Last Thursday’s Students’ Society of McGill University’s (SSMU) legislative council opened with a discussion of the SSMU executives’ open letter to the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS), which addressed the poor organization and communication before and during the AUS General Assembly (GA) last Tuesday.
The letter, published online in the McGill Daily and the Tribune, expressed the executive’s frustration with the AUS’ “poor planning” and their disrespect towards such groups as Student Television at McGill (TVM), who were asked last minute to provide technical support, and the Muslim Students’ Association, who were asked to leave their club space in an attempt to accommodate more students in the building.
The letter was signed by VP Internal Todd Plummer and VP Clubs & Services Carol Fraser.
“We don’t want this to become a press war in any way,” Fraser said. “This letter was not meant to be a personal attack against any members of the AUS exec.”
Not all members of council agreed with the language used in the letter. Arts representative Isabelle Bi said some of the letter was derogatory, including the statement that council was “disgusted by [the AUS’] sense of entitlement.” Fraser responded by explaining that kicking a student club out of their space had “crossed a line.” TVM president Ellie Marshal was present during the discussion and expressed her disappointment in the way the AUS handled the situation on Tuesday.
“We had to provide use of our personal equipment without notice,” Marshal said. “We were subject to verbal reprimand of our service and in [Leacock] 132 at one point I was pushed. Our student services were mistreated for the AUS’ benefit.”
Moreover, because the seven members of TVM were running tech support, they were unable to exercise their voting rights as members of AUS.
AUS president Jade Calver was also present in the gallery and formally apologized to SSMU and TVM on the behalf of the AUS.
Council passed a motion to commit the discussion of the letter to the executive committee, with the goal of drafting a response by Sunday. In response to the challenges faced by the AUS GA, Council also discussed possible alternate venues for the upcoming Special General Assembly of SSMU on March 28, in case more students attend than anticipated.
In other business, during question period at the beginning of the meeting, Daniel Wolfe, U3 political science and Middle East studies, brought forward a petition signed by approximately 1,000 students to renew Chinese restaurant Tiki-Ming’s lease in the SSMU building. SSMU President Maggie Knight said that SSMU Council had decided not to renew the contract but was not at liberty to discuss it openly.
“There was a substantial lawsuit against SSMU in the past regarding tenant negotiations … it’s not a light issue in terms of being able to talk about it … I can’t really say anything else other than that there is no intention to reconsider the decision at this point,” Knight said.
Council also passed a motion to hold an exceptional referendum period this semester to facilitate a referendum for QPIRG to renew their Memorandum of Agreement (MoA), an agreement that deals with the organization’s fee collection and lease. QPIRG ran a referendum that addressed this issue in the fall, but the administration invalidated the results earlier this semester for addressing two issues in one question.
QPIRG was in negotiations with the administration over the decision, but were notified that McGill would not extend the MoA until September in order to allow the group to run a fall referendum. Because this notification occurred only after the Winter Referendum had closed, QPIRG’s only option to renew the MoA was to request an exceptional referendum period.
A motion to ask a referendum question that would make resolutions passed at the SSMU GA subject to a mandatory online ratification process, as well as increasing quorum to 15 per cent of the society’s membership, was also passed by Council.
Campaigning for this referendum period will start April 3, and polling will run April 10-16.
