The name and some platform points of the winning slate in the University of Manitoba Students’ Union (UMSU) election earlier this month shared a resemblance to the winning slate of the recent Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) election.
Similar to the “One Carleton” slate in the CUSA election, the “One UMSU” slate at the University of Manitoba (U of M) won every executive position in the UMSU election, all while sharing some of One Carleton’s branding and campaign promises.
According to The Manitoban, the U of M’s student paper, One UMSU promised nap pods in the school’s University Centre and to create more student jobs—both promises One Carleton made during their 2017 campaign.
One UMSU promised to work with Winnipeg Transit to introduce a summer U-Pass, which CUSA introduced in summer 2016. The One UMSU slate was also composed of a former newspaper editor and an “all-star athlete,” according to the campaign, while One Carleton featured Carleton basketball player Gavin Resch and journalism student Cat Kelly.
CUSA president Fahd Alhattab said he gave One UMSU permission to use material from the One Carleton slate after he was contacted by them.
“They are close friends. I know them really well,” Alhattab said.
He said he showed One UMSU members some of One Carleton’s branding when the U of M slate was looking for ideas for their own campaign.
“They were asking us for some creative stuff and we showed them some of our stuff,” Alhattab said. “They really liked it and asked if they could use some similar stuff. Well, why not?”
Alex Marland, a professor at Memorial University who specializes in political marketing and communication, said it’s very common for political parties to share ideas. He said a reasonable level of consistency is expected between provincial and federal political parties.
However, he said student governments are different.
“We encourage the sharing of ideas in academia,” Marland said. But he added that plagiarism is discouraged, and it becomes a grey area when groups are using the same wording and branding.
“To me, that gets into an ethical issue,” he said.
Alhattab said it’s common for student unions across Canada to share “creative work” with one another. In the past, he said he’s shared policy points from other universities. While he doesn’t see the harm in it, he did comment that this use of branding was more similar than before.
“[One UMSU] really liked it, and you know what, I don’t blame them. I think the One Carleton brand has a strong name, it has a strong pull to it,” he said.
Marland said he believes the larger issue is the idea of entire slates running for student unions, rather than individual people. He said he thinks student unions need to represent all sides of the political spectrum, but slates with multiple people usually push the same ideas when they’re part of a brand.
“We should question conformity,” he said.
Incoming UMSU president Tanjit Nagra told The Charlatan she “preferred not to comment” on One UMSU’s branding similarities with One Carleton.
– Photos from Facebook
