Directors make preparations for Autumn General Assembly
The University of Ottawa Students’ Union (UOSU) Board of Directors (BOD) met on Saturday, Oct. 21 to prepare for its upcoming Autumn General Assembly (AGA). The meeting began online at noon and met in the University’s Senate room in Tabaret Hall at 1 p.m.
Former engineering director and current elect for the Communications Commissioner, Daniel Thorp chaired the meeting. In the first hour, the BOD went in-camera to discuss the hiring of its new chair. A decision was reached in-camera and a letter of offer will be sent to the successful candidate.
At 2:50 p.m, the group that had gathered in-person (Thorp, student life commissioner Rayne Daprato, Clerk Maya Sinclair and FSS director Max Christie) realized that Thorp could not chair the motion to ratify election results.
In the time given for statement of students, President of uOttawa Votez, Ryan Chang spoke to the greater engagement from students in the recent by-election. “7.7 [per cent turnout] is better but not perfect. So we need to keep doing more because we’re still lagging behind the other universities. so I encourage everyone to keep engaging people and get rid of the apathy.”
Motion A) Removing Armaan Singh from the governance committee.
Brought by Gabrielle Musychka, the Chair of the governance committee and director for the common law faculty. This motion passed with nine in favour.
Motion B) Ratification of election results
Sinclair was temporarily appointed chair for the duration of this motion, which was moved by FSS director Brandon Ly and seconded by Christie. Ly spoke to the motion, sharing that the elections committee had met the day before and requesting to go in camera.
Once out of camera, Sinclair took recorded division on the motion, which passed. After this motion, Thorp resumed the duties of chair.
Motion C) Approval of GA agenda
Amendments made to the proposed AGA agenda took up a fair portion of this meeting and will be broken down further by subcategories.
Required number of signatures for referendum questions
Ly moved to amend the signature requirements for referendums brought to the AGA from 25 to 50. Christie deemed the amendment unfriendly: “50 [signatures] in one week, especially given the turnout and engagement, I think that 25 signatures in a week is hard enough that it will stop frivolous referendums. but not so difficult that it presents a major block.”
Grace Tongue, director of health sciences, requested a friendly sub-amendment to Ly’s amendment to raise the number of signatures to 100 signatures. This was seconded by Adair and Ly asked to hear Tongue’s reasoning.
“It’s very, very, very easy to get 25 [or] 50 signatures. You can ask literally random students [and] we’re 40,000 [undergraduate] students, right? It’s very easy to get the signatures. I do think that 100 is doable, and that at least, shows that there’s 100 people who support the question” she explained. Ly declared her sub-amendment friendly.
Debate on the amendment included comments from engineering director Justin Brown, Daprato, and Telfer director Justin Delphy, who each supported the original 25 signatures proposed by Christie.
Tongue clarified her position, saying 100 signatures would automatically put the question to all members rather than needing to be approved by the BOD.
“It’s not that they can’t submit the referendum question here. It’s a privilege they can get if they have tangible support […] It’s just that if they get the support, it will be automatically accepted, is what I’m trying to say here, and I feel like 25 is not enough.”
Daprato took issue with the language used. “I just want to kind of go back to it being a privilege, it’s not. It’s the right of any UOSU member to get a referendum question on the ballot.”
Christie clarified the sub-amendment on behalf of Tongue. “We’re talking about getting 100 signatures in a week. And maybe you guys were just a lot better at organizing […] I would not be able to do that.”
“I’m still pretty strongly [in] favour of keeping about 25, I think that is the most objective standard that we can keep. Which is why I would say 100 is over what is reasonable — I was hearing 500, please don’t do that. But I think that 25 is the most objective, precedent-based number of people. So let’s keep it at that.” said Christie.
Ly spoke to the two-tier system of having signatures Tongue proposed; having those with 100 signatures automatically put through to the AGA, while those with fewer signatures would have to go through the BOD before being brought to the AGA. Ly expressed that verifying the signatures would be one issue with this system.
