By: Gabi Herman and Isaac Kinley

From Jan. 26-28, in addition to electing their next McMaster Students Union President, McMaster students will be able to vote in a referendum concerning the election of MSU Vice Presidents. The MSU has three Vice Presidents: Administration, Education and Finance. Currently, the Vice Presidents are elected by the Student Representative Assembly, a student council that includes faculty representatives and the current MSU President and Vice Presidents.

The current referendum will allow students to vote in favour of keeping the current system or switching to an at-large vice presidential election. Since this change would require altering the MSU constitution, the “yes” side will have to garner at least two thirds of the vote in order for it to pass.

The motion was put forward by Eric Gillis (SRA Social Sciences) at the 2015 MSU General Assembly in March. Earlier this school year, the Student Mobilization Syndicate uploaded a petition to Change.org asking that the question of direct election of Vice Presidents be put to McMaster students in a referendum. The petition gathered more than 800 written signatures and subsequently, the SRA voted to hold the referendum. However, going into the campaign period, they voted to maintain a neutral position on the referendum question. Looking forward, students will have to decide where they stand on the issue.

The referendum question, as it will appear on the ballot, is:

This referendum concerns the MSU Vice President elections. Currently, the three Vice President positions are elected through the Student Representative Assembly (SRA). A proposal has been put forth to move the Vice President elections away from the current system to an at large election. The format of this at large election is currently undefined and can take on many forms.

 

This is a constitutional referendum, which means it requires two thirds of the vote to pass.  Abstentions will not be included in calculating the vote.

 

Are you in favour of changing the MSU Constitution to include an at large MSU Vice President Election?

 

Yes

 

No

 

Abstain

For more information, visit https://www.msumcmaster.ca/services-directory/31-elections-department/referendum-2016. Information on the “Yes” side campaign is available at http://www.vpref.ca/

Below, two Silhouette contributors examine the advantages and drawbacks of both positions.

The “Yes” side:

yes

There are a number of problems with the current system. For one, while a respectable 42 percent of eligible students turned out to vote in the 2015 presidential election, most faculties saw turnouts below 30 percent in the SRA elections. This means that the people tasked with choosing vice-presidents are themselves only elected by a small minority of MSU members.

Furthermore, there’s little anonymity in a group as small at the SRA. If its members know Vice Presidential candidates personally, this will likely bias their vote and impede their ability to make a disinterested choice on behalf of all McMaster students.

Allowing the entire MSU membership to elect its Vice Presidents would solve both these problems. If voter turnout for vice presidential elections is close to that of our presidential elections, this would make VPs not only directly elected by McMaster students, but elected by a larger proportion of them than are represented in the SRA.

Additionally, vice presidential candidates would have to make their cases to the student body directly rather than behind closed doors to the SRA, increasing the transparency of the election and giving students a better idea of the platforms of student government hopefuls.

It seems odd to have people as powerful as the Vice Presidents elected by an intermediary group that only represents a small minority of eligible voters. Voting “yes” in the upcoming referendum will allow McMaster students to have a greater say in the decisions affecting them.

 

The “No” side:

no

Selecting a vice presidential team is no easy job. The election process for each Vice President is a long process. Every candidate is required to meet individually with each member of the SRA. This allows every SRA member to gain a deep understanding of each candidate’s platform, one that would be near impossible to achieve for every student at large. In fact, the job has become so difficult that last year’s meeting lasted 22 hours. A motion for all MSU members to be eligible to vote for VPs will be voted on in a referendum this coming election, but many believe it would not be the right decision.

An at-large vote would require VP candidates to campaign, which many report make VP positions less accessible to prospective candidates. Robyn Fishbein, a fourth year Sociology student, was a voting member of the VP Election Reform Ad-Hoc Committee last summer. “It’s not the VP’s job to be the face of the organization, and I think that makes a really big difference,” says Fishbein. Vice Presidents work mostly behind the scenes, while the MSU President and SRA members have inherently public roles. The highly public nature of the campaign creates a barrier to students who are ultimately interested in holding leadership roles that are less public than the President and SRA members.

The challenges of allowing all MSU members to vote also include student disengagement. The Ad-Hoc Committee report points out that at-large voters may be vulnerable to “voter fatigue,” which might contribute to a lower voter turnout. The VP elections would also require many names and positions on one ballot; with more names on a ballot, voters are more likely to vote at random. And, says Fishbein, “let’s face it, so many elections can get annoying.”

Although counterintuitive, many believe that the MSU democracy functions best without more opportunities to vote. Regardless of the result of the referendum, major restructuring will have to take place to prevent more inefficient, daylong meetings.

