The Debate Continues
A debate between Clement Apaak (former SFSS President), Shawn Hunsdale (current SFSS President), Margo Dunnet (current SFSS External Relations Officer), and myself took place last Thursday. You can read about it in this week's Peak (or on Xenia's blog)... or you can listen to it online! Special thanks to CJSF Radio, who recorded this debate, and to Michael Letourneau for storing it on his server.
A number of webpages have appeared and disappeared in recent weeks.... Since the SFSS Powers That Be do not recognize the decision of Forum to call the Special General Meeting (SGM), I have created a website for Forum In Exile, which has information on the Special General Meeting. A MySpace account has been created called "I am going to the SGM." Bhuvinder has devoted his webspace to providing his perspective on the issue, and Derrick has written a fascinating post on the subject as well. A lively discussion is taking place on the online forum of the Computing Science Student Society.
As for the Other Side - well, one can find the agenda for the Annual General Meeting on the SFSS website. However, the Other Side's campaign website, yoursfss.org, has been taken down, reportedly on the advice of their labour lawyer.
I also found out that our Communications Coordinator was forced to remove all of the minutes of SFSS meetings from the SFSS website, upon receiving written orders to do so from one of the SFSS executives. SFSS staff have also been ordered not to cooperate with the SGM in any way whatsoever.
I am also very pleased to report that the Special General Meeting will likely be chaired by none other than Patrice Pratt! Ms. Pratt is the Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of VanCity Credit Union, the former director of staff development and administration for the BCGEU, and the former president of the BC NDP. She served as a member of the Board of Governors of SFU until her appointment was rescinded by the BC Liberals in 2002.
(I will comment on the fascinating stuff happening with the USSU tomorrow!)
A debate between Clement Apaak (former SFSS President), Shawn Hunsdale (current SFSS President), Margo Dunnet (current SFSS External Relations Officer), and myself took place last Thursday. You can read about it in this week's Peak (or on Xenia's blog)... or you can listen to it online! Special thanks to CJSF Radio, who recorded this debate, and to Michael Letourneau for storing it on his server.
A number of webpages have appeared and disappeared in recent weeks.... Since the SFSS Powers That Be do not recognize the decision of Forum to call the Special General Meeting (SGM), I have created a website for Forum In Exile, which has information on the Special General Meeting. A MySpace account has been created called "I am going to the SGM." Bhuvinder has devoted his webspace to providing his perspective on the issue, and Derrick has written a fascinating post on the subject as well. A lively discussion is taking place on the online forum of the Computing Science Student Society.
As for the Other Side - well, one can find the agenda for the Annual General Meeting on the SFSS website. However, the Other Side's campaign website, yoursfss.org, has been taken down, reportedly on the advice of their labour lawyer.
I also found out that our Communications Coordinator was forced to remove all of the minutes of SFSS meetings from the SFSS website, upon receiving written orders to do so from one of the SFSS executives. SFSS staff have also been ordered not to cooperate with the SGM in any way whatsoever.
I am also very pleased to report that the Special General Meeting will likely be chaired by none other than Patrice Pratt! Ms. Pratt is the Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of VanCity Credit Union, the former director of staff development and administration for the BCGEU, and the former president of the BC NDP. She served as a member of the Board of Governors of SFU until her appointment was rescinded by the BC Liberals in 2002.
(I will comment on the fascinating stuff happening with the USSU tomorrow!)
Labels: sfu
5 Comments:
1. Can you enlighten us on tactics, Titus? I've followed this stuff (sometimes unwillingly) on your blog for awhile now, and really can't see what's to be gained by boycotting the "real" AGM. Am I missing something?
2. The USSU thing is interesting - basically it boils down to whether or not process is fair in the eyes of a "reasonable person" - and post-hoc overruling of legally-constituted bodies doesn;t cut it.
