Yesterday's Organizational and Services Development Ctte Mtg

So yesterday I attended the Organizational and Services Development Committee (OSD), which is in charge of reviewing motions relating to the services and internal affairs of CFS-BC, as well as reviewing Bylaw, Standing Resolution, and Operations Policies...

• A motion from the Selkirk College Students' Union to fully subsidize the costs of one delegate to every provincial general meeting was recommended for adoption to plenary.
• A motion from the Malaspina Students' Union (MSU) to produce "a handbook on best practices in financial management ... as a resource for member local boards of directors and staff" was recommended for adoption to plenary. I moved an amendment proposing that the handbook be produced by "a qualified and experienced third party," citing CFS-BC's lack of qualification in this regard, but OSD voted down my amendment, claiming that the handbook should be made by elected officials and staff of CFS-BC member local student associations who were knowledgable of the specific financial management needs of student associations.
• Two motions from the Simon Fraser Student Society relating to transgendered, intersexed, and gender-variant individuals were recommended for adoption to plenary. One of these motions required gender-neutral washrooms near all CFS-BC meetings; the other motion directed that a set of practices be developed to allow transgendered, intersexed, or gender-variant individuals to be included within CFS-BC's gender-alternating speaker's list system used during meetings.
• A motion from the University of Victoria Graduate Students' Society (GSS) to amend Bylaw II to require that during referendum on federating (i.e. joining) CFS-BC the referendum ballot should contain "the per semester fee associated with membership" was recommended for defeat to plenary. SUVCC Executive Director Christa Peters argued that the Referendum Oversight Committee, consisting of two representatives each of the Federation and the students' union, should have the discretion to decide whether or not to include the fee on the referendum ballot. Malaspina Students' Union staffer Pat Barbosa went further and said that it would be "biased" to have a referendum ballot that included the costs of membership but not a summary of the many benefits associated with membership. CFS National Director of Organising Lucy Watson noted that in the case of the referendum wherein the GSS voted to join the Federation, the cost of membership was clearly printed on nearly every piece of propaganda distributed during the campaign. (The referendum ballot for the GSS referendum did not cite the per semester membership fee, which lead to a lawsuit over the validity of the referendum.)
• Another motion from GSS to allow for online voting and/or mail in ballot voting during a defederation referendum was recommended for defeat to plenary. Pat Barbosa argued that online voting was prone to fraud by hackers. (I noted that the KSA had experienced election fraud using only paper ballots.) Another delegate noted that mail in ballots would be environmentally irresponsible as they would consume a large carbon footprint. (National bylaws allow for a mail in component during referenda.)
• Yet another motion from GSS to eliminate the provision that allows plenary to impeach a local representative on the Executive Committee was recommended to be ruled out of order, as this would be in violation of Section 31 of the Society Act.
• A motion from GSS adjusting the reimbursement for automobile travel on Federation business was recommended for adoption with an amendment.
• A motion from the Camosun College Student Society to create a seat on the Executive Committee to represent international students was recommended for defeat to plenary. It was argued that international students come from many different backgrounds, and were not uniformly oppressed by society. UBCSUO General Manager Rob Nagai noted that the President of the Alma Mater Society of UBC, Jeff Friedrich, was an American; that he came from a privileged background; and that he came to UBC because he couldn't get into any Ivy League institution, and knew that he could easily afford UBC tuition fees. Sufficiently scared at the prospect of the Executive Committee being overrun by elitest American international students, OSD decided against creating this position.
• A motion from the Students' Union of Vancouver Community College to ask the Executive Committee to investigate the possibility of adding a disabled student representative seat on the Executive was recommended for adoption to plenary.