The Carleton Student Academic Government (CASG) has decided to pull its proposed levy increase question off this year’s election ballots due to a debated decision about the particular wording of the question.
The move comes after a Carleton University Students’ Association electoral meeting reworded the original CASG question in a manner that clouded the amount of the proposed levy raise and omitted CASG’s reasoning for the fee raise from the ballot, according to CASG president James Splinter.
A particular point of contention is the amount of the proposed raise, which on the revised ballot question is $1.75, something Splinter said is a misrepresentation of the true amount.
Splinter said CASG has responded by bumping the question off this week’s ballot because it felt that the new revised wording morphed the question, and as a result it had little chance of winning approval.
“It’s not worth the effort to campaign for this referendum,” Splinter said, “when there is little chance of winning.”
Instead, Splinter said CASG will wait for next year’s elections to re-submit their question.
The proposed fee raise is designed to help fund some CASG initiatives. These include a new online database, which would feature an open online forum for students, course outlines and other material, as well, as a new newspaper, according to Splinter. However, the proposal itself was drawing some heated feedback from the Carleton student body.
“I think that tuition fees are already high enough,” said second-year law major Jon O’Neill, “and they should definitely not raise any fees.”
Yet, some students are more sympathetic to the cause, and are waiting for some more information.
“I’m not opposed to it, as it would most likely be of benefit to all students,” said first-year computer science student Justin Campbell, “but I’d have to read more into it.”