Contentious referendum questions that may change the fates of several organizations on campus are headed to the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA).
CUSA’s constitution and policy (C&P) committee looking into the questions and discussed their wording but failed to reach any unanimous decisions on proposals.
Committee chair Andrew Kwai sent back a memo to CUSA chief electoral officer Sunny Cohen with several recommendations.
The memo included questions that involved removing the annual levies of the Ontario Public Interest Research Group’s (OPIRG) Carleton branch, the World Food Programme, and the Garden Spot.
The question relating to OPIRG fees was voted down by C&P, and they recommended it not be included in the referendum. However, CUSA council may still vote to include it in the referendum.
OPIRG-Carleton is a social advocacy group on campus that runs several programs and events, conducts research, and supports other working groups with social change agendas.
“[Levies] provide a mechanism through which people can fund public institutions that work for the public good,” OPIRG-Carleton board member Emma Slaney Gose said.
“So while I don’t always listen to CHUO or read the Charlatan, I do see them as important to the community . . . and see value in funding them.”
Slaney Gose pointed out that students can opt out of the OPIRG levy if they disagree with the organization. The OPIRG-Carleton levy opt-out period is advertised every year. This year, 68 students opted out.
“If only about 60 students are willing to opt out of OPIRG, after conservatives mobilized to try and get people to come and opt out, I do have my doubts,” Slaney Gose, said about whether she expected students to agree to remove OPIRG’s levy.
“Is it actually going to be a true democratic process, or is it going to be another election scam?” she said. “I think that if it is a fair question, then we have the power to mobilize and win that.”
OPIRG-Carleton needs to have a levy that students are automatically charged, rather than choosing to opt in, because students would decide not to pay in to the levy if they still received its benefits, according to OPIRG-Carleton volunteer Dan Preece.
“So with an opt-in, the problem is that with something like OPIRG, or any public good, it has a dis-incentive on an individual level to pay for this,” Preece said. He used the example of health-care plans or insurance, which all need people collectively paying into the system for it to work.
The president, and the founder of the World Food Programme (WFP) at Carleton, said they were unaware of the referendum question targeting their organization, and said they hoped the proposal would be voted down.
“For the cost of less than a cup of coffee per year per student, the Carleton undergraduate community was able to provide over 170,000 meals to children through the WFP school meals program,” Mary Renaud and Jonathan Courtney said via email.
“By acting together, Carleton university’s undergraduate community was able to accomplish more than any of us could have individually.”
They stressed that the levy does not go to their club at Carleton, but goes straight to the WFP.
In addition to the fees, however, would be the inclusion of an annual fee towards a new Student Centre Building on campus. Michael De Luca, current CUSA vice-president (finance) estimates that the building would cost about $40 million.
The questions in Kwai’s memo were:
1. “Are you in favour of retaining the annual $6.84 fee for the Ontario Public Interest Research Group?”
2. “Are you in favour of retaining the annual $2.00 fee for the World Food Program?”
3. “Are you in favour of retaining the annual $2.16 fee for the Garden Spot?”
4. “Are you in favour of implementing an annual fee of $21.00 for 2013/2014, and indexed to CPI for future years, to be used for the development and construction of a new student owned and operated Student Centre Building on the Carleton University campus?”
5. Are you in favour of reducing the CUSA Health, Dental and Accident Insurance Plan annual fee from $178.00 to $158.00 for the 2013/2014 school year?
