The Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) will hold a second FundQi referendum in March, the association decided in a tense five-hour council meeting Tuesday night.
CUSA also dropped its writ of election and scheduled voting for the 2021-2022 executives Feb. 3-4.
FundQi
CUSA collected a $9.99 per-semester levy for FundQi, a service that matches students with scholarships and other funding, for the first time this semester. A referendum on the levy passed in January.
In a dramatic roll call vote after nearly two hours of discussion, councillors and executives voted unanimously in favour of the motion for a second FundQi referendum.
Cameron Davis, a CUSA councillor for the faculty of engineering and design, said he submitted the motion because of student concerns that the original vote was overshadowed by complications with the executive elections.
“This referendum is primarily about restoring trust in CUSA,” Davis said. “At the end of the day, all we want to do is give students the opportunity to decide if they value FundQi or not.”
After all undergraduate students paid the $9.99 levy this semester, roughly 1,000 students signed up to use the service and around 1,000 students opted out, receiving their levy back, according to FundQi founder Zuberi Attard.
Student Greg Dance, who attended the meeting and organized a petition for a FundQi referendum, expressed concern that a large number of students are paying for the service but not using it.
The motion moved to hold the FundQi referendum March 2-3.
“My team and I entirely support students’ right to choose what they pay for,” said CUSA president Kathleen Weary, who voted in favour of the motion. “A student should have the right … to have their voices heard in any democratic processes, including referendums.”
Discussion over the motion centred around concerns of the referendum’s wording.
The motion said that if the referendum succeeded, FundQi would become an “opt-in” service, meaning students would be automatically opted out and could choose to pay a $9.99 levy to receive FundQi’s services.
The referendum question, as passed by council: FundQi is a grant program currently in use by the Carleton University Student Association hereby referred to as CUSA. A successful referendum will make FundQi no longer a opt out ancillary fee and students will have to opt in to the fee and the service via the FundQi website before they can be charged or get the benefits of FundQi. The cost is $100 per year for a premium FundQi membership. Current students access FundQi premium for $9.99 (subject only to be increased to adjust for inflation) per academic term for a total of $20 per year but may opt out through the FundQi website should they choose to do so and should they be willing to give FundQi personal information for the reimbursement. Do you feel that FundQi should be an opt in only ancillary fee for Carleton students? A yes vote is to make FundQi an opt in only ancillary fee and a no vote is to keep FundQi as an opt out ancillary fee.
However, Carleton Academic Student Government (CASG) president Matt Gagné questioned Attard over whether the service could be sustained with a levy of $9.99 if only a small portion of the university population opted in to the service.
While Attard would not commit to a $9.99 levy and suggested tabling the motion, the motion was amended to clarify that the levy could only be increased to adjust for inflation.
“We are unsure if we are able to offer the same level of quality of service [with only some students opting in],” Attard wrote in a public chat message on Zoom.
Nathaniel Black, an undergraduate representative on the Board of Governors, said the price for the service should only be up to FundQi, as it is an independent contractor. Gagné responded that while Attard can choose the price of his service, the price that students agree to should not change.
“His product can be whatever price he wants, but once we pass this referendum, that price should be locked,” Gagné said. “I’m beginning to worry, based on the answers I’m hearing, that Carleton students are being used as a GoFundMe page. So this [levy] is not to be increased.”
In all, the motion was amended six times.
“We really wish that the [university] administration worked with us and sent out an email, at least, to all the students,” Attard said, in reference to the low number of students who signed up for FundQi this semester. “We really wish that this service got a chance to come to the table.”
Read more of the Charlatan’s FundQi coverage here.
Writ of election
A motion to drop the writ of election also passed at Tuesday’s meeting, scheduling nominations for Jan. 20-22 and campaigning for Jan. 27 to Feb. 2.
Discussion on the writ dragged on for nearly an hour, as meeting attendees questioned whether the slate system gives some candidates an unfair advantage.
Students running as part of a slate can pool their $400 in permitted expenses together. Some councillors expressed concern that slates of up to six candidates would gain an unfair advantage by only spending on one website and photoshoot, while independent candidates have to pay for that themselves.
In the most heated exchange of the night, Fèmi Joëlle Dadjo, a councillor for the faculty of public affairs, said the slate system limits the accessibility of elections and questioned why it has yet to change.
Jacob Howell, vice president (finance), said changes to the electoral code need to be brought up through committees and the elections office before a writ vote.
Dadjo said Howell had benefited from the slate system and questioned “why you would change a system that you’ve benefited from.”
Council chair Ryan Boucher said Dadjo’s statements were approaching personal attacks, which Dadjo denied. Boucher then moved on to the next question.
Pierce Burch, a CUSA councillor, motioned to strike the abstain option from the ballot because he said it splits the vote with the no confidence option, but the motion failed to pass. Student Jordan Collacutt said she had personally voted both abstain and no confidence and said they were both valuable tools for students.
CUSA general manager Travis Lindgren said it was “highly embarrassing” when the no confidence option won in 2018 and that eliminating the abstain option “could be embarrassing to the entire organization” should no confidence win again.
Five hours on Zoom
The council meeting began at 6 p.m. and concluded around 11 p.m. Shortly before it ended, a motion for a one minute time limit on questions and answers was instituted to keep things moving.
“I understand it’s getting late,” said CUSA vice president (internal) Farook Al-Muflehi when the meeting dragged into its fifth hour. “This is what the students wanted, and we’re all here serving the students.”
When a motion to fill the electoral review committee was tabled and the meeting concluded at 10:50 pm, councillors expressed relief.
“I feel like I could’ve watched the whole Hobbit trilogy in that time,” Burch said.
