Another Disputed Election, Another Lawsuit
In an earlier blog entry, I noted that the third consecutive general election of the Kwantlen Student Association is now headed to the Supreme Court of British Columbia.
I have now obtained a copy of this petition to the Supreme Court of British Columbia [PDF], asking the court to annul the election.
(Earlier StudentUnion.ca coverage of the KSA: here, here, here, and here.)
In an earlier blog entry, I noted that the third consecutive general election of the Kwantlen Student Association is now headed to the Supreme Court of British Columbia.
I have now obtained a copy of this petition to the Supreme Court of British Columbia [PDF], asking the court to annul the election.
(Earlier StudentUnion.ca coverage of the KSA: here, here, here, and here.)
Labels: kwantlen
11 Comments:
Donald Crane again.... this is going to be interesting.
You're kidding. Seriously. Right?
I can't believe this epidemic of mismanagement of various student unions around BC. Did I, like so many other people, just miss it completely (meaning it's been festering a long time, which is embarrassing because I consider myself a bit more informed about student union issues than $RANDOM_PERSON_IN_BC), or did this just suddenly get bad in the last year?
Unfortunately I have to concede it may have been around for quite a while. Vote turnout for student union elections tends to be low, which indicates a relative lack of interest by the student body in student union activities. As a result it becomes abundantly clear that a lot of chicanery can go on under everybody's noses with no-one being the wiser as long as you don't cheese off too many people.
Hunsdale et al on the SFSS board, for example, could have been a lot slicker about how they tried to shoehorn the SFSS into a deal with their preferred Graduate Health Insurance provider, and we'd only have heard about it after the next SFSS elections, by which time Shawn "I'm not even a student anymore" Hunsdale is with the Green Party, and the other Common Sense slate members are scattered to the four winds.
Alas they were not so slick, and they got busted.
Makes you wonder though, how many SFSS boards in the past have mismanaged student funds and/or created slush funds for their own benefit.
The KSA was very bad in the 1990s, lots of in-fighting, corruption and other worries.
They then cleaned house in the late 1990s and brought in a new set of bylaws which had the KSA essentially corruption free from 2000 - 2004. RAF might claim the previous board was "corrupt" but if it did somethings that weren't too bright then yes, but if you look at "corrupt" as being a word used to describe people who are intentionally stealing from students, then no.
The KSA is going before Judge Tyso today at 9am.
Yeah, Joey. Don Crane. He's been a busy man this year, going to court for Hunsdale et al. at SFU, Atwal and gang at KSA, and the fine fine folks at both DSU and VCC. Must be nice acting as counsel for the CFS; manufacture some crisis, then wait for the paycheques to roll in as you file lawsuit after lawsuit.
This man is a hired gun. Too bad he's not very good at it.
Makes you wonder though, how many SFSS boards in the past have mismanaged student funds and/or created slush funds for their own benefit.
Ok - check your facts! The answer is none - and they didn't do it this time because we stopped them. Accusations of financial impropriety at the SFSS are way out of line. Check out years and years worth of unqualified audits for proof.
The kind of shit that's going down at Douglas and the KSA is happening because they don't have good internal controls in place and lack qualified staff to do their bookkeeping. This is simply not the case at the SFSS.
KSA had some of the best internal controls and was well in the black for a number of years before RAF took over. They ran the place into the ground by firing all the qualified staff within their first six months of being in power
Anonymous said...
KSA had some of the best internal controls and was well in the black for a number of years before RAF took over. They ran the place into the ground by firing all the qualified staff within their first six months of being in power
Riiight. This is the same KSA where the General Manager (Penny something) was related to every staffer by blood or marriage? Yep, no chance for corruption there! I'll grant you that the really bad stuff happened after the CFS-backed RAF took over, but the KSA was not without problems.
what were some of these problems?
When RAF took over, Penny Minor was related to only one other staff person, Erin Minor, who is Penny's daughter.
A number of years ago, another daughter - Dani Bohem worked there, but she started as an elected official; and later became executive advisor. She was not a staff member for long and left in 2000 or 2001 to come back for a very short time in 2002 before leaving again.
But aside from looking bad, the KSA was in good shape financially, having surpluses each year. The KSA was politically active and got a lot more media from 2002 – 2005, bringing a lot of attention and focus to issues surrounding post secondary education. The KSA was also pushing the CFS to be more open and accountable.
Things were not perfect, but you would be challenged to find anything as bad as what happened when RAF took over.
how many student unions across the country have had impeachment and resignations in the past year or two? Is the problem at SFSS indicative of problems all over the country in student governance?
Justin Benko
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home