It took 22 hours for the Student Representative Assembly to elect this year’s MSU vice-presidents– a meeting that might not happen next year if some students have their way.

Though there is almost unanimous consensus that the VP electoral system is flawed, exactly how the system should be reformed is a divisive topic that led to the creation of a VP Electoral Reform Ad Hoc committee.

“The way VPs are elected at the moment needs to change,” said Ehima Osazuwa, MSU President. But whether that change should be determined by a small committee of student leaders or go directly to referendum will be decided by the ad hoc committee.

A surprise motion was brought forward by SRA Social Science Representative Eric Gillis at the General Assembly on March 23, 2015 to hold a referendum for students to decide whether or not they want to elect the Vice Presidents, or want the SRA to continue to elect them. Although this motion passed, there were not enough people for quorum to be reached, meaning the SRA has the discretion to vote on it.

26 days after General Assembly, and a day before the vote on whether or not to have a referendum was held, the Speaker of the SRA ruled this motion out of order in a last minute email sent to SRA members. A Facebook event aiming to engage students at this meeting hosted public outcry and claims of a deliberate attempt to prevent the vote from happening.

Instead, the SRA passed a motion to create an ad hoc VP reform committee which will recommend what the SRA will vote on in Fall 2015. “Talking to a lot of SRA members they were either not comfortable performing the vote or they did not want the vote to happen at all.” said Shaarujaa Nadarajah, SRA member and member of the committee. She explained that SRA members were uncomfortable with voting on a referendum without the nuances of how the referendum would be framed.

The official document states “the recommendations shall include a formal proposal for a referendum, with an official breakdown of ballot options.”

The first meeting will be on June 7 at 2 p.m. in the MSU Boardroom and anyone interested is welcome to attend, although the Speaker and Chair of the committee, Inna Berditchevskaia, asks interested students to arrive five minutes early.

Osazuwa describes the purpose of the committee to elaborate on what options a potential referendum should include. “[The purpose is] to give students choices, because the current motion put forward didn’t have any choices,” said Osazuwa.


"I joined [the committee] because I was frustrated throughout this entire movement that people were making these sweeping generalizations about what students wanted" - Connor McGee, MSU committee member


Although, Osazuwa admitted that whether or not this referendum will happen is still unclear.

“The job of the committee is to decide whether it should go to referendum or not,” said Osazuwa.

“If students want it to go to referendum then it should go to referendum.” When asked if he anticipates students will want a referendum, he said yes.

However, critics of the committee wonder whether it is representative of the student body or simply of the “MSU bubble”.

“The committee is open to every single person so anyone can come” said Osazuwa. He says it’s important to represent the 22,000+ members of McMaster.

Others question whether the students at GA and those involved in the public outcry were representative of the student body. “I joined [the committee] because I was frustrated throughout this entire movement that people were making these sweeping generalizations about what students wanted,” said Connor McGee, MSU member on the committee.

The committee was selected during exam time and the MSU members on the committee were all acclaimed. It has been brought up that maybe because it fell during the exam period, it was difficult for students to come out to SRA meetings.

“People could have made themselves available and been nominated beforehand or have their speech read,” said McGee.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say this is the MSU bubble representing itself,” said McGee. He also says there might be a self-selection bias in who joins the committee. “In a lot of cases it makes sense that an SRA member, or former SRA member or someone like that, would have an interest and more thorough understanding of what the position entails.”

A separate criticism is that this committee is redundant with work that has been done before.

“The committee itself, I understand why it was struck, but honestly, the democratic reform committee has existed in 2012 and 2013 from my understanding and did similar research to this committee, so I don’t think it will come up with anything new” said Sara Jama, SRA member on the committee.

The committee and its research will certainly contribute to the discussion on electoral reform and how students perceive the MSU. “Beyond VPs this is also a great opportunity to talk to students about the MSU,” said McGee.

However, it remains to be seen whether this committee will serve to perpetuate the status quo or create meaningful change.

Given the divisive nature of the topic, it is also unclear whether it will be productive.

“If someone’s personal bias does start to get in the way, I think that would obviously jeopardize the findings and entire point and integrity of having this ad-hoc committee. So in that case, I think it’s safe to say some kind of action would be taken,” said McGee. “There’s no point in having a committee if you’re purposely going to skew the results.”

“I see it as a stalling mechanism, but hopefully good discussion will come out of the committee itself,” said Jama.

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By Edward Lovo

There is a view of education that requires challenging. It's rather natural to be anxious about the prospects of one's choice of study. One worries about what career path one will take after completing a liberal arts degree, for example. However, the view of education that ought to be challenged sees education solely as a means to these prospects; in other words, education is an investment.

