On March 20, 47 students filed into Burridge Gym for the 2018 McMaster Students Union General Assembly. After a lengthy discussion, the assembly voted in support of a motion aimed at condemning the freedom of expression guidelines released by the university earlier in February 2018.

The GA is an MSU constitutionally-mandated meeting that provides full-time undergrad students with a platform to submit, discuss and vote on motions. Nevertheless, over the last few years, the GA has been poorly attended, with the 2017 and 2016 meetings seeing respective turnouts of only 16 and 27 voters.

The last time the GA saw a relatively high turnout was in 2015, when 727 students voted in a contentious boycott, divestment and sanctions motion.

This year’s improvement from last year’s turnout is likely a byproduct of increased MSU social media promotion and the submission of the “anti-disruption” motion.

The motion was put forward by Michelle Xu and called for the MSU to advocate for the abandonment of the implementation of the guidelines and acknowledge that the guidelines limit dissent and activism, creating a distinction between acceptable and unacceptable forms of protest and disproportionately affecting marginalized students at the university.

The GA is an MSU constitutionally-mandated meeting that provides full-time undergrad students with a platform to submit, discuss and vote on motions. 

The motion generated debate and scrutiny, garnering support from the majority of student speakers but drawing criticism from a few who sought to amend or reject it.

“Protest is not meant to be acceptable to institutions on the receiving end.… Marginalized students have expressed concerns over tangible threats to their safety,” said Xu, who explained that organizations such as Canadian Union of Public Employees 3906, the McMaster Womanists and the Revolutionary Student Movement are in favour of the motion.

A student speaker voiced the complaint the ad hoc committee on protest and freedom of expression was overwhelmingly white and male, being unreflective of the campus community. As such, the motion was amended to include calls for increased transparency, representation and consultation with students.

Students on the other side argued that the freedom of expression guidelines improve free speech, invoking McMaster’s low score on the Campus Freedom Index as evidence for the need for the guidelines.

Nevertheless, the motion passed by 85 per cent.

Nevertheless, over the last few years, the GA has been poorly attended, with the 2017 and 2016 meetings seeing respective turnouts of only 16 and 27 voters.

In addition, the assembly voted in favour of a motion aimed at advocating for improved access to mental health care for students and asked that sexual assault response training be extended to special constables and security.

“My motion stems from not only my own experience but that of many others I’ve spoken to from different years and from different faculties who all expressed frustration and hopelessness in trying to seek help for their mental health issues,” said Marley Beach, the student who submitted the motion.

The assembly also passed a motion pushing the MSU to work with the Graduate Student Association and McMaster association of part-time studies to create a club system that is not constrained by membership rules.

“I’ve been starting a club called the McMaster Mars Rover Team, and we decided to be a part of the McMaster Engineering Society and not the MSU so that grad students and high school students can participate,” said Max Lightstone, the student who put forward the motion. “But the MES has its own issues, namely that 75 per cent of members need to be MES members, which prevents students from other faculties from participating fully.”

It should be noted that, although the GA passed a few motions, all were non-binding as they didn’t reach the 683 votes needed to meet quorum. The motions will be discussed and voted on by the Student Representative Assembly.

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Another General Assembly has come and gone, with one of the lowest attendances in recent years. Only 16 voters were registered, meaning only 0.00065 per cent of the McMaster Students Union attended the event.

The annual General Assembly is meant to be a place where students who are not directly involved with student governance may have their voice heard. If the General Assembly hits quorum, which is three per cent of the MSU membership, all votes will be binding on the Student Representative Assembly, making it the highest form of governance in the student union. In the last 22 years, the General Assembly has only hit quorum three times.

This year marked a notable dip in attendance, with last year’s attendance hitting 50 at its peak, which remains a paltry number considering last year’s quorum was 660 MSU members.

Shame on (MS)U

Kathleen Quinn, incumbent SRA (Social Sciences) representative, cited lack of knowledge and interest in the union as the main reasons to why students were not coming out the General Assembly.

“I feel like we need to be doing a better job, we need to be getting in people’s faces and their classes and talking to them about why it’s important to be involved with their union, otherwise, this union will continue to be insignificant on this campus,” said Quinn.

Of the three motions put forward, two discussed changing the format of the General Assembly in hopes of engaging more students.

