Call the question galore at CSU council meeting
Calls to end debate and accusations of filibustering mark latest council meeting
The latest Concordia Student Union (CSU) regular council meeting (RCM) on April 9 saw councillors strenuously approve the consent agenda and reject all three motions on the agenda.
Throughout the evening, councillors successfully motioned to call the question—or end debate and move directly to a vote—a total of nine times, leading to accusations of filibustering.
When it came time to vote on approving the consent agenda—the set of committee minutes and executive reports for the month—at the start of the meeting, councillor Drew Sylver motioned to remove four items for further discussion. The items included were the External Committee minutes, the Policy Committee minutes, the Community Action Fund minutes, and the Clubs and Spaces Committee minutes.
Sylver called for sections of the External Committee, Community Action Fund, and Clubs and Spaces Committee minutes to be separated and voted on individually. All motions failed.
For each of the items taken out of the consent agenda, councillor Ali Salman successfully called the question during his speaking turn.
Almost 40 minutes into the meeting, as council was still approving the agenda, Sylver addressed the chairperson, saying that the constant calling of the question could be considered filibustering according to his interpretation of Robert’s Rules of Order.
In politics, a filibuster is a procedure used to prolong debate to delay or prevent a vote or decision.
The chairperson said this was not their interpretation of the rules and continued the meeting. All minutes were approved by council.
Following the approval of the consent agenda, three motions were presented to council. The first was brought forth by Lena Andres, a member of the cooperative CultivAction. Andres motioned to reallocate $25,000 from the CSU Loyola coordinator’s grant to CultivAction, to be divided between the Loyola Campus garden groups.
Andres claimed they made multiple attempts to communicate with the Loyola coordinator, Leen Al Hijjawi, and expressed dissatisfaction with the new grant. Al Hijjawi answered that they had been in communication and that she does not have a budget of $25,000.
After some discussion by council, Sylver called the question, clarifying he was doing so in a “non-‘filibustery’ way.” The motion failed.
Council moved on to discussing a motion put forth by Sylver to mandate that each councillor must disclose their affiliation with any CSU club in the name of transparency. As before, Salman successfully called the question, and Sylver’s motion failed.
Lastly, councillor Liora Hechel presented her motion to create a new CSU committee under the Student Life Committee to host food truck events on campus. Hechel proposed that $10,000 be allocated to this new committee per semester.
External affairs and mobilization coordinator Danna Ballantyne raised concerns about the logistics and costs associated with Hechel’s motion. Later, Hechel said that the CSU could hold fundraiser events, such as a LinkedIn photoshoot, to earn additional funds.
Once again, following additional discussion, Salman successfully called to end the debate and move to a vote.
Hechel’s motion failed, and the meeting was adjourned around 8:30 p.m.
