal is to daylight China Creek through the park and connect it to the Grandview Greenway system. It is proposed that for this section of the greenway, the initiative be entirely derived through community groups as well as special interest groups, rather than by the City of Vancouver. What is proposed is at a smaller scale with less intervention to the Landscape. The final stage of the proposed greenway is the estuary as it enters False Creek near Science World. Detailed design shows how the canal enters False Creek and how it relates to Science World, the Sea Wall, and to the proposed Sustainable Community of Southeast False Creek.

Industrial land use and economic policy created by the City of Vancouver between 1968 and 1991 is analysed within a context of economic restructuring to illustrate how these types of policies may be improved. Within this time frame, the City of Vancouver had three distinct periods of policy development that were largely delineated by local political and economic factors. The first period was characterised by a liberal-based civic party in control of the local administration, a healthy urban economy, and a post-industrial sentiment that did not support the industrial community and resulted in a significant decrease in the city's supply of industrial land. In the second period, an increasingly left of centre local government was forced to contend with the poor economic conditions of the early 1980s; consequently, the industrial sector and the economy as a whole received considerable attention and support from the local government. The third period was characterised by the re-birth of post-industrialism and a right of centre administration with little interest in economic planning or maintaining an industrial sector in the City of Vancouver. The main lessons to be drawn from this policy analysis are (1) that the modern economy will continue to change rapidly and generate significant consequences and challenges for civic governments, (2) there are benefits to planning for the future rather than simply accommodating change as it happens, (3) the short sighted agendas of politicians need to be tempered by an assessment of the long term consequences of policy development and implementation, (4) there needs to be co-operation between the region's numerous public bodies to ensure complementary policy development across municipal boundaries, and (5) governments need to be proactive and engage in economic planning during both growth and recessionary economic periods in order to embrace new economic opportunities as they arise, mitigate the negative consequences that change often generates, and help produce strategic visions for planning purposes.

The hybrid nature of the building's program became the central idea behind the design of the project. The combination of office, retail and library funcions was an attempt to investigate the possibility of integrating a public amenity space directly within a private building. The implication of such a collision of uses was not only the potential for public cost savings and the promotion of public construction, but as well a possibility of the creation of a symbiotic relationship between these two forces. The private spaces of the building could make use of some of the public, while the public spaces could make use of some of the private. The project took on a diagramatic and absract nature early on, detatched architecturally somewhat from surrounding site conditions in order to investigate the possibilities of connecting and overlapping the building's public and private uses. An early series of diagrams and sectional sketches began to shape the building in its beginning. The three major elements of the program (office, library and retail) were initially separated vertically in space. The retail occupied the ground floor, the library the second, and the offices the final and third. However, the idea of interrelation of the spaces required a greater extent of overlapping and mixture. Thus, the strategy of a split-level shceme started to emerge. The three separations remained somewhat intact, however separated by intermittent split levels. These split levels contained spaces which could relate to either the floor directly above or below. The idea was that these 'shared' spaces could contain elements of the program which could be used by both library and retail, or by both office and library. The net result was a 'saving' of space, as well as a mixing of public and private functions. Yet, with the mixing of public and private uses came the architectural issue of building security. How could a public book enter and leave a retail store? How could a private office be contained from public access? Would the separate retail units truly relate with the library space? Were there more possibilies for more double uses? The library took on the role of both public amenity and private retail enterprise at this point in the project. The move seemed to satisfy both issues of security and interrelationship between public and private functions. The security system of the library would double as the cash desk; the library stacks would contain both borrowable books and commercial retail goods for consumption; the seating for the library would also provide for the in-house cafe-bar; library staff would also function as staff for the shared smaller offices on the second floor. In this sense, the combination of private and public functions not only reduced the need for excess (publically funded) space, but aslo presented the idea of a saving of maintenance and operational costs. The location of the building in Whistler village was done for two main reasons: the town, at present, is currently without a permanent library for a rapidly growing full-time population; and the town, as a resort municipality, relies heavily on its commercial activity in order to energize its main, public pedestrian outdoor mall. The specific site of the building was a point in the village which related both directly to this pedestrian mall as well as an adjacent shopping centre, intended for the vehicular traffic and use of the more full-time residents of Whistler Village. Here the full time residents coming in to use the library could perhaps discover its second commercial nature, while tourists may make use of the public use of the building while going in soley to shop. The building would then be a place where both full-time residents and incidental tourists could both come, interacting within the same building for an array of different reasons. Architecturally, the building was a modest success: the issue of security had been adressed and overlapping of private and public functions was explored in the building. However, the notion that a library would become a highly commercial retailer still seemed improbable; even in an age of decreasing government spending and reliance upon the private sector for public services, the difficulty in motivating a traditionally public sector into an entrepreneurially self-sustaining enterprise prevented the likelihood of its construction.

