Over the past few months, Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA)’s Constitution and Policy Review Committee (CPRC) has been working to improve the structure of CUSA council. The reformed structure will ideally improve how students are represented as part of the association’s broader commitment to electoral reform. Several faculties, such as the Faculty of Engineering and Design, are significantly underrepresented with CUSA’s current council structure, so it is important that members of the undergraduate community continue to support this vital initiative.
A report of the CPRC’s progress was presented to the council on Aug. 30. The report included extensive research into the current structure, changes to student enrolment in various faculties, and an array of proposals to help improve representation. However, one proposal suggested that councillors be represented in larger faculty blocs at the expense of single-seat representation. If implemented, this proposal would eliminate direct representation for journalism and public affairs and policy management (PAPM) students by merging them with the Faculty of Public Affairs (FPA).
As the former CUSA councillor for PAPM, I oppose this proposal for three reasons.
First, a merger with bigger faculties would reduce democratic representation. For faculty elections, CUSA uses plurality voting systems rather than majoritarian or proportional ones. This produces results that may not reflect the majority vote obtainable for single-seat districts, may not allow for direct representation, and may also reduce the accountability of individual councillors. If CUSA gravitates towards multi-seat constituencies, democratic representation will be diminished rather than enhanced.
Second, the level of student engagement for students of single-seat blocs would be significantly undermined by a merger with bigger faculties. If you examine voter turnout from the 2016 CUSA elections, you will notice that only 33 per cent of students in the FPA voted. Journalism and PAPM students voted at much higher rates, at 57 per cent and 71 per cent respectively. Obviously, there is a huge gap between the engagement levels of the FPA and the students of journalism and PAPM. A modification that undermines democratic representation of highly engaged constituencies will likely discourage their motivation to participate in the democratic process. If the result of a proposal designed to improve democracy directly reduces engagement, it clearly must be avoided.
Third, a merger of single-seat constituencies with other programs may not be beneficial to the students of a broader faculty. The separation of journalism and PAPM was likely proposed to curb the overrepresentation of these two programs in their faculty bloc, allowing for the other less-engaged departments of the FPA to have their voices heard. If CUSA adopts the proposal, the FPA again risks being dominated by the students of only two or three programs. A disproportionately stacked FPA bloc might be advantageous for PAPM and journalism, but would be bad for the rest of the faculty when one considers the voting system used to elect those councillors.
Former US president James Madison once said that the effect of representative democracies “is to refine and enlarge the public views.” CUSA can enlarge “the public view” by preserving its single seat representation and by offering it to more students. The faculty-oriented proposal will harm representation for both single seat constituencies and whole faculties.
