Coin flips, banana bread, and technical difficulties
The University of Ottawa Student’s Union (UOSU) convened on July 23rd for its monthly board of directors (BOD) meeting. Nearing seven hours, the board’s agenda addressed contentious issues, such as re-arranging interim board directors and advisors, establishing a communications commissioner, and — the hottest issue in the U of O blogosphere — passing the freedom of expression motion.
After a delayed start due to technical issues, the meeting began with amending and approving the meeting’s agenda and light debate of board and committee meeting minutes.
Statement by students
The ninth item on the agenda was statements by students, the first time this new item has been utilized by a student, giving individuals speaking rights and a minute to make statements to the Board. Ryan Chang, a fourth-year political science student, presented a student-led petition which demanded that the board pass the freedom of expression motion in question.
The petition had over 145 signatures from students across 6 different facilities. “If the members [at the meeting] have an issue with free speech [against] UOSU in general, I invite them to say so and raise this during the allotted time for the debate,” said Chang. “If they don’t have an issue with free speech, frankly, there should be no reason to not pass this motion.”
The first motion dealt with the exceeding number of directors on the board.
Motion A) Interim Directors and Advisors Appointments
The first motion of the day was co-written by the chair of the board, Delphine Robitaille, and director for the faculty of engineering, Daniel Thorp.
The BOD had over-appointed interim directors — including for the facilities of arts and Telfer (management) — thus violating Article 128(8) of the Not-for-Profit Business Corporation Act. The motion detailed that legal counsel confirmed the “five appointments made to the UOSU [BOD] are invalid due to exceeding the allowable number of appointed directors”.
As a result, the motion proposes that the number of directors on the board becomes dependent on the number of students enrolled in each respective faculty.
A resolution outlined in the motion would be to allow the appointment of interim executives and the director of Indigenous Students to the board, while the five remaining directors be appointed as advisors instead.
However, there were two directors appointed from Telfer at the same time, and a substitution was called to use random chance (a coin toss) to determine which director remained.
After much deliberation, a withdrawn friendly amendment, and a call to question, the motion was successfully passed. Upon landing the coin, Justin Dalphy was officially recognized as director of Telfer (Management) of the BOD.
Motion B) Appointment of Advisor
Moved by Arts director Hannah Wiedrick and seconded by social sciences director Max Christie, the motion was to confirm the appointment of an advisor from the Faculty of Social Science (FSS) Student Associations, following the resignation of a board director.
The FSS Student Associations received eight candidates, with five of them belonging to the International Political and Policy Studies Student Association (IPPSSA). Of the four current directors from the social sciences, all of them are enrolled in political science, so the FSS Student Associations opted for a candidate from a different program to allow for difference.
Armaan Singh, former UOSU president, and current social science director, was in opposition of the motion. “I’ll be voting against this motion, not that I don’t agree with the appointment, but I don’t think that the assumption that there isn’t diversity of opinion or people in a certain program…I don’t think that’s true,” he said.
The motion passed.
Motion J) Freedom of Expression
Oh boy.
Moved by Christie and seconded by Wiedrick, the room was tense following the reading of the motion. After the chair explained that the motion was sent to legal counsel to ensure ideas and discussions do not violate the Not-for-Profit Act, Christie opened the debate, acknowledging the emotional conversations that have surrounded the motion.
“We need to defend our values with words. We need to defend our values with actions…I made an oath to defend our values with blood,” recounted Christie. “The fundamental flaw with this union as it stands is there is a rotten core to how our democracy works.”
Many directors, including social sciences director James Adair, had agreed with the foundation of Christie’s motion but disagreed with the way it garnered attention, especially on Instagram.
“[Christie] shouldn’t have created online hysteria from students to get support for the motion,” said Adair. “The only thing that occurs if the motion fails is that students will think UOSU is dead.”
Maisy Elspeth, the advocacy commissioner on the executive committee, proposed a substitution for the original motion, to “affirm director’s ability to express opinion”.
“The problem that I have with this motion is this idea of freedom of expression. What I mean by this is that freedom of expression is something that is required to be guaranteed by the state…and that includes things that are very, very harmful,” explained Elspeth.
Operations commissioner, Fiona Broughton, seconded the substitution and called the question to vote on it. The vote for calling the question did not pass, as it requires 2/3rds votes in favour — discussion on the motion’s substitution continued intensely.
“We are representing the UOSU and no longer speak as just as students, because we cannot be separated from our roles as board members,” said Abigail Lyons, a Telfer director who disagreed with the motion and emphasized how important their roles are as elected officials in a large organization.
“I really do not see why we would need to speak so negatively [of UOSU] all of the time, but we are also not being silenced in meetings.”
Quanah Traviss, the director of the Indigenous Students Association, reiterated how he also supported the motion but disagreed with the way Christie carried things out. Traviss also recognized how many students at the university are dissatisfied with UOSU.
“We all need to stop for a second and look inwards as to how we got here,” he said. “What are you actually debating here? Are you debating the contents of the motion and the principles of what it stands for? Or the way in which we got here?”
Finally, the motion with its amendments and substitutions, passed with unanimous consent.
Motion C) Communications commissioner
Moved by operations commissioner Broughton and seconded by common law director Gabrielle Muzychka, this motion detailed the establishment of a new role on the executive committee.
“The Communications Commissioner shall be responsible for overseeing the creation of an annual communications plan for the UOSU,” the motion read.
“The Communications Commissioner, in conjunction with the president, shall be responsible for coordinating and facilitating the
communication with the student population; [and] be responsible for overseeing and coordinating outreach of businesses and service centres.”
