UOSU

“Both parties agreed to open and transparent communication throughout the transition process,” said a representative of the UOSU in an email to the Fulcrum. “The SFUO has failed to maintain open communication with us and we have been left in the dark regarding most of their plans.”

These services were voted in by students, for students, and for the most part are run by students. In threatening the stability of these services, the Ford government is ignoring the democratic means through which these services came to be.

They were declared the official winner of the referendum on Feb.11 and will now begin the process of taking over as the University of Ottawa’s exclusive student union.

It’s time for students at the U of O to start being more involved in the democratic processes that directly impact both their lives and their education. In the 2014 general SFUO election, for example, just over 10 per cent of students voted, an embarrassingly low number. Squaring this number with the over 57 per cent of people aged 18 to 24 who voted in the 2015 federal election proves we can—and should—do better.

The debate was the final event planned before the vote for a new student union at the U of O on Feb. 8. Tensions were high as both unions answered questions from students and moderators about the future of student services on campus.

It’s something all of us have been thinking recently, but not wanting to say out loud, out of fear of being labelled as “capitalist scum” by those really cool Marxists in your political thought class. But hear me out, maybe there’s a lot more in dissolving the union than what meets the eye.

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