Let’s talk about accountability. I realize that sounds about as enticing as “let’s shovel horse manure” or “let’s talk about our relationship,” but bear with me.

Right now, a student politician is wasting your money. Or maybe – if it’s a good day – they’re just saying something stupid on your behalf. Either way, it’s bad news for you.

Sometimes the problem is corruption: last February, an AUS executive “misappropriated” a $2,000 gift certificate and threw herself a party in a hotel suite. Other times, the issue is incompetence: last March, the Students’ Society spent more than $400 on a lobbying trip during which they didn’t meet with a single government representative. (Instead, they spent most of their time with Québec Solidaire’s Amir Khadir – which is the Quebec equivalent of lobbying Ralph Nader.) Perhaps the best-known McGill sinkhole is Haven Books, which SSMU bought against the advice of its auditors and will cost students about $250,000 by the time it closes in April.

I could cite more examples – Science Frosh’s $20,000 budget shortfall a few years ago springs to mind – but anybody who hasn’t gotten my point by now is either illiterate or a cultural studies major. (Zing!)

Then again, maybe you don’t care about these scandals. Maybe you’re similarly tired of hearing about pro-death clubs, Icelandic Apartheid Week, or whatever issue is enraging McGill students these days. Maybe you think campus politics are a load of crock.

Fair enough. Just remember that you’re bankrolling student politicians’ shenanigans. The typical Arts student, for example, will pay roughly $380 in fees to SSMU and the AUS over the course of a four-year degree (plus roughly $425 more in opt-outable fees like the Ambassador Fund or the Arts Improvement Fund). Given how much of your money is at stake, paying $3 per semester for a campus watchdog – namely, the Tribune – is a bargain.

And this newspaper really is McGill’s watchdog. Its reporting team may not be Woodward and Bernstein, but most scandals at McGill are uncovered or publicized by the Tribune. That’s not a dig at the competition – I used to write for the Daily and it’s a fine newspaper. However, it’s Tribune reporters who have usually raked the campus muck.

Student politicians sometimes rival the Nixon administration in terms of cover-ups. The aforementioned hotel party is an excellent example: to keep the scandal out of the campus press, AUS Council issued a gag order for its own members. SSMU acted similarly in 2008, when it forced an executive to keep quiet about his own resignation. Although the Tribune still broke both of these stories, they don’t say much for the level of transparency in student government.

I realize that not all student politicians are crooks and liars. But some of them undoubtedly are, and campus newspapers are the only thing holding their feet to the fire. As a SSMU executive recently told me, “If the Trib doesn’t write about something, it’s as if it never happened.”

Unlike other Tribune alumni, I’m not going to wax nostalgic. Being a student journalist drove up my blood pressure, deprived me of sleep, and taught me to describe two cigarettes and a cup of coffee as “lunch.” It was like being a runway model, only with fewer long-term career prospects.

However, if the current independence referendum fails, there won’t be a McGill Tribune. That may be good news for crooked student politicians and the dietary habits of Tribune editors, but it’s bad news for your wallet and your campus. So this election season, be a cynical, self-interested cheapskate – save the Tribune.

You can vote online at ovs.ssmu.mcgill.ca until March 11. Bernard Rudny is a McGill alumnus, a former Daily columnist, and a former Tribune opinion editor.