Daniel Bersynoiw, a director for health sciences, brought a sub-amendment to lower the number back to 50. Ly deemed this friendly and said he would not change the number again.
The sub-amendment failed with equal votes for (Adair, Ly, Tongue, and Bersynoiw) and against (Delphy, Brown, Christie, and Williams) and one abstention (Daprato).
Referendum questions in byelections
Adair moved to restrict referendums to general elections only. Christie declared this unfriendly.
Adair said a by-election’s purpose is to fill holes in governance. He believed that standardizing the timing of referendum questions would provide time to prepare and discuss.
Christie believed that a by-election made up of only referendum questions would be fair. “Even if, down the road, we have a by-election that is purely referendums, I think that’s generally good from a democratic and good governance standpoint.”
Ly echoed Adair’s point, acknowledging this had been discussed between the two at the previous day’s elections committee meeting. Ly went on: “To me, it just makes sense that we have [the questions] at the general elections when they’re holding what they say guaranteed schedule […] we should not be having by-elections that is the point.”
The motion passed with four votes in favour and the group returned to discussion on the main motion. Christie moved an amendment to remove “and by-election” from article 2.2.9.1 of the UOSU constitution. This passed.
Vote on the main motion passed with unanimous consent with only Delphy abstaining.
Motion D) Approval of GA agenda
Moved by Adair and seconded by Ly, this motion had the board go through each motion being brought to the AGA to deem them in line with the constitution. This was not a debate on the merit of the motions, but a discussion to determine if each motion was following proper procedure.
Subsections here are referencing the proposed AGA agenda, found in the meeting documents as Annex A.
Nearly every motion was externalized, and a majority were struck for being unconstitutional or outside of the purview of the UOSU.
Struck for violating the Canada Not-for-profit act
Motions 10C to Improve UOSU communications and 10D on Residence room temperature were both externalized by Christie and struck with unanimous consent due to potential violations of Canada’s Not-for-Profit Act.
Other motions struck on the same grounds were 10I, a motion on the safety of students living in residences; 10L calling for an app to be developed; 10M a motion for left-handed lecture theater seats; 10W a motion calling for textbook prices to be decreased; and 10Z a motion for the creation of an Ethiopian cafe and gallery by the Black Student Leaders Association.
Struck for being a violation of UOSU’s constitution
10E was externalized by Christie who suggested it be removed for its violation of UOSU constitution section 3.2.5.
10J Safety of Students Living in Residences was externalized by Christie for amendments. Adair wished to strike the motion altogether for being unconstitutional. The motion was struck.
Motion 10G on Advocacy for students with disabilities was externalized by Christie for being out of order. The motion to remove this from the AGA agenda passed with unanimous consent.
Motions from members 10V called to make student insurance an “Opt-In” rather than an “Opt-Out” fee. This was externalized by Adair who believed the motion was not legal under the UOSU constitution section 3.4.3.3 (Not compatible with fiduciary duty).
10X concerning appointment booking with the health and wellness centre was externalized by Christie for being outside of the Union’s purview. This passed and the motion was removed.
Other business
Adair brought to the attention of the board that they had recently passed an amendment to the position book with a motion passed by the BOD (Motion D from the September BOD) on genocide denial. Positions adopted by the union come up for renewal every three years.
Motion D) Approval of the Amended AGA agenda
Passed with unanimous consent.
Motion E) Indigenous Law Student Government (ILSG)
Adair clarified that a budgeting issue had occurred, where the Levy to the ILSG would be an annual payout rather than a semesterly payout. This motion remedied the mistake ensuring the ILSG would receive the full funding they are entitled to. The motion passed with unanimous consent.
Items for discussion:
Daprato moved to table the motion until the next board meeting. Adair seconded Daprato’s motion and stated that he had brought the motion but believed that the relevant members of the board were not present for the discussion.
