Despite dialogue between the Carleton Food Collective and the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA), the Oct. 16 deadline given to the collective to merge with CUSA has passed.
The deadline passed after the collective rejected a proposal to merge, but sent CUSA a list of amendments.
CUSA made the offer to merge Sept. 24, which stemmed from the inability to organize the pay-what-you-can food service The Garden Spot, which the collective runs.
“We’re trying to come up with a system where they provide a service for students and we keep them accountable,” CUSA vice-president (finance) Folarin Odunayo said.
The collective responded to CUSA’s merger proposal with a list of amendments, which included tackling accountability issues by posting expenses and revenues on their website and decentralizing responsibilities to boost volunteer involvement.
Odunayo said that while CUSA is still open to work with them to provide a service to students, the collective has not offered up satisfactory plans for the group’s budget and transparency.
“We wanted to respond in a symbolic and practical way, so rather than simply adding amendments to their document, we produced our own document,” said Wesley Petite, a collective board member.
CUSA vice-president (student issues) Gina Parker said because the collective did not submit amendments to the original proposal, but produced a new document, CUSA did not need to respond.
“What we want to do moving forward is to have them come forward with solutions to the problems, with actual solid solutions and solid policies for the Carleton Food Collective to exist in the future years,” Parker said.
At the Sept. 24 meeting between CUSA and the collective, Odunayo said if the levy was found to not be going to a “place that we deem responsible,” CUSA would recommend to Carleton’s board of governors that the approximately $2 per student levy stop being collected.
Parker declined to say whether CUSA will go forward with this recommendation.
–With files from Chris O’Gorman
