Queer Concordia pilot project struck down at CSU finance committee

The committee points to lack of funds as the reason why the motion was denied

NewsGeneviève Sylvestre — Published October 21, 2024 5 minutes

The project aimed to connect students seeking gender-affirming care with short-term and interest-free loans to help them relieve some of the financial burden associated with paying for gender-affirming care. 

The CSU’s Health and Dental Plan currently covers $5,000 per procedure and has a $10,000 lifetime maximum for gender-affirming care surgeries and treatments. This can make it hard for students to access care, as procedure costs can often exceed $10,000.  

Additionally, according to the CSU website, there is currently no pay-direct coverage available, meaning that students seeking care must first pay for their procedures out-of-pocket. 

Winton asked the committee for a maximum of $100,000. According to the finance committee minutes, councillors voted against the project as the CSU is currently faced with high expenses and dropping income due to low enrollment, making the project not “sustainable to the CSU.”

According to CSU finance coordinator Souad El Ferjani, the finance committee only has a total funding of $20,000. She added that, as finance coordinator, she does not chair all other committees and does not have the power to pull funds from other committees.

“We [had] plans for bursaries for businesses, we had plans for having financial literacy workshops for international students and for students in general, we had plans for a business fair,” El Ferjani said. “We had a lot of big plans for the whole year, so giving away the [whole] $20,000 did not make sense to the councillors.”

El Ferjani also added that it did not make sense for the councillors to allocate the few remaining funds to the Queer Concordia project.

“It's very insulting if somebody comes and asks for $100,000 and I give them $2,000,” she said.

Additionally, El Ferjani told The Link that the finance committee did consider using funds from the operations budget to pay for the project. Ultimately, as the CSU is already in a deficit this year due in part to the tuition hikes, councillors decided that it would not be a financially sound decision. 

Winton added that she had also asked the financial committee to consider using the insurance surplus currently allocated to the Studentcare Legal Care Program to fund the pilot project.

“They said they would get back to me on that, but they did not,” Winton said, “and when I look at the minutes from the meeting that suggestion is not within the minutes at all either.”

Winton requested to present an amended version of the motion to council at the second CSU regular council meeting (RCM) on Oct. 9. The then-CSU chairperson Michelle Lam denied her request.

According to El Ferjani, Lam did not allow Winton to present her motion because the council had already decided to defer the project to the finance committee during the first RCM, and the finance committee had come to a decision. 

“This does not close the door for Queer Concordia to go to other committees, but to go back to council again does not make any sense because council has already taken the decision to send it to the finance committee,” El Ferjani said.

Winton said she believes that CSU members did not properly read her motion or take it seriously, citing that the motion only asked for a maximum of $100,000 and that councillors did not ask her questions during the finance committee meeting. 

“We're just looking to essentially use money that the CSU has sitting around in their Student Space, Accessible Education, and Legal Contingency fund or other committees to always circulate it with the loan program for people to be able to access the gender-affirming care,” she said, “because you have to pay upfront for your procedures most of the time and that's a very large financial barrier that most people face.”

El Ferjani said she believes councillors did not ask questions during the finance committee meeting because they had already read the motion and listened to Winton's presentation during the first RCM.

“They were aware of the motion, they had the time to read the motion prior to the RCM, they listened to Jessica during the RCM, they [had] heard the questions during the RCM,” El Ferjani said, “so my thought process is that they already knew a lot of [this] information.”

Three of the committee’s four councillors were present for Winton’s presentation, with the fourth arriving later according to El Ferjani, and the student at large seat was and remains vacant. Winton requested to be appointed to fill the seat, but Lam denied the request.

Lam wrote in an email, which was sent to The Link, that procedure requires a student to first apply to the appointments committee and then have their appointment ratified by council before being able to sit on the committee. The former chairperson added that, even if Winton was appointed to fill the seat, she would not be able to vote on a Queer Concordia project as it would be deemed a conflict of interest. 

Winton expressed frustration over the lack of transparency, saying that the CSU website can be difficult to navigate and is not up to date, with the minutes from the first RCM where she had originally presented her motion having not yet been added to the website. 

According to Winston, more students should be aware of the CSU’s inner workings and how much money they possess.

“Student groups such as ours, [...] it shouldn't be our duty and our mandate to have to charge students more money by raising our fee levy to alleviate services the CSU is supposed to provide and to advocate for themselves,” she said. 

Looking forward, Winton said that Queer Concordia is able to dedicate around $20,000 of surplus to fund the project. She also said she is considering other avenues to fund her pilot project, such as applying to the Sustainability Action Fund and the Concordia Council on Student Life’s special project funding.