Bypass Bill 38
Tabled Bill Behind New Board’s Undergrad Rep Cuts
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A provincial bill that was tabled in 2009 is being cited as one of the major reasons the Concordia Board of Governors aims to cut its student membership.
Bill 38, which was introduced by then-Minister of Education, Recreation and Sports Michelle Courchesne, proposed standardized restrictions on university governance and procedural control on the Board’s makeup.
It received a scathing response from Quebec’s 18 university bodies when it was introduced for breaching academic freedom, limiting internal representation and drawing governance models from the corporate sector. It was eventually abandoned.
Concordia Interim President Frederick Lowy, however, explained to CBC’s Daybreak on Sept. 13 that the forgotten bill was one of two major influences that led to the decisions about the composition of the new board, the other being the External Governance Review Committee’s report, which was completed in June.
The committee, led by former McGill principal Bernard Shapiro, was established after the departure of President Judith Woodsworth—an event that raised questions among students, faculty and the general public about how the school is governed.
Both documents, according to the president, call for student representation to dwindle.
“The bill was withdrawn, but it hasn’t been scrapped. It’s still on the order paper and could be re-introduced at any point,” Lowy said. “That bill guides us in terms of what the government believes university representation should be like. […] It’s telling us that student representatives need to come down.”
Trimming the board down from 40 to 25 members over the course of this year, undergraduate students—who currently hold four of the 40 voting seats on the Board—are expected to have only one seat at the table if the recommendations are implemented.
When asked if he felt it was the right path for Concordia to take, Lowy said he was unsure.
“I understand the student’s point of view and I’m sympathetic to it,” he explained. “When you go down from 40 to 25, the math gets difficult.”
The abandoned Bill 38 also would also have required the BoG to maintain 60 per cent external members at the expense of internal governors, who are represented by professors, administrators and students.
“Bill 38 specifies quite clearly the proportion of [the board membership] they’re calling for,” continued Lowy. “If, indeed, it’s introduced, we don’t want to have a double-shift, to move from something we think might be desirable to something that has to be changed as soon as the government passes it.”
There is currently no news on whether the government will resurrect the bill, which the Conférence des recteurs et des principaux des universités du Québec argued would undermine university management and make universities weaker.
The legislation also doesn’t sit well with the Concordia Student Union, who have been very vocal about their position on proportional representation.
“We are deeply troubled by the proposal to cut both the absolute and proportional undergraduate representation on the board,” Concordia Student Union President Lex Gill told The Gazette on June 16. “I cannot stress enough the value of having a vocal, empowered student presence at that table.”
University spokesperson Chris Mota told The Link it would be “inappropriate” for the president to comment before the Sept. 28 Board of Governors meeting in response to an interview request.
