The Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) debated the timing of its by-election, executives’ decisions to travel out-of-province and whether to approve this year’s budget during a council meeting on Sept. 27.
By-election drama
Council discussed the efficacy of a September by-election to fill the vacant seat of the president nearing the end of the meeting.
According to CUSA’s policies, a vacancy that occurs during the summer term should be filled with a September by-election. Arts and social sciences councillor Tyson Scott said that it would be irresponsible for council to hold an election on just a few days notice since there were only three days left in September.
“I just don’t necessarily see the merit in rushing through it and having some sort of quick election within a short amount of time just for the sake of doing it, instead of doing it properly with better preparation,” Scott said.
Scott suggested an amendment to the policy to extend the time limit for CUSA to host the election.
Following Scott’s statement, public affairs councillor Emily Sowa motioned for an order that an election be scheduled before Oct. 31 and to amend the bylaws permanently to extend the timeline.
Vice president (finance) Venassa Baptiste said that an Oct. 31 deadline would be too tight of a turnaround and too short notice for the university.
“I would love to give the university notice of what we’re doing because making sure those relationships between Carleton University and [the] Carleton University Student Association is of utmost importance,” Baptiste said.
Arts and social sciences councillor Pierce Burch said they would need to ratify the writ of the election which could not be done until next month’s meeting and that this should have been handled this month.
“I don’t even know if it’s possible to do it in October now,” Burch said. “I don’t even know when we can have this at this point.”
Vice president (internal) and interim president Ahmad Hashimi proposed a motion to have an in-camera-only session where only executives and councillors could be present so they could discuss confidential information which will be made public later.
A few councillors questioned why Hashimi wanted to move the discussion out of the public’s view. Hashimi responded by saying that he didn’t understand why people did not want to let him say what he wanted to say in private.
“I think it will solve every concern that you will have about the by-election,” Hashimi said.
Callie Ogden, vice president (community engagement), said the information will be public eventually but the executive wanted to share information with the councillors that “majorly affects” how they are planning the election.
The motion to have an in-camera-only session passed.
CUSA operating budget
Baptiste presented the budget on Sept. 15 and said during her report on Monday’s meeting she was disappointed to have only seen seven of 25 councillors show up to the presentation.
The budget presentation broke CUSA’s bylaws which state that it is the responsibility of the vice president (finance) to present the budget to council “no later than August first.”
“Seven is not a great number, it’s not my favourite number,” Baptiste said. “I was really hoping we would see more representation.”
Although public affairs councillor Gray Simms said during question period that councillors were not given enough notice about the budget presentation, Baptiste included the presentation date in her report during the August council meeting.
Simms told the Charlatan following the September meeting he received an email from Hashimi on Sept. 3 about the budget presentation and another email from Baptiste on the day of the presentation.
The first motion on the agenda was to adopt the 2021-22 CUSA operating budget, which was opposed by councillors Simms and Scott. Simms proposed a motion to delay the vote on adopting the budget since the budget had not been made available to the public yet.
“At no time did I see any attempt made to make the public aware that the budget was presented,” Simms said.
The motion to delay the vote passed.
Valentina Vera Gonzalez, vice president (student issues), said she will be traveling to Vancouver for a student union development summit in October.
Sowa asked why CUSA was allowing this trip while students are still living under very strict pandemic restrictions on campus.
“How can you rationalize sending our executives to another province in the midst of a pandemic when students can’t even use the tunnels on campus?” Sowa asked. “How can we justify interprovincial travel when we can’t even travel across campus without interruption?”
Hashimi said CUSA is not responsible for the COVID-19 prevention regulations on campus. He also said that the conference is important.
“We need those kinds of conferences to improve ourselves and to be better for you guys at the end of the day,” Hashimi said.
The second motion on the agenda was the motion to fill the ad-hoc ancillary fee reform committee. Councillors debated why there were only executives on the committee and not councillors and other students.
The motion was amended to include councillors and students and the new motion passed. Simms and faculty of public affairs councillor Nora Draper were both elected to the committee.
The next CUSA council meeting is scheduled for Oct. 25.
A previous version of this article stated Emily Sowa was elected to the ad-hoc ancillary fee reform committee. In fact, faculty of public affairs councillor Nora Draper was elected to the committee—not Sowa. The article was last updated on Oct. 6.
Featured image from Screengrab.
