McGill Tribune

In this semester’s debate over whether and how to reform the General Assembly, most of those involved repeatedly stressed their commitment to representative democracy for students at McGill. All proposals for reform were offered in the name of that democracy and its continued improvement. The discourse surrounding student governance at the university could easily convince an outsider that McGill students constitute an interested, engaged, and enthusiastic populace, eager to participate in all forms of political activity on campus. This outsider would probably be surprised, then, to learn that the approximately 21 per cent of students who voted in this year’s SSMU elections is considered acceptable turnout, and elections in which only one candidate runs for any given position are extremely common, especially at the faculty association level. This poses a problem for student democracy at McGill, and it’s time to initiate a serious conversation about its ramifications and possible solutions.

Though the Tribune was heartened to see only one 2011-2012 SSMU position filled in this way—Joël Pednault, no doubt a qualified candidate, was acclaimed for VP external—the bigger picture is less than promising. As Sean Wood reports in today’s Tribune, 15 of the last 59 SSMU executive positions (going back 10 years) have been filled by acclamation rather than by contested elections. That’s just over 25 per cent. In the faculty student associations, the situation is even worse. For instance, in the Arts Undergraduate Society—McGill’s largest undergraduate student association, responsible for the most cash—both this past year’s president, David Marshall, and the incoming president-elect, Jade Calver, ran unopposed. While Marshall has done an excellent job steering AUS through murky waters, and we’re sure Calver will prove to be just as capable, student leaders at McGill have real control over thousands of dollars of student fees; that power should not be trusted to any random student who merely gets a few signatues and clicks their heels together three times.

While many acclaimed candidates over the years have certainly proven to be efficient and sometimes superb executives, this lack of participation in student government is a significant issue. Moreover, the problem is not reducible merely to apathy. Many students insist they are interested in being involved with undergraduate associations, but balk at the thought of going so far as to run for and hold an executive position—which often requires so much time and attention that the students have to tack an extra semester or two onto their time at McGill. For many international students especially, this informal requirement of the executives’ job is not only daunting, but financially prohibitive too.

Some ideas for remedying this situation have been proposed by various individuals in recent years. One possibility is increasing the number of appointed positions, the argument being that the electoral process might be one factor that convinces students that it’s simply not worth the effort to seek an executive position. Another option is lobbying the university to offer stipends to students willing to assume the responsibilities of executive positions. While basic economics indicates that this would be an incentive and might decrease the number of acclaimed positions, it seems idealistic to think the university would be much interested in the proposal. A third possible solution is to decrease the number of executive positions in each student association (SSMU included), which would thereby release funds to increase the stipends offered to students who fill the remaining positions. However, one obvious problem with this proposal is that while the number of students willing to run for elections is thinning, the responsibilities involved for each position remain the same; if anything, they’ve increased over the years. Thus, while cutting executive positions would help address one problem, it would probably only exacerbate another.

There are advantages and disadvantages to all of these ideas, and it is not the Tribune’s intention to endorse or discount any of them here. However, next year’s SSMU and faculty association presidents should think seriously about the problem of acclaimed positions, and perhaps even form a committee to consider these and other proposals. A great venue for initiating this conversation already exists in the Presidents’ Roundtable. This is a problem that will likely only get worse the longer it is ignored. If representative democracy is really important to McGill students and in itself worth preserving, it’s time to get serious about how it can be maintained.