Highlights From Council

Personal Feuds and Minimum Agreement Dominate CSU Council Discussion

NewsHilary Sinclair — Published March 15, 2012

The Concordia Student Union council meeting March 14 were five hours of political power. Here are the highlights.

Minimum Agreements Again

The Minimum Agreement—which outline a series of clauses concerning student solidarity in Quebec—was shot down for the second time at the March 14 council meeting.

The agreements were first brought up on Feb. 8, and would bind signatories to three requirements with other student groups if passed.

The provisions include barring signatories from speaking out against the actions of other student groups, refusal to enter negotiations with the government unless all umbrella groups, such as the FEUQ and ASSE, are welcomed to the table, and preventing these umbrella groups from making decisions on behalf of its members.

The sticking point for many of those voting was the non-denunciation clause, as many argued that the Concordia Student Union cannot support any violent and illegal actions committed by others.

A motion to separate the three clauses and vote on them separately failed on two occasions.

Requests For Temporary CSU Membership

The requests of A Better Concordia executive council hopefuls Schubert Laforest and Lucia Gallardo to temporarily join the CSU were struck from the agenda at their request. Earlier this week it was revealed that the CSU candidates—running for president and VP Academic & Advocacy respectively—aren’t registered students and thus ineligible to seek candidacy.

JBeefs

Judicial Board member Nadim Kobeissi announced his resignation at the council meeting following the publicly airing of a complaint against fellow JB member Shannon Thomas.

Kobeissi stated that her behavior was indicative of “incompetence and passive aggressiveness,” claiming that he received insulting emails from her and that JB meetings becoming increasingly heated as a result.

Thomas responded by saying that the situation was “ridiculous” and she couldn’t believe she was defending herself.

This resignation comes prior to a scheduled meeting on Friday to discuss the legitimacy of Laforest and Gallardo’s candidacy. It was unclear at the time of publication how Kobeissi’s resignation might affect the meeting.

Concordia’s $2 Million Fine

Board of Governors student representative AJ West said that there is an external auditor looking into payouts made to former Concordia senior administrators. Over the last decade, $10 million dollars has been issued to top administrators on their way out.

A $2 million fine was handed down to Concordia on March 9 from Minister of Education Line Beauchamp, who criticized the board for running the university “like a business.”

West maintained that he believes the money should come from those board members who approved the packages and not from students. He said student members were unable to make any immediate decisions and would have to wait for the results of the audit.

Other Business

At the meeting, West brought up the expenses of eConcordia, Concordia’s online course options that are a separate entity, but are overseen by the university. The eConcordia budget will be released shortly, and West encouraged council to keep their “eyes on it.”

CUSAcorp, the for-profit arm of the CSU, will also release their new bylaws to be approved by the board next week.

More to come.