Since the early 1990s, the Vancouver Police Department has embarked upon coproductive service arrangements with various geographic communities throughout the city of Vancouver. Through the vehicle of storefront crime prevention offices (CPOs), local communities and the police are working in partnership to problem-solve around local crime and safety issues. Three models of crime prevention offices have emerged: ethnic-specific, police-run, and community-run. This thesis focuses on a case study of the community-run model—community crime prevention offices (CCPOs). Through participant observation, key informant interviews, analysis of policy documents and a review of the respective literatures on community policing and community crime prevention theory and practice, the present case study was examined. Key informants revealed basic partner expectations. The community expect the police to be accessible to the offices through their physical presence and by ongoing two-way communications regarding community crime-related concerns. The police, in return, expect the CCPOs to provide a conduit through which community needs and priorities can be communicated to them. Each partner brings to the office function different responsibilities. The community is responsible for maintaining adequate levels of community support for office programs and services. The police provide a set level of human and material resources to all crime prevention offices. Much has been written on the rationale behind the "community-police partnership" era. However, less has been written about the effective implementation of such partnerships. While the main thrust behind the formation of CPOs has been occurring since 1994, there are still no clear guidelines set regarding partner roles and responsibilities. The future viability of CCPOs is predicated on the mutual accountability of both the community and the police. Future steps could be taken to ensure the responsibility of both partners in this process: 1) a partnership agreement should be implemented between the community and the police to clarify expectations and role contributions; 2) accountability measures should be in place to reflect partner expectations and roles; 3) the police, as public servants, should address the resource inequities which exist among CCPOs; 4) the community should ensure CCPO programming is responsive to broad-based community need; and 5) ongoing efforts should be made to enhance partner communication. CCPOs have proven to be a vehicle of great promise. CCPOs are an interesting coproductive blend of community self-help and police re-organization along community policing lines. By first addressing their commitment to each other as partners, and attending to some of the weaknesses in this present partnership configuration, a more effective partnership will result. Such a partnership will better serve their mutual goals to enhance the safety and livability of Vancouver neighbourhoods.

The interwar militia in Vancouver is a poorly understood institution, partly because scholars have come to associate the militia with militarism. However, the militia has important non-military functions and the interwar militia regiments were more than social clubs. This thesis compared the activities of two of Vancouver's militia regiments by examining their archival holdings to see if they had documentary evidence to support the notion that they functioned as a proto-fraternal society during the interwar period. The militia regiments functioned as fraternal associations providing mutual aid as well as congeniality. In the immediate post World War One period and during the Great Depression, with successively lower militia appropriations, militia regiments were forced out of necessity to come up with innovative ways to recruit and keep men on strength. Service in the militia was voluntary with members turning their pay back to the regiments to enable many of the militia regiments to function. The militia regiments held suppers and dances, and paid transportation costs to get members out for parade nights. The militia also played an integral role in the ceremonial life of the city. The ceremonial and symbolic values of militia units on parade were accepted features of public ceremonies in the city. It reaffirmed Vancouver's "Britishness." This thesis compares two of Vancouver's militia regiments during the interwar period, the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada and the British Columbia Regiment. The ethnic affiliation of the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada to the city's Scottish groups was a remarkable feature of Vancouver's elite unit. The militia allowed ambitious and patriotic young men to follow a British aristocratic career pattern: formal education at private schools, post-secondary training and military service. Militia regiments were part of an active social network within Vancouver between the wars. They conferred status, provided aid, and supported dominant values such as in Vancouver's society. This thesis provides some insight into the functioning of these two regiments as fraternal organizations and how they connected to the larger community.

