Disqualified Change slate and elected vice-president (student services) candidate Ashley Courchene is continuing his campaign to challenge his dismissal from the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA).
Courchene and his former campaign manager Adam Carroll launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise $10,000 in April, the legal fees associated with pursuing a court injunction to prevent incumbent vice-president (student services) Frena Hailekiros from assuming the position. This leaves the position empty until either further legal action is taken or be reinstated in the job.
Courchene was then disqualified by the CUSA electoral board, along with the entire Change slate, over allegations of impersonating a professor and campaigning on voting days.
The electoral board later repealed the disqualification after appeals from the Change slate, but the Your Carleton team appealed the decision once more to the Constitutional Board. The Board upheld the initial disqualification and rejected further appeals by the Change slate.
Carroll said this push for an injunction is about respecting democracy and the wishes of students.
“CUSA is using student dollars to defend itself, but [Courchene] is functioning off his own savings,” Carroll said. “We hope that people see the importance of keeping the Carleton undergraduate student association accountable to their actions and accountable to students.”
Courchene said his disqualification is creating such a big controversy because more than 2,500 students are being denied the representation they voted for.
“If [Hailekiros] did not win the elections, she should not be taking office. This has nothing to do with her as a person,” Courchene said. “We have maintained a professional working relationship through this. However, because the disqualification process of last year’s elections was so flawed, we feel that the position needs to be vacant until all this can be sorted out.”
Courchene added that all the CUSA councillors should be familiarizing themselves on the CUSA constitution, bylaws, policies, and the Corporations Act.
Both sides first appeared in court on April 29 initially with CUSA president Fahd Alhattab present. Alhattab said the judge made it clear they could not proceed until all the proper respondents in the case were present.
CUSA, Alhattab said, is made up of two bodies: the association, which is composed of anyone who pays fees, and the corporation, which is made up of the board of trustees and all of council.
“I definitely see where [Courchene] is coming from, and I see how he feels that there is an injustice,” Alhattab said. “[Courchene] chose to be a part of a team, he chose to involve himself with those individuals, and these elections are won and lost with teams . . . a team is what makes these elections happen . . . and in this case, when teams cheat, teams also get disqualified because of individual members.”
While the injunction names CUSA Inc. as a respondent, Alhattab said the corporation doesn’t have a hand with the election process, meaning that the association would need to appear in court.
The problem, he said, is that legally the association is not considered to be a person and as a result, the association needed to name an independent representative to appear in court on its behalf.
Given the short notice, the council agreed that Shawn Humphrey, the current council chair would be their best choice for representation, since he is not a member of the corporation.
Alhattab said CUSA has paid $40,000 in legal fees on this case.
If Courchene is reinstated into vice-president (student services), Alhattab said he is willing to work with him.
“We’ve worked very well with all parties, we saw that last year very closely with Sean Smith as the vice-president (student life). We will work with whoever is the vice-president (student services) as a team,” Alhattab said. “We all share in collective programming, we all decide what the actions are of the association . . . we will work with whoever comes will be a part of that collective decision making.”
The Indiegogo campaign links to a separate website, justiceforcarleton.ca, which appears identical to justiceforash.ca. The campaign has raised $788 as of May 25. The court decision’s is yet to be made.
–With files from Anna Sophia Vollmerhausen
