Vote No

Letters — Published November 29, 2011

Today Concordia students will be going to the polling stations to cast their votes in the Concordia Student Union byelection.

There are many interesting and important questions on the ballot, like the increased fee levy for CJLO and CUTV and the position of the Concordia Student Union regarding to tuition hikes and accessible education.

But one question seems to fall between the cracks—its importance is marginalized and its repercussions unexplained. This question is, does the student body wish to change their bylaws to a new set of bylaws that were penned primarily by current CSU President Lex Gill?

I’ve already probably lost most readers by this point. Who cares about bylaws?

Well, that seems to be the assumption of the CSU—since there has been no serious attempt to educate the student body about these bylaws and changes.

A student named Ace Szmolyan started a Facebook page where he provided all of the missing documentation to students. His unofficial “NO” campaign is called “Demand Knowledge: Vote NO for the CSU bylaw changes” and it was the first place where students have been able get their hands on the old bylaws, the new bylaws and the proposed changes.

The CSU then scurried to launch a very weak “YES” campaign, trying to divert the attention of students from the negligence and incompetence of their executive team. They’ve been telling us how “cool” the bylaw changes are by filling the page with articles about tuition—anything to get out of an actual debate or discourse regarding the actual proposed changes.

In this upcoming by-election, please join me and hundreds of like-minded students in showing the CSU that if they want our support, they need to involve us, they need to inform us and they must not keep information from us.