Ryan Reisert / McGill Tribune

Last Tuesday, the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) held its first General Assembly in recent memory. In a crowded Shatner cafeteria, over 200 arts students gathered to debate and vote on motions, including two separate endorsements—one of QPRIG/CKUT and one of MUNACA—and a faculty-wide student strike in protest of tuition hikes. All three motions passed with an overwhelming majority, though not without lively discussion and some confusion regarding the rules of debate regulating the Assembly. 

The Assembly began with a motion by Arts Representative Matthew Crawford to install a portrait of Karl Marx in the Arts Lounge, and another motion by SSMU Councillor Micha Stettin to rearrange the agenda, placing the motion to strike after the QPRIG/CKUT and MUNACA endorsements. 

This action was well-planned, as a mass departure of arts students followed the strike motion’s success. AUS President Jade Calver confirmed the GA was student-initiated, and that the strike motion was likely the Assembly’s draw. 

“I can’t confirm that [the initiation of the GA] was the strike motion, however, I think if we look at what occurred at the GA, we can definitely see the motion as one of the driving forces behind [it],” she wrote in an email to the Tribune. 

The two other motions were discussed prior to the strike motion and fostered lively debate. The motion regarding QPRIG/CKUT endorsement in the fall referenda brought forth concerns about merging the organizations’ existence and a change in opt-out procedure into a single vote (see “Referendum,” Nov. 8, cover). The movers and supporters of the motion defended the organizations’ decision to move opt-outs from online as a move to regain control over their own funding. They saw the  movement of opt-outs online as imposed by the administration. This motion would allow the organizations to regain control of their own funding processes.

Some opposition to the motion regarded the change as a step backwards technologically. Others were more concerned with the lack of anonymity and the marginalization of moderate opposition to QPIRG. 

“There are some people who are not vehemently opposed to QPIRG, but just don’t feel like they want to support them,” said Joe McGrade, U2 arts. “[G]etting rid of the online opt-out system, which is very convenient, will limit these people’s ability to opt out.”

Niko Block, co-chair of the CKUT ‘Yes’ committee and board member of CKUT, assured the Assembly that opt-outs have never been anonymous—the organizations have record of the students who have opted out, which is how they know who can partake in their decision-making bodies and who cannot. Furthermore, he maintained that students had never had an issue with in-person opt-outs before they were moved online.

More debate surrounded the motion to endorse MUNACA in its current negotiations with the administration. After the motion was introduced, Calver questioned if the mover was aware that a similar motion was defeated in AUS Council earlier this semester. The AUS executives found that the issue was largely divisive for students, and were hesitant to support something of which the student body was poorly informed. Sheehan Moore, the motion’s author, questioned the representativeness of this method of decision-making.

“It’s a matter of how you think the democratic process should [proceed]; whether or not you think [the AUS executive] should be representing us or whether by, selecting you, we endorse everything you say.” The AUS executive had a different view of the GA’s representativeness. 

“The GA is meant to be a forum for student consultation and discussion. I think what we saw at the last GA was a very issue-based event, that attracted students that may not have been representative of the overall arts student body,” Calver wrote in an email to the Tribune. “I think the main issue, however, was the fact that minimal debate … took place during the GA, and attendees were quick to move to call the question without having any extensive form of debate.”

The strike motion passed with an overwhelming majority and with much less contention. The motion called for the AUS to support students in a one-day strike against classes and any McGill-related activities in solidarity with the Nov. 10 province-wide demonstration against tuition hikes. The motion’s success joined McGill arts students with the tens of thousands of other students across Quebec who also declared the Nov. 10 a one-day strike. 

“The AUS will defend your decision to strike,” Calver said in response to a question from a student regarding the strike’s implications on a midterm he had on Thursday. 

Following the success of the strike motion, the Shatner cafeteria emptied and became a consultative forum. Motions regarding coffee procedures at SNAX and frustration with the Deputy Provost of Student Life and Learning’s reappointment were discussed, but as quorum was no longer met, could not mandate Council to make decisions.