October 23, 2023
THE VARSITY The University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880
Vol. CXLIV, No. VII
New EngSoc president charges UTSU with breaking agreement, calls for new deal
EngSoc raises concerns with UTSU over reduced representation, alleged delays to fee transfers Devin Botar Varsity Contributor
Since the school year began, members of U of T’s Engineering Society (EngSoc) — including the society’s newly elected president, Parker Johnston — have publicly criticized the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) for violating a 2015 agreement between the EngSoc and the UTSU. Signed to address a long history of tension between the two groups, the 2015 agreement requires the UTSU to deliver 50 per cent of the fees it collects from engineering students to the EngSoc. The agreement also guaranteed EngSoc would have at least three elected representatives on the UTSU Board of Directors (BOD). The downsizing of the UTSU BOD in 2022 eliminated all constituency-based BOD seats, including the three EngSoc seats. Johnston has argued that the UTSU has been consistently late to deliver the proportion of fees owed to them, although the UTSU disputes these claims. In response, Johnston is seeking a new deal with the UTSU. A long saga of anger, shouting, and general unpleasantness In 2012, the U of T community’s criticism against the UTSU — for alleged interference and corruption in elections, opaque finances, and its “siege mentality” around making its processes more open — reached a critical mass. With backing from the univer-
sity administration, student heads from all seven UTSG colleges and three professional faculties led a campaign to impose reforms onto the UTSU. When the group proposed a package of amendments to the UTSU bylaws, executives left the motion out of the agenda at the fall 2012 Annual General Meeting, alleging that the group had submitted its proposal past the deadline. Four months later, the UTSU convened a Special General Meeting, and the union included the reform group’s policy package near the very end of the agenda. The four-hour meeting lost quorum before students could vote on the package. During the 2013–2014 school year, the main student governance bodies, six of the St. George colleges, and two of the professional faculties started pursuing “defederation” — which would mean taking measures that would allow them to leave the UTSU and receive all the fees collected by the union from their students. The Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering (FASE) voted 95 per cent in favour of diverting the fees they paid to the UTSU to EngSoc’s budget. Throughout that school year, then-UTSU President Shaun Shepherd repeatedly claimed that the colleges and professional faculties could not defederate under the UTSU’s bylaws. The Varsity reported that, when confronted with the news that it was possible to run a referendum for colleges or faculties to defederate under the bylaws, Shepherd responded, “I’m just not going to do that.” Negotiations stalled. Both the UTSU and EngSoc spent a lot of money on lawyers. The U of T administration at Simcoe Hall
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tried to intervene, leading to a set of recommendations that the Arts and Science Students’ Union described as “troubling” for its infringements on the autonomy of student societies. One student head described the situation as all “prevarication, equivocation, misdirection and obfuscation.” UTSU and EngSoc settle on 2015 agreement The 2015 school year saw a new slate of executives — at least two of whom had been involved in the earlier reform movements — elected to the UTSU. The UTSU and EngSoc reached an agreement that year, deciding that the UTSU would give 50 per cent of the membership fees it collected from students in the FASE to EngSoc. The agreement also included a measure guaranteeing that engineering students would elect at least three members of the UTSU BOD. The agreement also entitled the UTSU to appoint a representative to sit as a full member on the EngSoc Board of Directors. Currently, that representative is the UTSU vice president, professional faculties — a position dedicated to looking after the needs of students not in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Representatives of EngSoc and the UTSU both reported leaving the negotiating table feeling very optimistic about the future of their relationship. Continued on page 2
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