This dissertation examines the characteristic features and problems of a party/movement as they pertain to the Family Coalition Party of British Columbia (FCP). The FCP is a minor provincial political party in British Columbia that was founded in 1991 to provide a formal political voice for pro-life and pro-family supporters in the province. After years of frustrated activism within the pro-life and pro-family movements and ineffectual political representation, the founders of the FCP sought to establish a political access point that could provide a more direct route to the province's political decision-making process. The result was the formation of the Family Coalition Party, a conservative political organization that supports social policies which are resolutely pro-life and promote a vision for the restoration of what is understood as the traditional family. The primary goal of the party is the advancement and implementation of such policies, with electoral success pursued as a secondary goal. This agenda renders the FCP an organization that uses a political party form to perform social movement work or functions. In this regard, the FCP exhibits the hybrid duality of a party/movement in the tradition of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and the Green Parties of Canada and Germany. In developing a sociopolitical and ideological profile of the Family Coalition Party and its politics of the family, its historical roots are traced back to the conservative political writings of Edmund Burke and brought forward to the current era of late twentieth century neoconservatism. The pro-family movement (PFM), of which the FCP is a part, is examined comparatively in the United States, where it exists in its most mature form under the auspices of such Christian Right organizations as the Christian Coalition, and in British Columbia, where the movement remains in a state of relative political infancy and organizational disunity. Despite the disparities in organizational maturation, the movements in both countries share a high degree of ideological resonance concerning their opposition to feminism, abortion, euthanasia, and reproductive technologies, and their support for increased parental control in education, programmes that will promote the traditional family, and a minimalist state. To understand the duality of the Family Coalition Party as a party/movement, it is first analyzed as a social movement organization (SMO) and then as a minor party in Canadian politics. Using contemporary social movement theory, the Family Coalition Party is found to exhibit the same traits and problems as those typically characteristic of the New Social Movements, despite the ideological disparities between the two. To this end, the FCP can be understood as a sub-type of New Social Movement, a Resurgence Movement, as it attempts to simultaneously resist one type of social change while promoting another by working to re-establish a diminishing set of normative cultural beliefs. As a minor political party of protest, the FCP, with reference to relevant political science research, is seen to embody the motivations, features and difficulties of minor parties as evidenced in the Social Credit League, the CCF, and the Green Party. In this regard the emergence of the FCP is symptomatic of a cadre party system that fails to adequately represent issues important to an aggrieved segment of the population and also experiences the institutional obstacles of the Westminster parliamentary model of political representation. In examining the FCP as a party/movement, four ways of analytically relating political parties and social movements are reviewed before a fusionist perspective is used to identify the characteristic features and problems of party/movements. Three sources of tension (organizational, institutional and cultural) are subsequently identified. These tensions are one of two types: they are either difficulties unique to party/movements, created by the deliberate fusing of party form with movement function; otherwise, they are problems common to every SMO or minor political party striving to achieve political legitimacy and potency. For party/movements, the challenge of resolving this latter set of problems is exacerbated beyond the level of difficulty experienced by single identity organizations precisely because of their dual identity. The experience of other party/movements, such as the CCF and the Green Parties of Canada and Germany, suggests that their specific tensions make it difficult to maintain a dual identity, with a drift towards either political institutionalization or dissolution likely, if not inevitable. While the Family Coalition Party is presently maintaining its party/movement nature, its future as such is in doubt unless the tensions of fusion that it now faces are effectively managed.

This thesis was the result of a study conducted for the call-centre at the Workers' Compensation Board of British Columbia (WCB). The management at WCB wanted to understand the nature and pattern of calls at their newly opened call-centre. The purpose of this was to provide an efficient customer service while streamlining the flow of calls coming to the call-centre. An extensive data collection exercise was undertaken at the call-centre and two other units of WCB with which the call-centre interacts. The data analysis revealed that a high proportion of calls were related to transfers to these departments. There were also calls related to routine inquiries on claim payment cheques and forms that could potentially be handled by a well designed IVR system. Based on this understanding the development of an effective IVR system was proposed to address the problems that were discovered through documenting the nature and pattern of calls. An extensive review of literature was undertaken to design a new system according to the standard industry guidelines suggested by the best practices and customized to WCB's business needs. Two alternate scripts were developed after analysing the source and purpose of calls to WCB. One was 'person specific' and the other was 'task specific'. The two scripts were tested on students at WCB through a computer-based IVR simulation. The results of the student survey provided evidence that introducing additional options and use of simple and clear instructions in the new scripts could potentially in fact address the problems discovered in the study and they were preferred over the existing WCB script. The IVR simulation is reconfigurable and can be used in future studies to gather further evidence in support of the results obtained in this thesis as well as refine scripts before putting them in a production mode.