It has been nearly two months since a scorched-earth Carleton University Students’ Association election like none other in recent Carleton history. In an unprecedented year, the partisanship and ugliness of two weeks in late January and early February led to university intervention and a protested debate.
The campaign also illuminated fractures in CUSA’s electoral process. Issues such as conflicts of interest, the unfair advantage of slates and cyberbullying—bubbling for years—exploded at a time when students could find refuge behind a screen.
At times, online hate coming from those hiding behind an online identity led to serious mental health concerns.
At its core, the election was about fairness: the equality of opportunity for candidates and a system that some see as fundamentally unfair, privileging students who run with slates.
“Sometimes the election process just isn’t as equal as it should be.”
Ravens United won all six executive positions after years of a continued “dynasty”, where executives in consecutive years consistently overlapped. The slate captured a desire for change and ran on the slogan, “New Decade, New CUSA.”
Two weeks into campaigning, campus politics reached a breaking point. The Charlatan revisited the 2021 CUSA election, and according to those involved, there are three key areas that need fixing: social media, slates and the elections office.
Social media and online harassment
On Jan. 30, campaigning was suspended following an Instagram live stream from Ravens United presidential candidate Matt Gagné. In the live stream, Gagné said a student had posted on their social media that they were struggling with their mental health after facing harassment during the campaign.
“This election has crossed a line,” Gagné said in the live stream. “We cannot continue campaigning in the state that this election is currently in.”
The CUSA elections office later posted a statement calling for candidates to observe a “silent weekend.”
“Please do not post any material pertaining to the elections until we can ensure the safety and well-being of all candidates,” the statement said.
Following the suspension, Emily Sowa and Jordan Vecchio, CUSA councillors and candidates for re-election, released a letter to the university signed by 70 councillors and candidates. The letter asked the university to investigate and penalize students who posted “slanderous content” and offer mental health resources to students struggling during the campaign.
At the all-candidates debate, the Ravens United slate declined to actively participate to show support for those affected by the harassment. Instead, Ravens United candidates used their speaking time to call for action from the university.
Nathaniel Black, the debate moderator and a Board of Governors undergraduate representative, said he and chief electoral officer Alexa Camick reformatted the structure of the debate to ensure candidates remained focused on the issues. He said the Ravens United slate shouldn’t have protested the debate in the way they did.
“I respect the point that they were trying to make, but if they don’t want to participate in events, don’t make a spectacle out of mental health,” Black said.
Like Gagné, Black also said the university should have done more during the election to control online harassment, and that it was not until student leaders addressed the issue that the university seemed to listen.
However, Black said he recognizes the limitations of the university to investigate conduct on third-party services. He said the school’s responsibility is to offer counselling and harm-reduction services to students who need it.
At an all-candidates meeting Feb. 1, Jeremy Brzozowski, Carleton’s director of student affairs and student life, said the university would investigate the harassment, but encouraged candidates to report it to the platforms on which it took place.
“I respect the point that they were trying to make, but if they don’t want to participate in events, don’t make a spectacle out of mental health.”
In an email to the Charlatan, Greg Aulenback, director of strategic initiatives at the university, said Carleton is aware of the “issues regarding this year’s CUSA elections.”
“We take any form of harassment and bullying seriously,” Aulenback said. “We are continuing to work with CUSA, RRRA and other student groups to help identify actions to address issues around cyberbullying.”
Aulenback said the university is also working with student groups to determine the best way to support students “while maintaining the autonomy of these groups and their operations and elections.”
Black said the university treats acts like vandalism more seriously than hate speech or cyberbullying, and that Carleton’s student rights and responsibilities policy should be adjusted to change that.
The events of Jan. 30 represented a low point in the campaign. It changed the perspective of Ravens United candidate and vice-president (internal)-elect Ahmad Hashimi, who initially ran on the promise of holding all future CUSA campaigns entirely online.
Hashimi said the intention behind his promise was to limit waste, especially campaign flyers that he remembers seeing on the floor and in the garbage on campus. Restricting physical campaigning would also make elections more affordable for candidates, Hashimi said.
But after witnessing CUSA’s first fully-online election, Hashimi said his plans have changed.
Other student leaders credited some of their frustrations with the election to the fact it was held online.
Vecchio, who won his re-election campaign, said he never saw hate during in-person elections as he did this year.
With in-person elections, Vecchio said the possibility of a student crossing paths with candidates in the tunnels or around campus makes it less likely for them to harass a candidate.
“I found it more challenging to connect with people in a meaningful way versus in-person [campaigning],” said Kathleen Weary, CUSA president and Students First candidate. “The fact that it was completely online opened up more doors for higher negativity than you would have seen in an in-person campaign.”
Weary said the anonymity of an online election makes it hard to supervise student behaviour. In an ideal world, she said, the elections office would be able to more closely monitor online forums and investigate harassment to crack down on cyberbullying.
The limited number of authorized social media platforms can also disadvantage campaigners, Weary said. Rawan Abdou, the Students First candidate for vice-president (internal), lives in Egypt and was only able to use Instagram and Facebook in “limited capacities,” according to Weary.
This year, the elections office restricted campaigning to Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Twitter. The office’s decision to ban campaigning on Reddit to maintain positive politics was criticized as censorship by r/CarletonU administrators.
Tiana Thomas, an independent vice-president (community engagement) candidate, said the limited scope of permitted platforms is “leaving out a certain niche” of students.
“I don’t want to say [it’s] on purpose but it’s definitely an intentional thing to do,” she said.