Living in a (more or less) democratic society, education is more than just an investment; more than what many regard as a privilege rather than a right. Education is a social good that is integral to the ideals of a democratic society. Two such ideals are political equality, and open and fair discussion.

Democracy, in the first place, implies that all citizens come together to reach a decision on questions that concern them all. Accordingly, the second of the democratic ideals, open and fair discussion, expresses each citizen's right to the opportunity to articulate their views and supporting reasons, and to listen to an array of other viewpoints on matters of public concern.

Political equality requires that all citizens are equal participants in decision-making. Political equality is a robust conception that goes beyond the empty formality of filling out a ballot. Open and fair discussion presupposes a substantive equality between citizens.

Thomas Christiano, a democratic theorist, gives the following example by way of illustration: “Consider a citizen who has a vote and is not forbidden to say something in the process of deliberation. But suppose that because of poverty, lack of education, and lack of organization this citizen is unable to understand the issues involved in the decision-making or have a clear idea of what [their] interests are or how to articulate them to others. Such a citizen is not the political equal of the citizen who is wealthy, well educated, whose interests and points of view are supported by organization, and who is able to understand issues as well as clarify and articulate [their] interests...most of us would believe that [this society] does not live up to the democratic ideals of political equality and participation in rational social deliberation.”

So, political equality does not end with the uneducated worker being able to cast a vote in the same way the educated employer for whom he works is able to cast a vote. This is merely equality on paper and not equality in our substantive relations with one another.

Education, as well, ought not to be restricted to a select few, such as to those who can afford it, as this exacerbates the inequality between the classes. Limited accessibility reflects in society an inequality in power among classes that privileges an educated elite not only in the process of deliberation but also in the fulfillment of political roles.

Education, then, is fundamental to a democratic society, which promotes political equality among its citizens. It serves as a grand equalizer of its citizens, and a society that limits its accessibility is not living up to its ideal of political equality. Upon these considerations, one should see that education is not an investment in a democratic society - it's a right.

Student and faculty groups in Ontario don’t like what the government has in store for the future of post-secondary education.

In response to a recent discussion paper by the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU), several groups say they do not agree with Minister Glen Murray’s proposed reforms.

Key issues raised by student leaders include government intrusion in post-secondary education, tuition hikes, a rapid shift toward technology-based education and incentivization of entrepreneurial learning.

The Canadian Federation of Students - Ontario (CFS Ontario) and the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) are among those concerned about a perceived ‘unprecedented intrusion’ of government in the post-secondary sector.

“People who are in the best position to determine what's best for students are students themselves, faculty members and university administrators,” said Graeme Stewart, communications manager at OCUFA. “We want to keep decision-making power with [those parties].”

The MTCU’s discussion paper, entitled “Strengthening Ontario’s Centres of Creativity, Innovation and Knowledge” was drafted this past summer. To the dismay of student leaders, the paper was written without student consultation and publicized in late August during the back-to-school rush.

The paper comes on the heels of a controversial leaked policy paper in February, tentatively entitled "3 Cubed." The leaked document suggested that universities should increase efficiency by offering more three-year degrees and allowing students to get more than half their credits online.

MTCU’s recent summer discussion paper acknowledges a rapidly changing post-secondary education sector and the need for Ontario institutions to respond.

Though the proposal outwardly rejects efficiency-focused strategies to curb costs, it also aligns itself with the trend of "high quality outcome-based credentials" becoming the norm.

The report says “cost reductions and the elimination of redundancies are essential parts of our government’s fiscal plan,” but these are not enough to meet the fiscal challenges.

In the long term, the Ministry sees “adopting innovation in the sector to drive productivity” as the other half of the equation.

One proposed reform, a simpler credit transfer system, has already been implemented in a recent partnership between seven universities and has generally been well received.

“Credit transfer, online learning, different experiential options - these are all good things. Our concern is that the government seems to be saying: we’re going to tell you what to do, when to use online learning, when to use learning technologies, when to do co-op,” said Stewart.

There are several shared concerns put forward by CFS Ontario and OCUFA, showing overlap between student and faculty reactions to the Ministry's proposal.

 

Underfunded Ontario PSE sector

Respondents pointed to the fact that Ontario’s post-secondary sector is the least funded in the nation. Per-student funding currently stands at $8,349, which is 34 per cent below the national average, according to a 2011 Statistics Canada report.

“The underfunding problem is decades old in Ontario,” said Stewart, who cited Ontario’s per-student funding as the primary reason for a higher student-faculty ratio.

By 2009, Ontario’s ratio of students to full-time faculty was nearly seven per cent higher than the national average, according to a separate report by Stats Canada. Today, there are roughly 27 students for every professor in Ontario.