Quinn put forward a motion to introduce a general meeting in first semester in hopes of increasing interest in student governance earlier on. Quinn’s motion passed.

Maxwell Lightstone, an incumbent SRA (Engineering) representative echoed similar sentiments but proposed lowering quorum so motions passed by the General Assembly with an attendance lower than three per cent be binding, as well as holding a General Assembly every term and investigating the measures needed to allow motions passed at General Assembly with one percent be binding on the MSU as long as the SRA has ratified it. Lightstone’s tri-fold motion failed.

Quinn also put forward a motion asking the MSU to recognize education as a right and advocate for universal access. This motion passed.

The General Assembly continues to be an anomaly for the MSU with respect to student engagement, given that the MSU has some of the highest voter turnouts in elections and referenda. This past year’s presidential election saw a 44 per cent voter turnout and the Athletics and Recreation/Pulse expansion referendum saw a 30 per cent voter turnout.

General Assembly highlights

In the past few years, the General Assembly has seen quorum a few times. In 2015, the General Assembly hit quorum due to the highly contentious motions, namely the Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions campaign which called for the divestment from any corporations that profits from the occupation of Palestinian territory.

The General Assembly also hit quorum in 2012, but much of this is accredited not to the motions discussed but rather the extensive campaigning done by that year’s board of directors, which included its own webpage, well-designed posters and a popular Facebook page.

While the General Assembly remains the highest form of governance within the student union, it continues to lack any tangible results unless there is a controversial agenda or extensive marketing. Until at least one of those conditions are met, the General Assembly will continue to disappoint.

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This week has the McMaster student body gearing us up for the event of the year — the MSU’s General Assembly! Just joking, no one actually cares that much about the GA.

Typing that last sentence, I feel a pang of remorse for all those that have dedicated time to planning this year’s assembly (hell, I even feel bad for my own staff because we take the time to report on it each year). But the reason most students genuinely do not care that much about the GA is because most students have, unfortunately, grown accustomed to the fact that Mac doesn’t always care that much about our feedback.

Let me preface this by saying, I do not think that Mac never considers our feedback. But historically, in part thanks to logistics, policy framework, and general challenges that come from working with thousands of students, it can sometimes be challenging for our university to hear and interpret our feedback.

The GA functions as a public forum where students can voice their concerns related to the MSU and all trepidations can be motioned and eventually voted upon. Sounds pretty democratic, right? Well, not completely. The GA is often dominated by a few motions that overshadow “smaller” issues students want to bring up, making it hard for all voices to be heard. In addition, for a motion at the GA to be passed, the assembly itself needs at least three percent of the student body, so roughly 650 students, present at the event. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but historically this number has been hard to reach. What is supposed to be the most democratic form of discussion for students has its limits.

And the GA isn’t the only student-driven method that has its barriers. Every year we fill out course evaluations, create petitions and write countless articles asking for change, but don’t always see it, or even hear people acknowledging our feedback. Take for instance the yearly petition that students have created to request their majors be listed on their degrees (this year a Google Feedback Form entitled “Program on the McMaster Degree” if you wanted to sign it). For the last few years, students have gone to the university with the same request, and every year their appeal is denied, and as far as the signees can tell, isn’t even acknowledged.

With this as the current standard for accepting student requests and input, it’s not surprising that events like the GA tend to pass by unnoticed by the majority of the student population. Why should students make the extra effort to push forward a change if they feel their voices will not be heard?

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I went to an international school with 200 students from over 100 different countries. We were all on full scholarship, and came from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds. My classmates came from different cultures and religions, each bringing rich experiences and diverse perspectives to the classroom.

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One of my friends, Ali was from Palestine. Another friend, Jacob, was from Israel. One night in the library, as I struggled to print out a last minute assignment, Ali and I spoke about his childhood. He told me about how his father had been imprisoned for the majority of Ali’s childhood because of his political views. He described the nuances and challenges of being Palestinian and of growing up in the West Bank. He told me that when we first started school, he avoided the Israeli students. He couldn’t talk to them. He couldn’t interact with them.

Later in the year I saw Ali warmly put his arm around Jacob’s neck. They were talking and laughing. Jacob had plans to visit Ali over the summer. There was dialogue, friendship and respect. Jacob now serves in the Israeli Army, fulfilling his responsibilities of conscription. Ali is in his final year of his undergraduate degree in the United States. I haven’t spoke to either of them since we graduated high school four years ago.