Its too bad someone didn't try that route ten years ago when CFS first came up with all this nonsense about "referendum oversight committees", etc. At that time, the loons who were pushing to change the rules to make it harder to leave CFS were in a majority but there were so many "in absentia" members that there was no quorum without the rebels. Kelly Lamrock led a walk-out to deny the meeting quorum. The meeting chair then redefined quorum to mean "majority of members who were there at the start of the meeting", instead of the more traditional (and legally binding) sense of "majority of members".
As a result, virtually everything that was passed at the spring 95 meeting (including the more restrictive referendum rules) was technically illegal (as I'm certain the judge in the USSU case would agree). I guess someone should have thought to sue back then...I would imagine it is too late to do so now.
Still - someone should do some digging.
(1) The Board of Directors called the AGM (Annual General Meeting) two days after Forum called the SGM (Special General Meeting), in a deliberate attempt to confuse students and draw off students from attending the SGM.
Furthermore, under the Society Act of British Columbia, a motion to remove a director from office requires previous notice to be given in the call of the meeting. Since the call of the AGM did not include this previous notice, it would be impossible to legally remove a director at the AGM. That is why we are trying to get students to attend the SGM.
(2) I should have a look at these minutes! It will be interesting to see what arguments people were making for/against the "referendum oversight committees."
these guys must be taking a page from the douglas and kwantlen student association's handbooks - last fall at kwantlen the students tried organizing a meeting which at every turn was blocked by the powers that be in the KSA.
Titus:
Re: tactics. I get it now - the bit about notice for removal was the piece I had been missing. Thanks for clearing that up.
Re: CFS minutes. I'd be very surprised if the minutes faithfully reflected the debate. But you have to understand that those rules came in right after CFS had lost a string of referenda. There was one night in March of 1995 that was the real catalyst - five schools held their votes on the same day in an attempt to get weaken CFS by forcing them split their fieldworkers. It worked - all five referenda passed by large majorities. The new referendum cttee was transparently an attempt to give CFS better control over the voting process so they could head off similar attempts to organize.
Ditto (I think) the rules about requiring six months notice on a referenda - while a notice period is certainly needed, six months at most schools means declaring at the start of September. So anyone who gives notice is more or less guaranteed to be unable to do anything else in his/her term of office.
Of course, CFS is not big on rules of order or procedure. As i understand it, the heart of the Travel CUTS lawsuit was the assertion that CFS had ignored the letter of an AOSC resolution regarding the wind-up of Travel CUTS , and then actually advertised having done so in a National Executive report. CFS of course claimed for years that the CUTS lawsuit was vexatious, without merit, etc....but then mysteriously settled the suit and simply gave away 25% control of a $50 million company (I believe that's how big CUTS is - does anyone else know?). It is a measure of how well CFS has brainwashed its people that not a single CFS union has stood up to ask George Soule, Amanda Aziz or any other of Phil Link's trained seals the following questions:
1. If the CUTS lawsuit was frivolous, why did CFS effectively just give away over $12 million of its members' assets?
2. If the lawsuit was not frivolous, why did CFS execs and staff lie about the seriousness of the lawsuit to members for so many years?
Anyways, Titus, if you do get a hold of CFS minutes to look at this issue, it would be an incredibly useful service if you could at the same time find and post some of the organization's past budgets (surprise, surprise, CFS does not make its finances public). Rumours are (I think they have been mentioned by others here) that CFS in fact owes CUTS substantial sums of money and that it might actually be bankrupt if those loans were called in. As long as CFS "owned" 100% of CUTS, there was never any danger of that - but the new ownership structure means that CUTS might actually have to exercise due diligence in the matter and ask for those loans to be repaid.
Which leads to a question for legal eagles out there: if CFS were to head into bankruptcy - would member locals be forced to assume its debts?
"these guys must be taking a page from the douglas and kwantlen student association's handbooks - last fall at kwantlen the students tried organizing a meeting which at every turn was blocked by the powers that be in the KSA."
Don Crane is the same lawyer involved in all of those issues. He was also the counsel that the UBC executive talked to (despite having a long history with Davis & Co.) when trying to fire their general manager.
Frankly, I don't get why he still gets work. He clearly isn't very good. On the other hand, if your student society hires him, they definitely did something wrong.
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