See Hedley on page 25
See Hawks on page 32
@DCUOITChronicle Volume XLI, Issue 14
SA makes changes to election process, hires CRO
Read online at chronicle.durhamcollege.ca
March 11, 2014
Spread the word
Giorgio Berbatiotis The Chronicle
W
ith little fanfare or explanation, the Student Association has unrolled a series of major changes to election policies and procedures. Some seem to follow guidelines set out by the York Federation of Students. Bradley Chin, who has recently been confirmed as the chief returning officer responsible for running the elections this year, ran elections at York U this year as well. There he was criticized for allowing a violation of the election policy, and elections, like at many other campuses, were plagued by low voter turnout. Changes to section 5.2.12 of the election policy mean the election committee now holds the power to disqualify any candidate for virtually any infraction, and no longer is that power checked by the SA board. This means the election committee, chaired by new executive director Dina Skvirsky, would have a much easier time disqualifying candidates. Another major change to the elections this year is the replacing of the electronic voting systems widely used on other campuses with the much more uncommon paper ballot system. Other significant changes include major changes to section 7.2, which regulates the platforms of candidates. The CRO is no longer required to approve platforms, and section 7.2.3 has been eliminated completely from the policy. Section 7.2.3 required candidates to fill out a form outlining their platform, to be visibly posted at polling stations for students to review. This means there is no requirement to make the candidates’ platforms available at polling stations for students to read before voting. Josh Bickle, a former SA executive who is currently running for Oshawa city council, and has participated in 5 SA elections in the past, characterized the changes as bizarre. He was surprised by the many unannounced changes, saying, “If the Student Association was looking for a way to ensure that they were putting more barriers into the election process and disengaging students even more, then they have succeeded.” According to election bylaw 5.2, the election committee is supposed to “act
Sarah Pugsley
SPREAD THE WORD TO END THE WORD: Arien and Neela Rafati sign their names to the “End the R-Word” movement , a campaign that asks people to stop saying the R-word as a starting point towards creating more accepting attitude and communities for all people. autonomously from any external or Student Association influences”, which means the election policy changes, together with the presence of former YFS staffers making election-related decisions at the SA, could be considered problematic. The York Federation of Students is one of the largest unions in the Canadian Federation of Students, which has been accused in the past of interfering in student elections and disregarding democratic processes. YFS employed Skvirsky, a vocal supporter of CFS, before she came here. Skvirsky replaced former executive director Kelly Morrison, who had worked with the SA for over a decade and was “terminated without cause” at the beginning of the year. This termination “without cause” of a long-time employee cost students over $60,000, not including any undisclosed legal fees, with no official reason given for the firing and no explanation of how Skvirsky was chosen as interim. Chin was also hired under unusual circumstances. Multiple students on the election committee said they had no involvement in Chin’s hiring, and Kyle Kellar, the only student representative on the hiring committee for the CRO, says he never reviewed Chin’s application before his hiring, and was not at all involved in the hiring process. Skvirsky conceded there was no student involvement in the hiring of the CRO, who she says was hired by herself and Donna
Judson, a long-time SA staffer. Furthermore, the full hiring committee, according to Skvirsky, had been involved in an earlier hiring process and picked another candidate as CRO. That CRO withdrew before accepting the position for reasons the SA did not reveal. When a second posting was put up, Skvirsky says none of the other candidates reapplied, so she hired Chin, the only person to apply for the position the second time. The SA did not reach out to the original applicants from the first round. In 2010, an ombudsman at York U was asked to investigate after allegations that the then-CRO was biased in the politics on campus, and that election policy there gave an unfair advantage to well-connected and established student politicians. This happened after a slew of opposition candidates were disqualified. The ombudsman decried some of the very policies the SA has now implemented. Firstly, the ombudsman criticized having a staff member as election chair. “Assigning [the role of the election committee chair] to the executive director is unique to the YFS system,” he said. “There is a direct conflict of interest in having the executive director serving as chair of the electoral process that is responsible for selecting, in effect, his or her employer.” A major change to our SA election policy this year was the new
bylaw, apparently unique to DC/UOIT and York U, which made Skvirsky chair of the election committee in perpetuity. In the past, Skvirsky has insisted there is no conflict of interest in current election committee structure. The paper ballot system is another YFS policy that was strongly criticized in the ombudsmen’s 2010 report, and our new system will operate in near identical fashion. In his report to the YFS, the then CRO noted that “York U is one of the only universities to still use a paper ballot system.” The ombudsman’s report recommended a return to electronic voting, noting that the paper ballots led to accusations of certain voters receiving extra ballots, incorrect ballots, and concerns that ballots and ballot boxes were being tampered with. The SA did not acknowledge or explain this or the other changes in any of their announcements regarding the elections, announcing only one change on the election page: candidates can now run as a slate. In the past, staffers at CFS-affiliated unions have been accused of orchestrating or interfering in electoral campaigns from behind the scenes, to ensure victories beneficial to the organization.
See CRO on page 2