Sitting in the backbenches of the Burridge Gym during the GA, I wondered how Ali and Jacob could talk about and acknowledge their differences. In the crowd I recognized people who were directly involved in the Israel-Palestine conflict. I also saw people who like me were not directly implicated in the issue, but who identified with a particular message and wanted to learn more.

Both of my friends had lived through and experienced the conflict firsthand, with visceral memories of loss, fear and anger. Ali and Jacob could have a respectful conversation. They listened to each other. Yet at the GA we did the exact opposite. There was no dialogue and no desire to acknowledge and validate another person’s lived experience.

Instead, one speaker named Salah was continually interrupted due to “Points of Information” and “Points of Order” raised by No-to-BDS campaigners. Salah was telling his story of how he and his family had fled Palestine as refugees. The deliberate interruptions, the “I feel uncomfortable”s and the complaints of “emotionally charged language” stung me. Clearly there was no place for Salah’s story. There was no desire, respect or humility for someone else’s experience. Instead, every attempt was made to stifle him from speaking and prevent an understanding of his perspective.

I understand that leaving the GA to break quorum was a politically strategic move. I understand the continuous proposals were meant to shift around agenda items so that there would be no time to talk about BDS. However, I can rationalize that these moves undermined the legitimacy of the General Assembly.

I struggle to understand the unwavering approach to prevent someone from sharing their own personal narrative. If anything, what I learned from the GA was that no genuine dialogue was going to happen on campus. Stories were going to continually be marginalized because they were unpopular, or raised questions that people shouldn’t be asking.

Last week the front cover of the Silhouette covered the story of Providence, a Rwandan student at McMaster. Her experiences were acknowledged and the adversity that she and her family had faced was brought to the attention of the larger community. Yet, there is little space and desire to hear Salah’s story.

I think back to Ali and Jacob and the maturity and compassion that they showed each other. I look to my friends at McMaster who have received manipulative messages on Facebook, who have alienated people with opposing views, who have deliberately shut their ears, minds and hearts to any message that challenges their world view. And I am profoundly disappointed, because if Ali and Jacob can do it, then why can’t we?

I write this article not with the intention to vilify a particular stance or de-legitimize a perspective, but to instead show that respectful, informative and powerful dialogue on this issue can take place in an educational setting.

I’d like to, as a Jewish student, address some of the narratives that have emerged on this campus in the past few weeks. I hope that the following can serve to provide a healthier context for future discussion.

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I’ve been a student at McMaster University for nearly six years. In that time, I have been the beneficiary of a genuinely loving and compassionate campus culture. I feel safe here.

And not just because of this tone that’s marked so many of my interactions and the movements I’ve witnessed, but because there is a growing culture here of responsibility owed one to the other. I know, for instance, that I have space to speak here.

But I also know that I will be held to account for my actions and opinions. I know that critical engagement with my own beliefs and the beliefs of others will be demanded of me, in the pursuit of more just and healthy relationships and policy.

But in these past few weeks, something has changed. I don’t feel safe right now. I don’t feel safe because I see that the infrastructure supporting this culture and its rules can be flaunted so very easily. It was deeply unsettling: sitting in the General Assembly and witnessing the speed with which ideas, allegedly sacrosanct, can be discarded as soon as it becomes clear that they aren’t going to get you what you want.

I saw a group of students go, in the span of five minutes, from praising democracy as the highest of ideals to walking out and, in so doing, directly disenfranchising over 500 of their fellow students. I saw a man, an absolute mensch – explaining with beautifully-reasoned appeals to history, to social justice, to international jurisprudence, and to the deeply personal hurt he endures as he’s forced into everyday complicity with his own family’s oppression – callously interrupted, over and over and over. Frankly, any of us can go out and buy Israeli goods if we choose to do so.

But McMaster’s purchasing policy is not giving anyone a choice. It is forcing students to accept complicity in an economic structure with which they may take legitimate moral issue. Now, if we truly want this campus to be accessible to all people, then that is a truth with which we must engage.

