CSU chairperson abruptly resigns mid-RCM

Unprepared councillors and long meetings continue to plague CSU council meetings

NewsGeneviève Sylvestre — Published October 11, 2024 5 minutes

“It has been an honour and a privilege to have served the CSU for the past few years, but I have decided it is time to step away,” Lam said. “So thank you so much, everyone, I wish you the best with the rest of your mandates.”

The RCM was the second of the year and began a few minutes after the 6:30 p.m. scheduled start time and was adjourned at 10:09 p.m. following Lam’s departure. 

The fifth point was the longest point on the agenda. It pertained to the presentation of the CSU executive annual plan, in which each executive member presented their work plan for the 2024-2025 school year. The chairperson had sent the work plans to each council member before the RCM, as councillors are expected to come into the RCM having already read all documents.

The first two executive members to present were student life coordinator Moad Alhjooj and general coordinator Kareem Rahaman. Both presentations received minimal questions from council members.

The third executive member to present was external affairs and mobilization coordinator Danna Ballantyne. She presented her work plan regarding the campaign department, which includes meeting with various student groups on campus to identify their needs and requests to create a campaign. The plan outlined tuition hikes and divestment from war, apartheid and genocide as examples of the needs brought forward by students. 

All campaigns approved and funded by the CSU need to be in line with the CSU’s positions book. Each official position was adopted following the result of an election or by-election, and the book was last ratified in March 2022.

Ballantyne’s presentation was met with numerous questions from council members, the first of which came from Drew Sylver, a councillor representing the arts and science department. He asked questions regarding who approved each campaign, which student groups were consulted to create each campaign, and what the divestment campaign entails.

Ballantyne further clarified that the CSU does not spearhead any campaigns, but rather grants resources to students who express interest in organizing campaigns as far as they fall within the CSU’s positions book. She listed anti-austerity, divestment, anti-tuition hikes and food sovereignty on campus as currently active CSU campaigns. 

“We have several campaigns on the go at this point, and we haven’t rejected any campaign demands, which I think is some good context for you here,” Ballantyne said.

Ballantyne also explained that the divestment campaign is in line with the CSU positions book, which states that “the CSU has the position to divest from any investments and withdraw any financial or vocal support from states or businesses that are involved in apartheid.” 

Councillors were provided with an outline of the divestment campaign before the meeting, as the seventh point on the RCM’s agenda was the presentation of the campaign.

The line of questioning continued, with many councillors asking questions that had already been answered or whose answers could be found in documents sent to council before the RCM or in the CSU positions book. 

Ex-councillor Dave Plant and current councillor Salma Hashem remarked in the unmonitored Zoom chat that many councillors seemed to not have thoroughly read the agenda before the RCM. Similar concerns were brought forth at the end of the meeting, following Lam’s resignation. 

Later in the meeting, the chairperson disabled the chat function as councillors kept referencing it despite the fact that it is not monitored or reflected in the minutes. 

Ballantyne’s presentation and question period lasted around 37 minutes before the chairperson chose to exhaust the speakers’ list and move on to the next executive presentation. 

All of the executive annual plan presentations took over two hours to complete, with the main point of contention following Ballantyne’s presentation relating to training for both council members and the executive team.  

Following the executive presentation, the chairperson moved on to the consent agenda as points four and five had been swapped earlier in the evening. 

Councillor Sylver requested for four items to be removed from the consent agenda as he believed they required further discussion from council. Sylver was meant to explain his reasoning for these demands later in the meeting but was unable to as the RCM was terminated early.

The meeting moved to the sixth point on the agenda, appointments. Council voted unanimously to appoint Michael Lecchino to the Senate to fill the final councillor seat alongside Mohammad Abdallah.  

Following the Senate election, council also had to vote to appoint a singular councillor to the community action fund, as council had previously appointed three councillors by accident. Anastasia Zorchinsky and Hashem, who were both originally appointed to the fund, nominated themselves for the seat.  

Lam then called for a rollcall closed-ballot vote for the councillors, as is standard, but Sylver requested an open-ballot vote. Council then proceeded to debate for around 15 minutes on whether or not to hold an open-ballot vote, which resulted in five councillors voting in favour and 13 voting against an open-ballot. 

Hashem was appointed to the community action fund. Following her appointment, Lam announced her resignation and appointed Rahaman as chairperson for the remainder of the meeting. 

The meeting continued for an additional 30 minutes as councillors debated how to proceed. 

Some wanted to finish the meeting in its entirety, while Rahaman wanted the council to vote on approving the CSU’s budget. Other councillors wanted to terminate the meeting immediately due to Lam’s departure. 

Many councillors and executive members expressed concern over there being no one with expertise to facilitate the remainder of the RCM. Councillor Sarah Wolman then motioned to adjourn the meeting, due to there being no chairperson, and to plan a special council meeting to approve the budget over reading week. The motion passed unanimously.