Referenda, Elections Policy Coming to Board

The UVic Student Society Board will be meeting one more time before the end of the month, in a special Board meeting tomorrow at 6pm. The agenda is crammed with referendum questions and election policy changes as well as a motion I covered previously on the Access UVic society of students with disabilities and the agenda of the UVSS Semi-Annual General Meeting on February 17.

There are two ways to schedule referenda under UVSS bylaws, either a Board vote or a petition of 10% of the student body. A petition ensures there is enough support for the question to justify holding a referendum. On the other hand, a question posed by the Board will usually benefit either the Board itself or interests aligned with some Board members.


In addition to the referendum questions to be set by the Board, there will be another one initiated by petition. This question, of dubious legality, asks students for an extra $110 per year in mandatory athletic fees in order to build a new gym. The problem is that increases to tuition and other mandatory fees, specifically including building fees, are capped at inflation by the provincial government. An attempt to increase athletic fees by this amount last year was thrown out by the Ministry of Advanced Education.

The Board will vote on whether to hold the following referenda:

• Do you support establishing a dedicated fee of 76¢ per semester for full-time students and 38¢ per semester for part-time students to be allocated to the Campus Community Garden?

This is apparently triggered by the Campus Community Garden's move to a new location. However, one does wonder if the UVic Sustainability Project could lend or donate some of their $27,000 surplus to the gardens' moving expenses.

• Do you support an increase to the fee allocated to the Native Student Union in the amount of 98¢ per semester for full-time students and 49¢ per semester for part-time students?

The NSU passed a fee increase of $1 per student per semester in March 2003; now they are asking for another increase. The winning Chairperson candidate in the 2002 election, Troy Sebastian, also served as the "Yes" side of the NSU referendum question.

• Do you agree to increase the fee allocated to the Native Student Union annually by the rate of inflation according to the Consumer Price Index with a maximum increase of 2.1% per year?

This would increase the NSU fee increase, but automatic yearly increases, without referenda approving each one, seem a bit undemocratic to me–a vote every time the fee goes up makes more sense.

• Do you support establishing a dedicated fee of 10¢ per semester for full-time students and 5¢ per semester for part-time students to be allocated to fund the SPOKES bicycle loan and rental program, administered by the UVic Sustainability Project?

Again, the UVSP has a $27,000 surplus so why are they asking for more money?

• Are you in favour of using an online voting system for UVSS elections to the Board of Directors?

The Board rejected online voting by the narrowest of margins for this year's elections. A referendum would provide a clearer direction on the issue.

• Would you be willing to support an initiative led by the University of Victoria, the UVSS and the UVic Sustainability Project to gradually eliminate sales of bottled water on campus with increased access to clean and free drinking water?

This question was petitioned extensively, but two different versions of the petition were used with slightly different wording. According to Director-at-Large Dylan Sherlock, over 1500 signatures were collected if both petitions are counted.

If all the above questions passed (not including the athletic fees) students would end up paying $1.84 per semester, or $3.68 more per year in additional student fees. This comes in addition to the $7.20 per year UVSS operating fee increase passed in November 2010.

New election policies proposed

Some election policy changes are being introduced to deal with issues which came up in previous elections and referenda. One motion proposes that the Chief Electoral Officer have the authority to remove unapproved third party campaign material. This is a result of a loophole in elections policy, which could allow campaigns to exceed poster, banner and spending limits, since these limits are only enforced on candidates, not third parties. A registration system does exist for third party endorsements, but no-one uses it since there are no benefits, and no penalties to the third party for being "unofficial." An anonymous third party campaign surfaced in the UVSS referenda of November 201o and was addressed in CEO Shawn Slavin's electoral report.

Two more motions would allow candidates to tape posters and banners together to create larger images, and would clarify policy around campaign listservs. Last year Directors-at-Large-elect Geoff Sharpe and Justin Bedi were disqualified for several alleged major offences including taping their posters together and using a type of listserv software known as Constant Contact. However, CEO Conrad Vanderkamp had approved both the posters and the listserv, and he subsequently resigned.

The new listserv policy was revised extensively in the Organizational Development committee and now states that candidates may use personal contact lists if everyone on the list has consented to be included. "Group listserv," a clearer term, is now used instead of "professional listserv" to describe the club and course union lists which should not be used for campaigning.

Bylaw changes for February

On the draft agenda for the February SAGM is a proposal to incorporate the Anti-Violence Project, a student group run with fees approved in a 1998 referendum, into the bylaws of the UVSS. It's not clear why the AVP wants this, since the proposed bylaws state that the group will be run independently of the UVSS and the UVic administration, and AVP would not receive any new privileges such as a seat on the UVSS Board. The bylaws do state that the UVSS must remit funds collected from the referendum ($2 per student per semester) to AVP provided the group completes an annual audit.

AVP is currently governed by an advisory board, and the Chairperson of the UVSS serves as the advisory board chair. I can see this system running into problems if the UVSS chair didn't like or didn't want to be involved in AVP, but surely this can be fixed in a much simpler fashion. AVP currently has a large surplus of $162,913 which is being held in UVSS accounts and facilitates cash flow in the summer months.

Finally, a referendum quorum of 5% and a change which would allow bylaws to be amended by referendum as well as by general meeting are proposed. The latter motion could have significant effects since currently we can only amend bylaws at a meeting which achieves quorum, usually around 100 students. This bylaw change (if it was possible to get quorum to pass it in the first place) would make future bylaw changes a bit easier, though they'd still have to get 75% support in the referendum.