Carleton students could see a decrease in fees by $11 or an increase by as much as $21 per year, depending on how students vote in an upcoming referendum.
A Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) committee finalized their referendum question recommendations at a Feb. 5 meeting. CUSA’s full council will now have to approve the questions, and a referendum date will be set after that.
Questions asking students if they wished for CUSA to continue to exist or if they wished for a CUSA opt-out were removed before the Constitution and Policy (C&P) meeting started, while others remained.
At issue was the wording of a question asking students if they wished to support a $20 reduction in CUSA’s health and dental plan with no reduction in services, as well as one question that lumped together a number of levies that go to campus clubs and societies.
In its original form, the question asked: “Are you in favour of eliminating the annual $6.84 fee for the Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG), the annual $2.00 fee for the World Food Programme and the annual $2.16 fee for the Garden Spot and implementing an annual fee of $21.00 to be used for the development and construction of a new student owned and operated Student Centre Building on the Carleton University campus?”
Current CUSA vice-president (finance) Michael De Luca estimated the proposed student centre would cost about $40 million.
C&P member Sarah McCue successfully moved to have the questions separated so that the board could decide on whether to include each question on its own.
As a result, C&P will recommend CUSA council not include the question about possibly rescinding OPIRG’s levy, but include the questions asking students if they wish to rescind the levy for the World Food Programme and the Garden Spot.
The question about whether they wish to implement an annual fee for the construction of a new student centre will also be included.
Although the original student centre levy question included no end date, C&P member Arun Smith successfully amended the question to read: “Are you in favour of implementing the annual fee for $21 for 2013-2014, and indexed to CPI [Consumer Price Index] for future years, to be used for the development and construction of a new student-owned and operated student centre building on the Carleton university campus and undertake an annual public review of the fee?”
Despite hours spent arguing semantics, it’s likely that at least one of the questions will be reworded.
De Luca brought forward the question about CUSA’s health and dental plan.
He agreed to the amendments to the question although he said it was simply “formalizing what’s already been done.”
By way of explanation, he said no consensus would be reached at C&P because of “partisan divide” and that he intended to introduce a “secret” amendment at the council meeting, since ultimately council is responsible for the final decision and C&P can only recommend wording.
De Luca said his final “secret” wording could be expected shortly.
“I will hopefully send it out a week in advance,” he said. “So students can get outraged or whatever they do.”
Students will have to wait until the next CUSA council meeting to find out just what questions will appear on their ballots.
