Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) voted to begin writing policies under new formatting guidelines at a virtual meeting on March 28.
The virtual meeting was the last regular CUSA meeting before the newly elected council is seated and the association’s new bylaws come into force. The referral of three of the four scheduled motions to the Constitution and Policy Review Committee (CRPC) made for a less than 90-minute meeting.
A new policy formatting guideline
The CRPC is dedicated to reviewing the association’s governing documents and suggesting change. Gray Simms, a faculty of public affairs councillor and chair of the CRPC, proposed a new policy formatting guideline that the committee had been working on.
Simms said anyone who has looked at CUSA legislation understands these policies are often very confusing to read or don’t share the same style because there has been no set format when writing CUSA policy.
Simms said regulating how these rules are drafted is a promising solution.
“It’s a formatting guideline that hopefully future CUSA councils and CUSA boards will use when they write policy,” Simms said.
Simms added the policy defined the term ‘transparency’ so councillors could write clearer legislation to students.
Acting chief executive officer (CEO) and vice president (internal) Ahmad Hashimi was absent at Monday’s meeting making him unable to vote on the motion, but he wrote a statement encouraging council to vote in favour of adopting the policy formatting guidelines.
The motion passed unanimously.
Three motions referred to the CRPC
Hashimi also sent a letter of support for a motion to change CUSA’s current conflict of interest policy, which has been in effect since 1997.
Council reviewed a new policy outlining how to identify and handle conflict of interest cases. The policy defines a conflict of interest and delegates the vice president (finance) responsible for investigations and consequences.
Council also reviewed policies outlining how speakers can be professional and clear within council, and a process for disciplining and removing councillors.
Simms said the CRPC needs to review these policies on the basis of due process and transparency.
“This motion, as well as the two that follow, weren’t presented to the CPRC prior to coming to council,” Simms said.
Simms said these motions should be sent to the CRPC, which will review the policies and have them back to the council for the annual general meeting.
Simms has delayed motions to give councillors more time to review them before voting in the past as well. Last October, Simms asked council to delay voting on the association’s budget by a month. Last December, he asked council to delay approving their new bylaws because councillors only had one day to examine them.
Council voted to have these policies reviewed by the CRPC without debate.
CUSA is scheduled to have an annual general meeting in-person on April 4. The association has not yet specified where the meeting will be held.
Featured graphic by Sierra Mclean.
