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P G S S u n im p r e s s e d w ith S S M U c a n d id a te s cussion, during which each candi date presented a brief personal introduction and answered ques tions from PGSS council mem bers. Ten of the fourteen candi dates attended.PGSS council members were unimpressed with the candidates’ lack of informa tion concerning the secession is sue and the attitude resulting from their insufficient knowledge. “Overall I found them [the can didates] to be particularly ill-in
BY SHANNON ALDINGER Council members o f McGill’s Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) seemed frustrated and angered after Studets’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) execu tive candidates discussed their views on the PGSS-SSMU seces sion debate at last week’s PGSS meeting. PGSS had invited all SSMU ex ecutive candidates to attend a dis
formed,” said Lee Iverson, Presi dent of PGSS. “There is an un happy attitude we [PGSS] sec among the incoming SS MU candi dates. I found that most of the candidates have the attitude of ‘history hasn’t occurred’ [that the secession issue arose this year rather than the fact that it has con tinued for many years] or the atti tude ‘we should ignore it’ [this history], I find this appalling,” he stated.
D a ily a n d fr a ts sq u a re
o f f a g a in BY ANDREW GREEN An articlepublished in T h e D a ily last Wednesday annoyed members o f the Inter Frater nity Council (IFC) to the point that they in vestigated Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) election regulations regarding slander and even con sidered legal action. The IFC and Jennifer August, D a i l y Editor and the author of the
article: “Understanding Frat Psy chology”, which appeared on page five of Wednesday’s D a ily , have since worked out a ‘truce’ at a s in c e 1911 r—
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Thursday meeting. A caption under photos of three SSMU presidential candidates reading “Find the FratBoy...”, and
a lead-in asking “How many frats does it take to screw in a light bulb?” particularly raised the ire of the IFC. “The general connotation of the article, right off ' the bat, is a negative B J one,” IFC president S c John Davidson told the T rib u n e . Past IFC liai son officer Richard Levy charged that the “Find the Frat Boy” question was “completely prejudicial and had no place in the article.” Unfortunately, Jennifer August c o n tin u e d o n page 6
N e r sk a e lim in a t e d fr o m p r e s id e n tia l r a c e BY MIKE CRAWLEY D u e to a n in fra c tio n o f th e S tu d e n ts ’ S o c ie ty ’s c o n s titu tio n a l r e g u la tio n s a n d e le c to r a l b y -la w s , A le x N e r s k a ’s c a n d id a tu r e h a s b e e n d is a llo w e d . T h e re fo r e , h is n a m e w ill n o t a p p e a r o n th e p r e s i d e n tia l b a llo t in th e u p c o m in g g e n e r a l e le c tio n s . -J o in t s ta te m e n t b y J o a n n a W e d g e a n d A le x N e r s k a o n F r id a y , M arch 3. The T rib u n e has learned through
a reliable source that Alex Ner ska’s candidacy has been disal lowed due to his probationary academic standing for the 1988-89 academic year. The source did not wish to be identified. When questioned about this is sue, Chief Returning Officer (CRO) Joanna Wedge would not comment on Nerska’s standing.
She would only say, “Due to a misunderstanding on the part of the candidate and on the part of everyone involved, Alex Nerska was not a legitimate candidate,” basically reiterating Friday’s joint statement Nerska was unavailable for comment. Registrar J.P. Schuller, though he would not confirm nor deny that Nerska has probationary standing, stated in an interview that he re leases such information to the CRO to validate candidates’ eligibility. When questioned about the “mis understanding” mentioned by Wedge, he added, “Nomination papers should say that [the require ments for candidacy] in the fu ture.” This sudden change has altered the race for president. Nerska had been considered a contender due to his experience on the ASUS
executive and his proposal to al low for the secession of PGSS. Eric Darier, PGSS Vice Presi dent, told the T rib u n e he was “dis appointed” that Nerska was out of the race. “It’s a shame that all of the other candidates” will not per mit PGSS to secede, regardless of the results o f their present seces sion referendum. Ian Palm, one of the seven re maining candidates for SSMU president said Nerska had been “vocal about changes that were needed in SSMU.” Though he felt Nerska “would have gotten votes” he said “No, I don’t think so,” when asked if his absence would alter the election result. Presidential candidate Santo Manna was more skeptical of Nerska’s chances: “His votes wouldn’t have made much of a dif ference.”