Broughton explained the motion, citing the necessity of a role dealing solely with communications with students and long-term strategies for the union.
“Our biggest problem is communication, it’s engagement with our students,” said Broughton. “As well since we’ve found that the role of clubs and services can very much be, and should be, divided amongst the different commissioners. Being able to work directly with the commissioners that are relevant to [the services’] mandate is something that we haven’t been able to do very well in the past.”
Broughton additionally explained that with a communications commissioner, the workload of overseeing clubs and services culture and decisions will be reallocated to the student life commissioner, while administrative duties will go to the full-time employee of Clubs Administrative Service (CAS).
Singh discussed a couple of clarifications and proposed a friendly amendment to the motion, believing that the (currently vacant) president is the spokesperson of UOSU with the consultation of the executive committee.
“The way [the motion] is worded right now kind of creates this image that after [executive committee] decisions are made, the president has to consult the communications commissioner on the position of the union,” argued Singh. “But the position of the union is already pre-determined by the executive committee and the board at large.”
After some clarification of the role of communications commissioner as separate from the pre-existing director of communications of the union (liked the idea), discussion on the need for the role continued.
Daniel Thorp, engineering director and a member of the communication and engagement committee, said that the committee is in favour of the new role to assist them with their plans.
“We’re kind of waiting for [this role], to be honest,” he said. “There’s a lot of things that the communications and engagement committee doesn’t have the capacity to enact with the current executive structure.’
Lukas Redmond, the deputy clubs and services commissioner, was granted speaking rights to further argue the need for the new commissioner role.
“When we were writing this report, we did it in conjunction with the management team,” he said. “It’s really important that we have someone who is elected for…[communications]. So if there is a mistake or a problem we have in our communications, or something we’re missing in our plans, there’s an elected representative on the board responsible to students who can respond to these questions, inquiries, and concerns.”
The motion passed unanimously, with a single abstention.
Motion D) Creation of a Full-Time position for External Relations
Moved by Elspeth and seconded by Singh, the goal of this motion is to establish a full-time position designed to maintain relationships between UOSU and different organizations and groups.
“What I have found since starting my mandate is that I am re-building and continuously re-building relationships with elected officials particularly, but generally outside groups,” she said.
Singh spoke favourably of the motion, claiming that he had been advocating for this new role for a few mandates.
“Many other student unions have a position to this effect. Our positions are one year, but government never stops”, he said. “In terms, the skills this person would need are very distinct. People come and go out of UOSU, but we need someone with really strong relationship-building skills.”
Arts director Wiedrick found the role important but raised a question of how much the new position will cost the union. “I know that students are also considered with how much money we are spending”
Broughton said that the budget has not been finalized yet, but adding another staff position is “feasible” and within the timeline.
The motion also passed unanimously, with a single abstention.
Motion E) Omnibus Motion on Standing Orders
This Omnibus motion, moved by Thorp, quickly fell apart after most of its items were externalized and individually discussed. Three of the motions passed — ‘chair’s discretion and board efficiency’, ‘updated agendas of board meetings’, and ‘board skills matrix’. ‘Referencing governing documents’ and ‘attendance policy’ failed.
The first discussed motion titled ‘chair’s discretion and board efficiency’ discussed the chair’s authority to determine the length of board meetings and manage debates.
Operations commissioner Broughton said that the current board has beaten the union’s previous record of over six-hour meetings. “Meetings of that length are counterproductive,” she said. “My mom wants to know where I am.”
The motion passed with eight in favour and five against.
The ‘board skills matrix’ motion detailed the requirement of board members to complete a matrix of their relevant skills and experience, as well as current UOSU position, to enhance “transparency and accountability within the UOSU’s Board of Directors”.
Thorp argued that the concept is commonplace for many non-profit organizations. After Elspeth made a friendly amendment to alter the wording, the motion passed.
Motion F) Creation of a Temporary Ad-Hoc Executive Code of Conduct
The final motion of the original agenda was moved by Elspeth. The goal of the motion was to create a temporary code of conduct for executive committee members, an idea discussed at previous meetings. The motion passed unanimously.
Last-Minute Motions
There were three motions that were added to the initial agenda at the start of the meeting.
Broughton tabled a motion that proposed interim student life commissioner Rayne Daparto become a temporary signing authority for the Union.
After a friendly amendment, the motion passes.
Elspeth tabled a different motion, proposing that UOSU sign onto an open letter to the University of Waterloo that they take greater action in protecting their campus in lieu of the hate attack on a gender studies class in June.
Elspeth included that the U of O and the dean of the faculty of social sciences had not issued an official response to the attack, calling their silence “terrible”. The motion passed unanimously.
Engineering director Thorp tabled a third motion that highlighted the election of directors within the Union. He argued that students within faculties do not elect their representatives on the Board and that the power of electing officials is determined at the general assembly (GA).
Traviss criticized Thorp’s motion, saying that students do in fact elect board representatives. As director of the Indigenous Students Association (ISA), Traviss was appointed by the ISA and ratified by the BOD at the first meeting of the mandate.
He additionally critiqued the use of decolonization in the motion, amending it to remove it from the motion. “This motion is inherently colonial,” said Traviss. “You have time and time again throughout this mandate, demonstrated a lack of de-colonial thought. It is not your fault.”
After Broughton made a friendly amendment to re-phrase the motion so that directors must highlight concerns of students within their faculty, as well as consider others in the university community.
After more deliberation and some apologies, the motion passed.
After faculty updates and executive updates, the meeting was adjourned after nearly seven hours. The next BOD meeting will be held in mid-August.
You can read the meeting’s agenda here.
– With Files from Bridget Coady