“This means students can’t have the same face-to-face interaction, professors aren’t as available, students find themselves in larger classes and they have fewer course choices. It also means universities don’t have the money to restore their older buildings,” said Stewart.

 

Higher rate of tuition increase

“When the government allows per-student funding to decrease, that puts pressure on institutions to increase tuition fees because they have to replace that revenue,” said Stewart.

This year, tuition fees across the nation have risen at more than three times the rate of inflation. Student and faculty representatives argue that this would create a more elite system and diminish accessibility to higher education.

“I don’t think we can say that right now, or even a couple of years ago, tuition fees were at the right place and we should increase rates with inflation,” said Sarah Jayne King, chairperson of CFS Ontario.

“Tuition fees are beyond the point where we can simply freeze them and be happy with that," said King.

CFS Ontario has drafted two tuition fee proposals for the most recent provincial budget that would have tuition fees reduced immediately by 25 per cent.

 

Emphasis on performance-based funding and incentivization

CFS Ontario criticized the proposal’s emphasis on ‘entrepreneurial learning’ and the practice of subsidizing private sector research via the post-secondary education system.

In their response, CFS Ontario asserts that “promoting the creation of business incubators or incentivizing entrepreneurial education in the province’s public colleges and universities does not facilitate knowledge, innovation or creativity.”

OCUFA similarly criticized the provincial government’s ‘performance funding’ model, saying it “makes quality improvement impossible” and unfairly punishes students.

“I don’t think the minister has a totally clear idea of what he wants yet, but our concern is that the recommendations in the paper tend to push the [post-secondary education] system toward this kind of labour market focus,” said Stewart.

 

Using technology as a cost-saving measure

“Students are concerned that online courses are going to be implemented as a cost-saving measure, when we know that to actually produce a high-quality online education is quite expensive,” said King.

There have been no concrete proposals put forward yet mandating that three out of five courses be online, said King, referring to the contents of the leaked ‘3 Cubed’ ministry document earlier this year.

However, she said there is continued concern among students that the education sector is headed in this direction.

 

The ministry asked that formal responses to the discussion paper be sent in by Sept. 30. Respondents include CFS (national), COPE, COU and OPSEU.

King and Stewart said they don’t know of any definitive timeline for a response from the Ministry, but representatives continue to be open to discussions with the government while awaiting a follow-up.

Dina Fanara

Assistant News Editor

 

The Student Representative Assembly’s (SRA) recently-formed ad-hoc Committee on Democratic Reform is aiming to find a suitable change to the MSU’s system of representation.

Initially brought forth at the 2009 MSU General Assembly by SRA-Humanities member Chris Erl, the project is being supported by MSU president Matthew Dillon-Leitch and Bylaws and Procedures Comissioner Jean-Marc Metrailler.

The idea behind the committee is to create a body that could more effectively bring concrete policy changes to the SRA and even the Board of Directors, “as opposed to just the ideas,” said Erl. “[The committee] could look at different ideas, come up with proposals, have Bylaws and Procedures look at it, and then ultimately go to the Assembly to make a decision

The structuring of the committee, which will include the MSU Speaker, the chief returning officer (CRO), the MSU president, the bylaws and procedures commissioner, two SRA members and an MSU member-at-large, has been in the works since November. Neither the Speaker nor CRO will hold voting privileges.

A proposal was brought to the table in December but sent for revision over the holidays, and was subsequently brought to life at the SRA meeting immediately following the presidential election.

Erl said the committee would focus on issues such as the number of seats in the SRA as well as the process by which the three vice presidents are elected.

Some members want to see that number increased by 25 seats. As for the vice-presidents, they are currently elected by the SRA, as opposed to the student body as a whole.

“The old argument is that the vice-presidents should not be elected by the students because the students are incapable of choosing somebody that’s going to deal with the finances of the organization,” said Erl. He continued to say that they should be democratically elected by the 20,000 full-time undergraduate students that make up the body of the MSU.

Dillon-Leitch is also in support of reform, saying “I think the structure of the MSU has changed over time . . . there’s a lot of different elements of the governing structure that are out of date or not necessarily the best practice anymore.”

The president said he hopes that the committee will find a way “to make [the MSU] more democratic and more efficient.”

One potential consideration of the new committee is the concept of having one member of faculty society executives sitting on the SRA, be it the president or another designated executive.

“We need to accept the fact that as an organization that we are not the be-all and end-all on campus,” said Dillon-Leitch, who would like to see the Assembly “take the leaders of those organizations and bring them together,” because “the system we have right now does not involve all of the important stakeholders.”

This marks the first time that an ad-hoc committee has been formed in several years. The committee will be dissolved at the end of the term unless the SRA chooses to incorporate its permanence into the MSU bylaws.

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