Post-graduate representative Genevieve Tanguay accused the majority of the candidates of being “ignorant” aboutthe PGSS-SSMU secession issue. “You all admit that you don’t know post-gradu ates’ needs,” she said. She also said that she “admired” the candidates’ “nerve” for attend ing the meeting with such minimal preparation. She defended PGSS representatives’ decision not to attend SSMU Council meetings by saying that “we have no representativeson [SSMU] Council because we have seen that it does nothing. W e’re no longer there because we no longer want to be.” Four o f the seven presidential candidates attended the meeting: Santo Manna, Ian Palm, Peter Thomas and David Wright. Al though absent, Montgomery Shillington sent a letter to the PGSS executive to represent his stand. Both Doug Fowler and Sander Shalinsky did not attend the meet ing and neither were available for questioning before deadline. Alex Nerska, although he did attend, is no longer a candidate. All present candidates admitted that they were not in favour of PGSS secession from SSMU, al though some said that they would be open to negotiation. PGSS council members had particularly favoured Nerska for his willing ness to allow PGSS secession. “I understand why post-gradu ates may not want to be repre sented externally by an organiza tion which is, by nature, under graduate-dominated. It is the obli gation ofSSMU to respect the right o f post-graduate students to decide who will represent them,” said Nerska. “The fact that other graduate councils [from other universities] are autonomous may mean that we should look at that too. Maybe the people [SSMU] are just being ri diculous about wanting to hold on to something [PGSS]. Maybe it [PGSS] should separate. I don’t know...but I would be very inter ested in negotiating,” said Palm. Candidates also blamed the ex istence of poor PGSS-SSMU rela tions on previous executive mem bers. Said Nerska, “For many years now, SSMU has attempted to ig nore the honest demand of PGSS for political autonomy, an auton omy unlimited by its obligation to
any higher student authority. SSMU has used exaggeration and emotion to cloud the real issues and scare students into believing the whole spirit of student govern ment at McGill will leave with the [secession o f the] post-graduates. This is essentially untrue.” “Mr. Iverson was quite correct when he noticed that it is ironic that S SMU has chosen an arbitrary fee increase when in the past, PGS S has presented a logical formula for determining fees,” read Shillington’s letter, quoting Iverson’s let ter published in the T rib u n e . Although most candidates prom ised future PGSS-SSMU negotia tions concerning increased PGSS representation on the SSMU Coun cil, coupled with reductions in post graduate fees to SSMU and/or the idea of PGSS transfer payments to SSMU, most candidates admitted that they preferred the first plan over the second. “I don’t see why having repre sentation on Council, yet paying less fees, in other words paying fees that would be comparable to those transfer payments thatPGSS is going to make, is a bad idea,” proposed Thomas. Wright, although a graduate student himself, admitted to PGSS that he was not in favour of the currentPGSS referendum concern ing secession and proposed that greater post-graduate representa tion on SSMU, in the form of a post-graduate president, would be more beneficial to PGSS. “I want to make one very simple point: the referendum does not achieve what you think it’s going to achieve. It’s probably better to have a graduate student as Presi dent of SSMU rather than an under graduate. This is not to say that I don’t think graduate students don’t have reasonable grievances with SSMU, I do think that we pay too much fees for the services that are rendered, but I think that can be negotiated, especially if we have a graduate student for President to reorient SSMU policies towards issues like daycare, the TA-student ratio, and the state of the li brary system. I think it’ll be better to have a graduate student as Presi dent than an undergraduate be cause, quite frankly, w e’ve had undergraduates for Presidents for probably well over twenty years now and I think it’s time for a change,” stated Wright.