My experience of Jewishness is an increasingly frustrating one. It is a profoundly lonely feeling: the idea that it is some singular, coherent identity that must be preserved in opposition to a hostile world, when I see so much love and humanity trying desperately to touch us. It is as though, sometimes, the joy and the pain of my family’s history are barred to me because I disagree with that premise.

We can’t do that to each other. We can’t hold each other’s histories hostage. We cannot turn issues of human rights into theological or racial ones, or conflate criticism of governmental policy with anti-Semitism – as though all Jews are of one voice in this matter. Because we ought to know what it’s like to lose a history.

Because the answer to that trauma has to be to act as faithful stewards of history – not to make myths and monsters of our brothers and sisters. And I will not accept an exchange of my own culture’s embrace for hateful or racist words put into my mouth.

And they are. I’ve heard them.

I was raised to believe ours was a religion of freedom. That it is not enough to be content in our own freedom, but that we must remember our own degradation and must toil until all people are free from bondage. That begins with listening to the oppressed, and holding ourselves to account.

This year’s MSU General Assembly proved the venue can be both effective and inefficient in providing a democratic forum for the student membership to “show up and speak out.”

Attendance at the Assembly peaked at 630, three members from quorum. Compared to last year’s peak attendance of 60 students and to a string of non-quorate assemblies from 1996 to 2011, this year’s turnout was impressive.

But even though seven motions were on the original agenda, none were voted on until the two-hour Assembly was slotted to end due to time restrictions for Burridge Gym. The gym is the only room on campus that can accommodate more than 600 students.

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None of the motions were debated in a substantive way despite an engaged-and politically divided-student audience. Amendments to the agenda were discussed for more than an hour, with numerous motions to call the Assembly to question (where members vote on whether to vote).

At the beginning of the meeting, Salah Abdelrahman, who submitted the McMaster BDS motion, moved to have his placed ahead of the broader motion on the ‘MSU stance on international crises’. The former was approved before the latter, prompting some to feel the agenda should be re-ordered.

“Many of us are here to discuss the McMaster BDS motion. Let’s discuss this motion and proceed,” Abdelrahman said.

“I think the motions on the agenda should be ordered in the order they were submitted,” said Sarah Jama, who had submitted four motions on improved accessibility. “I put a lot of work into my motions and they were moved down, so I agree with him.”

A motion was then brought forward, though not by Jama, to have the motions regarding accessibility moved up.

“The two top motions are not student issues. We should focus on things that directly affect students,” one student argued.

After more discussion, Sarah Silverberg, who submitted the motion that the MSU not take a stance on international crises, moved to strike both hers and the McMaster BDS motion off the agenda.

“There are other forums and maybe the GA is not the assembly to be discussing such motions. I think it’s important for us to take a lot of time to think about these motions and having an on-the-spot vote at the GA is not the appropriate forum to be able to do that,” Silverberg said, adding that committees could be set up to discuss BDS and Israeli-Palestinian conflict over a longer period of time.

At around 6:30 p.m., just before the Assembly voted to adopt the agenda and attendance was announced to be 621, many students against BDS got up to leave the gym, ensuring that quorum would not be reached.

“The problem is that many students feel uncomfortable and should have the right to leave and not be counted in the vote,” said an anti-BDS student after a call to question was announced and the chair ordered the doors to be sealed for voting. The tension in the room was most palpable at that point.

By 6:40 p.m., the number of voting members in the gym was reduced to 520. About 20 minutes were spent on condensed reports from MSU president David Campbell and Engineering Without Borders President Kathryn Chan.

The motion for the MSU to endorse BDS against Israel and commit to ethical purchasing policies was up for discussion 10 minutes before adjournment was scheduled. It was passed by a simple majority (360 in favour, 23 opposed and 135 abstentions) and is not binding on the MSU because quorum was not reached.

However, the Student Representative Assembly will consider the McMaster BDS motion and any motions brought to the SRA that were not discussed at the General Assembly.

A policy has also recently been passed by the SRA to strike a committee to discuss how the General Assembly should be run and promoted. The policy will be enacted in 2014-15.

The full video of the General Assembly is available here.

View the 2014 MSU General Assembly here.

View the agenda and more information here.

For context and a little bit of what to expect, read the Sil's GA primer, here.

