The Engineering Undergraduate Society Council banned the Quebec Public Interest Research Group from using its resources for up to one year at their meeting last Tuesday.
The ban will prevent QPIRG from booking table space in any engineering building on campus.
The ruling followed last week’s incident between members of QPIRG and the QPIRG Opt-Out Campaign, a campus group that encourages undergraduates to opt-out of paying QPIRG’s $3.75-per-semester fee. According to the QPIRG Opt-Out campaign, QPIRG supporters allegedly attempted to prevent Opt-Out Campaign members from distributing their fliers, which resulted in Opt-Out members calling McGill Security.
But Rae Dooley, a member of the QPIRG Board of Directors, said the situation wasn’t enitrely one-sided. Members of QPIRG alleged that Jess Wieser, leader of the Opt-Out Campaign grabbed Maddie Ritts a QPIRG board member.
“We weren’t the only people being confrontational in that environment,” Dooley said. “Our students could have just as much called security.”
Allan Cyril, vice president internal of the EUS, said that although QPIRG could have also acted in formal avenues at the time of the incident, they did not.
“QPIRG didn’t call security and didn’t make a complaint to us at the time,” he said.
The EUS Council responded by passing the ban last Wednesday, citing concerns about how the incident reflects on their ability to manage table bookings in Engineering buildings.
“We have to show we are responsibly administering [our resources], or there’s a risk we might lose those privileges in the future,” Cyril said.
Dooley lamented that QPIRG was banned because of last week’s event but said that “[QPIRG is] in an open dialogue with EUS and we are interested in working with them, reaching out to more Engineering students, and hopefully over the next year we will gain that ability back.”
QPIRG and the EUS met on September 27 to discuss scheduling a moderated discussion between QPIRG and the Opt-Out Campaign. However, QPIRG requested that the EUS wait at least a week before holding the session in order to allow tempers to cool. The EUS has also considered bringing in an outside mediator.
The proposed session between QPIRG and the Opt-Out Campaign would facilitate discussion on the proper handling of issues between conflicting interest groups, especially in the context of using EUS facilities.
“We are trying to speak to QPIRG Opt-Out,” Dooley said. “We are trying to make sure events like that don’t happen in the future.”
Dooley also expressed concern regarding how the incident is being “sensationalized.” She said QPIRG is trying to move on and that their “major concerns are running QPIRG right now and challenging the entire opt-out system.”
According to its website, QPIRG is an organization that “conducts research, education, and action on environmental and social justice issues at McGill University and in the Montreal community.” According to a press release, QPIRG Opt-Out argues that QPIRG has “grossly violated their mandate, funding organizations whose basic principles are opposed to those of McGill students” and therefore informs students how to opt out of the organization.
