On Thursday morning voting in the Fall Referendum period closes, and in all likelihood the QPIRG-McGill and CKUT referendum questions will pass—as long as quorum is reached. It’s rare for a fee renewal question to fail, as these referenda are more a test of whether a group can mobilize enough of its supporters than anything else. The questions ask for a renewed mandate for both groups’ fee levies, as well as a mandate to take their opt-outs off Minerva and let the groups themselves administer them. Yet regardless of whether the questions pass, McGill is unlikely to change the opt-out system in response. The administration isn’t going to give up on a relatively new system that’s administratively efficient and provides students with a simple, straightforward way of opting out.
Beyond that, however, there’s the issue of whether a “yes” vote on these questions would constitute a clear answer to a clear and straightforward question.
Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson has already indicated that the questions do not meet that standard as they are posed in a confusing and convoluted way.
The biggest problem is that they conflate two issues: the renewal of their student fee levies and the form of the opt-out system. There’s no way for students to vote on these issues separately. One can’t vote for continuing to fund QPIRG and CKUT and for keeping the opt-out system as it is: transparent, efficient, and online. It would be disingenuous to argue that a “yes” vote represents a clear majority on both of these issues. There may very well be a majority (of referendum voters, not students) that support QPIRG and CKUT, and also support returning to the pre-2007 opt-out system, but a “yes” vote on these questions isn’t proof of that.
Yet QPIRG has argued that they are the same thing because the group can’t continue to exist under the current system. This is, of course, preposterous. Having to combat the QPIRG opt-out campaign for two weeks at the start of the semester, and not knowing their exact budget until part way into the year may be an inconvenience, and may indeed make things more difficult, but that certainly doesn’t threaten their existence. QPIRG still had about $156,000 to work with last year. Is that really not enough to do anything with? Opt-outable student groups aren’t entitled to enough money to fund the programs they want. They’re entitled to the fees of students who don’t opt out. QPIRG’s budget needs to adjust to their fee allocation, they can’t adjust the opt-out rate to fit the budget they want. If that’s such an existential problem, they can always try for a mandate for a non-opt-outable fee.
Having the administration run the opt-out system makes a certain amount of sense. Crucially, McGill provides the mechanism for collecting student fees, and distributes the money to student groups. QPIRG definitely couldn’t continue to exist at McGill if they had to collect their own fees. Why shouldn’t the administration control the opt-out system as well?
In all likelihood, the referendum questions will pass, and QPIRG and CKUT will continue to exist with fees that are opt-outable on Minerva. That would be the fairest outcome, and I’m sure both groups will find some way to struggle on.