Despite underwhelming promotion for this year’s MSU General Assembly, there are seven motions on the agenda for Wednesday's two-hour meeting in Burridge Gym. The General Assembly, held once a year in March, is the only venue for MSU members to submit motions whose votes are binding on the MSU if quorum is reached. It’s a way for full-time undergraduate students to directly affect change in the union they pay fees every year to be part of.

Quorum this year is 633, and the MSU would be hard-pressed to get that many students to fill Burridge Gym if reliant solely on a dismal promotional effort  leading up to the Assembly. But the first two motions on the agenda--the first arguing the MSU should “refrain from taking political and polarizing stances on international crises, conflicts and concerns” and the second requesting that students vote yes to Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel--are likely to draw students to the event. Whether or not the polarizing debate will be enough to make quorum--and sustain it for two hours--is up in the air.

Motions on the agenda

Incoming SRA Social Science Sarah Jama introduced four motions on the agenda having to do with improved accessibility of the Pulse, priority clearing of ramps on campus, a proposed MSU survey to assess the Student Accessibility Service, and a proposed ramp in front of BSB.

The first motion listed on the agenda resolves that the MSU not take any stance on international crises, crises and conflicts “so as to remain a credible and representative voice of the entire student body.”

The McMaster BDS motion resolves that the MSU should endorse the Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions global movement and “commit to identifying and divesting from companies that support or profit from Israeli war crimes, occupation and oppression of Palestinians….” The BDS motion stands in opposition to the first motion.

The final motion on the agenda resolves that the MSU advocate and work with Hospitality Services for Bridges Cafe to offer Halal and Kosher food and adhere to other “major religious dietary laws.”

Contention around BDS at recent SRA meeting

At Sunday’s SRA meeting (full video available here), the contention surrounding the first two General Assembly motions set the tone for the four-hour meeting.

SRA Social Science Ryan Sparrow, an outspoken advocate of BDS, voiced concern about the order of the motions, saying the pro-BDS motion should be listed first because it was submitted first. A tense back-and-forth ensued, where MSU speaker Maria Daniel was asked numerous times to provide the order in which the motions were submitted. (The McMaster BDS motion was approved on March 11 and the other was approved on March 19.)

“The role of the speaker is to be neutral and impartial. The order of the agenda doesn’t seem to reflect that in that this motion was publicized to students prior to there being the second motion. ... I think the order of the agenda is a bit politicized in this regard,” Sparrow said.

Daniel said she felt it made sense to have the motions going from overarching to more specific, and said there was no rule that stated the motions had to be in order of submission date. She ruled that the order would stay the same unless participants in the General Assembly were to vote otherwise.

A separate motion was tabled at the beginning of the meeting by SRA Science Anser Abbas, requesting that MSU board of directors refrain from using their credentials to endorse a position on General Assembly motions before the event.

MSU VP Finance Jeffrey Doucet was singled out in the SRA’s discussion for endorsing the ‘Vote No to BDS’ position publicly as VP Finance. At one point, an observer at the SRA meeting demanded that Doucet “retract his statements” with his credentials attached.

Doucet defended his decision by saying he was “obligated” and had the right to share with students his position on an issue that would affect the MSU’s finances, though that was debated extensively by the SRA over the next hour.

Ultimately, the motion requesting MSU board of directors to refrain from using their credentials to endorse General Assembly motions failed.

Meeting Quorum

Getting more than 600 students to fill a gym to discuss motions they may or may not have read has been a challenge for the MSU historically.

The last time quorum was reached for the General Assembly was in 2012, when former MSU president Matthew Dillon-Leitch launched a spirited and in-your-face promotional campaign marketed as the ‘601’. But after quorum was reached and the first motion on the Welcome Week fee, initiated by Dillon-Leitch, was passed, students began to file out. The Assembly lost quorum and votes on subsequent motions were not binding on the MSU.

Before 2012, the quorum had not been reached since 1995.

Last year, attendance at the General Assembly peaked at 60 students, and most of those who voted were either MSU executives, SRA members or Silhouette staff covering the event. There was a sole motion on the agenda asking the MSU to advocate for the university’s divestment from fossil fuel companies, which was passed by a 14-7-7 vote but was not binding. The MSU currently does not advocate for institutional divestment from fossil fuel companies.

