An Unfair Critique
I would like to point out an important mistake and a clear lack of professionalism evident in The Link’s editorial.
In the editorial published March 4 entitled “We Need Zero-Tolerance for Sexist Chants,” (Vol. 34, Issue 23) you improperly refer to “a mistake from the ECA’s VP External Jonathan Ladouceur” when discussing the mailing list that he chose to send the resolution to and how this “doesn’t indicate poor planning on the part of those who brought the resolution forward.”
Although the ECA has been extremely open to all discussion with regards to this matter, you have based a judgment on discussions that were spontaneous, without having made the effort to try to put this into context.
In fact, the motion was brought to his attention only minutes before he sent that email at 3:07 p.m. Additionally, the mailing list concerned is a mailing list that we frequently use in order to reach out to as many student leaders as possible. That is, his intention was to make aware of this motion as many students as possible in the short period of time the ECA was constrained to.
The mailing list in question was created this year, and includes the emails of every student leader under our umbrella. However, it initially lacked the four departmental representatives, since the communications sent to the list are almost exclusively related to operating groups under our umbrella. The moment we noticed they would benefit from being included on the list, we added them to it.
Jonathan is one of the most valuable players of our organization, and his mandate as VP External does not include sending motions to council. That is the job of our VP Internal, and we have certainly had a few hiccups since he resigned in January. Jon went above and beyond his call of duty in this matter and was clearly acting in good faith.
He should not be cited as the person making a mistake; to the contrary, he always does everything in his power to inform students about matters coming from a provincial and a national level. In fact, The Link published a piece about the work he does in October.
As you can imagine, I am extremely disappointed and angry that The Link would point fingers at an executive that put his blood and sweat into an organization without even having tried to put this matter into context or reach out to us in any way. As a student-run Concordia newspaper, you should be ashamed of putting down student leaders for acting in good faith by seeking consultation and feedback from our members in such a small amount of time.
I demand that an apology be written and sent to Jonathan, and his name be immediately removed from this piece whether it is online or printed.
Jonathan has not made a mistake, The Link has.
—Antonin Picou
