Following fraud allegations against its executives, the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa (SFUO) is facing a new competitor.
A group of students have formed a new group named the University of Ottawa Student Union (UOSU) seeking to replace the current student government.
The University of Ottawa announced it will be ending its agreement with the SFUO as two executives are currently under investigation for fraud. The current agreement ends on Dec. 24.
Tiyana Maharaj, a member of the new committee who formed UOSU, said it first started with looking for accountability from the current student union but morphed into a new student union.
“We’ll now have the opportunity to provide an organization that is more accountable and transparent than the SFUO was,” she said.
Earlier this month, the SFUO pursued an Accountability Agenda, according to Paige Booth, vice-president (external) and interim president for the SFUO.
She said the agenda included several governance motions passed by SFUO’s Board of Administration “with the goal of opening democracy for the University of Ottawa students.”
Booth said the biggest motion was that the Board of Administration will no longer be able to overturn the vote of students at the General Assembly, where undergraduate students vote on governance, bylaws, policies, campaigns, and budgets.
This motion was also a point on the UOSU’s provisional constitution.
Moe Abu Rouss, another member of the UOSU committee, said none of the people on the committee would run for an executive position if UOSU becomes the new student government at the university.
“Our mission is to put in a student government in place with a good constitution, a clean, a new and refreshed constitution . . . that respects all students and ensures the corruption and the issues the SFUO went through doesn’t happen again,” he said.
According to Abu Rouss, the UOSU provisional constitution includes a check and balance for finances.
He said if they form the new student government, an accountant would be hired on recommendation from the Board of Administration to the student body, who will have the final say.
“This accountant will ensure the finances of the [student government] is always, always clean and consistent and with no irregularities and fraud,” Abu Rouss said.
Booth said SFUO’s new Accountability Agenda will see the hiring of an external audit firm to recommend an overhaul of their financing procedures to “ensure more financial integrity.”
But Majarah said there needs to be an overhaul of the entire student government system for the agenda to work.
“The corruption runs very deep, a lot deeper than a lot of students recognize,” she said.
“Things like services and businesses and clubs have all kind of been involved in this strange area of corruption, but also kind of loyalty.”
Booth said it’s in the best interest of students to keep SFUO as their representative instead of forming a new student union.
“We’ve been here for years and years, over 50 years—we’ve been working to provide equity services and different services to students and to just erase that whole foundation and all the services we provide . . . it would have negative effects on the students,” Booth said.
“At the end of the day, the students decide the fate of who they want to represent them—it’s a student union for the students, that’s up to them.”
The SFUO is now asking the university to draft a new agreement but await the results of the forensic audit.