Thomas said she would have liked to see the elections office establish a third-party platform for campaigning to limit the non-stop election content on social media.
Gagné also said Reddit is useful for candidates to reach students, despite the high number of anonymous accounts that hypothetically make cyberbullying more likely.
“We saw the same issues of anonymous harassment and bullying on Instagram and Facebook,” Gagné said. “If the next elections office looks at the fact that Reddit is just as accessible as any other platform … [they would see] that there’s no need to ban Reddit.”
Claudia Calagoure-Perna, the chief electoral officer of last year’s CUSA election, said she saw lots of online hate directed towards Camick this year. She said she faced harassment herself in the 2020 election, when she decided to allow students who had opted out of CUSA fees to still vote in the election.
Slates
Without the support and resources of a slate, Thomas—who ran as an independent candidate—said she believed it would be impossible for her to succeed.
Less than a week before voting began on Jan. 29, Thomas announced she was dropping out of the campaign in a Reddit post that received hundreds of comments and shares.
“What’s the point of really destroying myself mentally and physically to fight a battle that I’m ultimately going to lose?” Thomas said in an interview with the Charlatan.
Thomas’s frustrations are part of broader concerns that CUSA’s slate system, which allows multiple candidates to run as one “party,” unfairly tilts the playing field against independents.
“That’s an irony that I can’t personally deal with.”
Calagoure-Perna said while she was chief electoral officer during the 2020 election, she had to stop members of the Students First slate from using the CUSA office during the campaign.
Some students are also concerned about current executives using the CUSA office for their re-election campaigns.
One concern is that independent candidates are restricted to a budget of $400 for their campaign, while candidates running in a slate can pool their money together into a $2,400 budget to cover expenses, like photo sessions and website hosting.
Under the electoral code, campaign managers are prohibited from using, or being perceived to use, CUSA office resources.
“Certain people get to benefit from certain spaces, and I think that’s just very unfair,” she said.
Gagné pledged to hold a referendum on removing slates from CUSA elections because of the unfair advantage they give some candidates.
A referendum is necessary to ensure the decision isn’t made unilaterally, Gagné said.
Black said Gagné’s promise to be “the slate to end all slates” and reform candidate budgets is ironic.
“What we saw in this election [is] people saying they don’t like the concept of slates, yet fully taking advantage of the unfair competitive advantage they’re given,” he said.
Black said he initially planned to run on his own slate in the election but decided against it after witnessing how much pressure was being put on candidates and students alike.
“It’s ironic that [Gagné was] running saying that the process is unfair and that the rulebook needs to be thrown out,” Black said. “That’s an irony that I can’t personally deal with.”
As the incoming vice-president (internal), electoral reform next year will be Hashimi’s responsibility.
Hashimi said he was the campaign manager for independent vice-president (internal) candidate Abdo Ethar Salama in 2020, and realized then how impossible it is for independents to be elected under the current system.
“I wasn’t prepared to run with a slate, but I know without a slate it’s hard to win,” Hashimi said.
Gagné said the abolition of slates could help stop the cyberbullying and harassment candidates received on social media in this year’s election.
“I think if the referendum [to ban slates] does pass, we’ll see a lot of the animosity, the harassment, significantly decrease,” he said. “Slates are inherently part of [the harassment], and I think they’ve had a huge indirect effect on the amount of cyberbullying we’ve seen.”
Conflict of interest
Camick received criticism for an alleged conflict of interest at CUSA’s Jan. 28 council meeting. Council brought a motion to remove Camick but voted against considering it.
Camick serves as vice-president (internal relations) of the Sprott Business Students’ Society (SBSS) with SBSS president Emily Buchkowsky, who was running for CUSA vice-president (finance) as part of the Students First slate.
Calagoure-Perna said the chief electoral officer’s position can be stressful, even without criticism.
“Our [CEO] role is, ideally, running a fair and unbiased election,” she said. “We are the main office for all forms being signed, violations, accepting nominations.”
“I’m pretty sure they didn’t even have to work as executives together,” Calagoure-Perna said. “I’m pretty sure they didn’t even have contact.”
Candidates for CEO and the deputy electoral officer (DEO) positions are selected by the human resources committee, which is composed of the CUSA president and another executive, along with a member of council and three others.
The committee then recommends a CEO for council to vote on. The hiring of Camick, along with DEOs Qusai Yusuf and Ophelia Bradly, was voted on in October.
Calagoure-Perna said the system of having current CUSA executives who might be running in the election vote in the head of the elections office is a broken system. She suggested having council, an outside body or even the previous CEO hire for the position.
Gagné agreed the process is problematic.
“When executives are the one doing the hiring and the recommendation and then choose to run in the next election, there’s a clear conflict of interest there,” Gagné said. “They leave the door open to influence [and] to bullying.”
Gagné said the incoming Ravens United slate is considering alternative hiring practices when in office, such as setting up an independent body with the university to run elections or outsourcing it to a professional elections service.
Weary defended the hiring process. She said executives sit on the hiring team to represent student interests and have very little say in who actually gets hired.
“Executives are in charge of [CUSA] and are voted in to represent you, so that’s why we sit on all interview panels,” Weary said.
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Whether directly involved in this year’s election or not, most people agree: The electoral process needs to be reformed.
“Sometimes the election process just isn’t as equal as it should be,” Calagoure-Perna said.
Black agreed.
“There needs to be a serious discussion on campus of what we consider to be student politics that is fair, normal and equal,” Black said.
Featured graphic by Cara Garneau.
