Letter: Reasons to Vote No, Besides the Events

LettersSamantha Briand — Published March 15, 2016

Loyola is home for certain students, but is a distant land for others. Voting yes will remove ASFA events at Loyola—the primary reason many downtown students embark on the “shuttle journey.” This diminishes the VP Loyola position that represents the Loyola student-body voice and interests, like giving money to the Loyola free lunch program.

Our university should be integrated between campuses not isolated, and each student whether downtown of Loyola deserves to get their voices heard. The “yes” camp states that their proposal promotes inclusivity, but I fail to see how this plan can positively affect Loyola students interests. Voting “no,” I will continue to get my interests as a Loyola student heard, and downtown students will be granted more opportunities to enjoy the beautiful Loyola campus.

ASFA operation’s budget is approximately half a million per year—that money comes from us, the students—through our tuition. Students have a voice, thus they deserve a choice in who is delegating their funds to fulfill their interests. Voting “no,” students will continue to have the power to elect who is most suited to represent their needs.

Voting “yes” will allow uninsured, untrained, and unauthorized council-elects—whose mandates have not begun yet—to disperse hundreds of thousands of student money. Students pay a great deal into ASFA every semester. Those funds should be going back to us in the form of inclusive events, not towards a salary for executives to conduct solely administrative work with no initiatives for the students.

Most importantly, the changes have not been thoroughly thought through. ASFA hired a lawyer to looking into the changes and to amend the bylaws. Their legal opinion was that the process should be “delayed and a more thorough consultation should be conducted.”

They expressed the procedure of council elects choosing the executives, which raises legality concerns because they have no authority to do so, for they are not yet administrators by the law. They stated the by-law changes would not fix the funding misuse issues that ASFA has been encountering, and that there are more efficient solutions. The current ASFA members that paid these lawyers for their opinions are the same ones chairing the “yes” committee, which decided to disregard their recommendations because they do not agree with them.

— Samantha Briand, president of the Concordia Undergraduate Psychology Association