Last year’s low attendance sparked a debate about the way the MSU promotes the General Assembly, but this year’s promotional efforts have not been appreciably different.

In an e-mail, MSU speaker Daniel wrote: “In terms of promotional efforts, I, along with David Campbell, have worked with a number of staff and outlets to facilitate the promotion of GA. We've followed a comprehensive model used by MSU Services for event promotions, which includes large format printing, posters across campus, digital displays on screens across campus, rave cards, promo team distribution, social media strategies, and a web presence. Also, there has been a strong effort within the student body to promote GA.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, about 252 people were listed as ‘going’ to an MSU General Assembly event on Facebook.

This year’s General Assembly will take place from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, March 26 at Burridge Gym. Eligible voters will need to validate their full-time status with their student ID cards. MSU members will be seated in front of the bleachers to ensure accurate counting of votes. The agenda for the event is available in full here.

I volunteered for MAC Bread Bin in second year, and I helped run an event called Feed the Bus. We parked a school bus on campus and asked students to donate food and spare change for Hamilton food banks.

I was a SOCS rep then, too, so I talked to one of the vice-presidents of SOCS about helping me promote the event by spreading the word among reps.

The response was incredible. A crowd of reps, who brought with them their orange jumpsuits and Welcome Week enthusiasm, congregated outside the bus every day for the week, soliciting donations from passers-by. We wouldn’t have raised near the amount of money that we did without them.

SOCS still helps out every year for Feed the Bus. Why? Because SOCS reps care about feeding the hungry in Hamilton, and they do something about it by supporting MAC Bread Bin. That’s just what it means to be a rep with the off-campus students society.

Fast forward three years to the MSU’s general assembly on Tuesday. After last year’s attendance of over 670 students, this year was an embarrassment. Only 60 people showed up, and no more than 30 voted on either of the two motions.

To be clear, a well-attended general assembly is not the end goal. It shouldn’t be about quorum for the sake of quorum, or direct democracy for the sake of direct democracy. It shouldn’t use gimmicks to boost attendance. But it has the potential to be a big opportunity for student ideas to get some attention, and people need to be aware that it’s happening.

Promotion for this year’s GA, though, was awful. Intentionally or not, the MSU made little effort to tell students about an event that, just a year prior, they felt was worthy of a major marketing campaign. The date announcement came late. There weren’t many posters. There wasn’t even a Facebook event.

There’s no question that the poor promotion was responsible for the low turnout. But, more importantly, it meant that only one motion was on the table at the start of the meeting.

In years past, the motions were what drew the crowds. Last year, the Welcome Week fee proposal got reps to attend. A motion for the MSU to recognize the Greek Life Council got fraternity members out. The McMaster Marching Band went to see their fee request pass.

It wasn’t about attracting students one at a time. It was about finding where they were already engaged and meeting them halfway.

And despite the problems with the 2012 general assembly (see last week’s editorial), it got that right, even though our students union usually gets it wrong on political student engagement. Be it in General Assembly or the SRA or other avenues, they don’t go to where their members already are.

It’s not that students don’t care. The term “student apathy” is an ugly one – it misplaces the blame.

The problem is structural. If you’re on the SRA, you might be involved in some other segment of campus life, but only by coincidence. At Mac, student government is just another thing to do.

Students care about their societies, clubs, rep groups and social circles. That stuff comes to constitute a person’s identity. I wasn’t just a Mac student. I was an ArtSci, and I lived off-campus, and I was – and continue to be – a Silhouette editor. And because of those things, I found new ways to engage. I found new things to care about.

And that’s why, if the MSU really wants to know how students are feeling or what they want, it needs to connect itself to other groups.

In the same way that being a SOCS rep has become synonymous with caring about food security in Hamilton, being a part of some facet of campus life should fit naturally with political engagement in the MSU. A change like that could ensure better use of student money. It could improve student life. It could turn unilateral lobbying efforts into movements.

It won’t be easy. It could mean re-making a decades-old student government structure to incorporate student leaders from other parts of campus. Or it could mean that the MSU should absorb faculty societies.

But if the MSU wants to be seen as a viable means through which its members can improve their undergrad experience, change is necessary. The MSU can’t be isolated. It can’t keep splitting the attention of students who want to be engaged.

And it can’t keep trying to fight this enemy that is so-called student apathy.