In this year’s referendum, Carleton’s undergraduate students will be asked if they want to rescind the levy of the Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) at Carleton, an organization that promotes social progress on campus. If students vote ‘yes’ to this question, they might contribute to the demise of an organization that has been a part of this campus for over 30 years.
OPIRG-Carleton is not just one club. It funds and supports several other groups on campus, including Cinema Politica, a club that organizes regular movie screenings, the Leveller, an alternative campus newspaper, and Students Against Israeli Apartheid, a group that advocates for Palestine.
The organization is definitely political and the groups it supports have various biases. But these biases are clearly stated and any student who disagrees with OPIRG’s politics is free to get a refund of their levy. The refund procedure is widely advertised every year, including in the Charlatan.
The referendum question to kill OPIRG’s main source of funding is politically motivated. It has been supported by councillors who disagree with OPIRG’s politics. There is nothing wrong with this— students are free to disagree with OPIRG, and can get their money back. But voting to end the levy altogether will kill OPIRG and all the other organizations that depend on it, regardless of the many students who volunteer and believe they benefit from OPIRG’s advocacy.
If you disagree with OPIRG, try to change them from the inside. Any levy-paying student can run to be a part of its board of governors.
If students vote ‘yes’ to this question, they will destroy a long and rich tradition of student advocacy and social progress on this campus in one fell swoop, for no other reason than to satisfy the political motivations of some student politicians. θ
