Victory!
The Supreme Court of British Columbia has ruled:
The Supreme Court of British Columbia has ruled:
- that the October 25, 2006 Special General Meeting (SGM) is valid, and the impeachments are effective;
- that there no problems with the September 27, 2006 Forum meeting that called the SGM;
- that even if there were problems, the Court would nonetheless have upheld the validity of the SGM; and
- that the G7 shall pay the legal costs of the Respondents.
I will upload and post the text of the Court's judgment as soon as possible.
Labels: sfu
41 Comments:
BOO-YA!
alleluja...this is finally over! the law finally recognized the will of the people. congratulations to all those who worked so hard to achieve this result, and make sure you are aware who you vote for in the upcoming election :) no more voting for somebody because their poster is shiny, people!
My hat is off to you, Titus, and everyone who slaved away to make this possible.
While a significant part of the student population may never realize the magnitude of what you and your colleagues accomplished, those of us who do salute you!
What a great day--finally something to celebrate. It is particularly noteworthy that he judge would have upheld the impeachments on account of both the petition for an SGM & the G7's attempts to thwart justice and legitmacy all along. Titus, you are a rock, and so, so right!!
Thanks to everyone!! Titus (for knowing all the rules)Bryan, Jan, Beev, the Forum that stood up against Glyn, 1028 students who came out to vote, 2425 students who signed the petition, the "SDU", the judge ;) ... i bet i forgot a whole bunch of people!
Congratulations Titus, and all the volunteers involved!!!
It's about time student leaders learnt they're elected to uphold the rules, not to skirt them at will
Just wondering how much money the G7 are gonna have to pay? And now have they been paying for this now? Through the SFSS?
Cogratulations everyone, you accomplished an incredible thing.
I hope this means Titus has a bit more time for blogging now.
congratulation. Thanks Andrea, Bryan, Ben and Titus. Thanks forum members.
Since the validity of the SGM was upheld, the naming of the SFSS as a petitioner is a misnomer; they'll be paying their fees from their own pockets.
Hooray! I'm glad to see that the right thing was done in reference to the SGM being upheld. I especially like the point made by the judge that even if the meeting that called the SGM was declared invalid, he still would have upheld the results of the SGM because of the undemocratic actions of the G7.
I also think it's great that they're on the hook for their legal fees. The question is are they paying their fees from the point that Crane was retained for service, or just since the SGM??
Even if Crane is doing this whole part pro bono - the G7 still have to pay for the court cost right?
So, the next thing to watch for is... a magical CFS loan appearing on their doorstep?
I am glad this is finally settled, but pissed off that the G7 were allowed to go this far. I have always believed that the validity of the meeting was unimportant, WE stood up and impeached these people, WE acted in good faith, and the G7completely ignored the will of the people. I would like to know what it was that made them feel so entitled that they could get away with dragging this out for so long. Something is seriously wrong somewhere, maybe they should be suing their lawyer for bad advice.
Even thought the G7 are (allegedly) grown ups and (certainly) responsible for their own actions, I can't help thinking of the forces of influence that led them down this path.
Look at the legal advice they seem to have received (given the letters posted here and on the Forum site). Was it good advice?
Today's ruling on the impeachment shows that from the (mis)handling of the initial personnel issues, right on down the line until they decide to fight their impeachment it is poor advice. I find it worrisome to find the lawyer who gave this advice popping up in other conflicts and student organizations.
I would expect average people with no legal experience to be able to manage every one of the situations faced by the SFSS better than the G7 did simply by reading and following their collective agreement and constitution and bylaws carefully. In fact, this is mostly what was done by the students organizing the SGM and it seems to have served them well.
Every student board (and CFS staffer)should heed the lessons in this case:
Read and follow all your contracts and your constitution and bylaws.
Know the laws governing societies.
Get truly independent advice.
Listen to your members.
Show a little humility.
i think the fees were estimated at $8,000 - $10,000 total
Now I'm just waiting for the letter from the G7 to The Peak, trying to spin that the judge was one of the "uninformed idiots" that joined the witch hunt too.
Part of me thinks these people STILL won't get it.
They have been ordered to pay the costs for the Respondents in this case, which are Titus, Mrs. Gunn and Brian. The SFSS will likely still foot the bill for Donny Crane's services.
Don Crane will "not" be paid by the SFSS. As the court upheld, the G7 were impeached, therefore they were retaining Don Crane's services in their own private capacity, not in any way associated with the SFSS.
I think it is rather punitive to try and tax the students who worked at SFSS. It seems they really believed they would win in court...I don't think this was what you would call malevolent/malicious or frivolous legal bullying, since it seems they thought they were correct, and it probably would have looked better on them to not engage in this in the first place if they knew they would lose.
If it is $8,000-$10,000, well that is a lot, but it is a lot less punitive for SFSS to pay it than for that money to come from the pockets of a handful of students.
I understand people's excitement over this legal win, but let's not get too egotistical here. No one likes a sore loser or a gloating winner. I think the people involved should try to be gracious.
Nice comment above. It's time to move on.
For the amount of money the SFSS pisses through each year it seems excessively harsh to nail these individuals with that kind of a personal bill.
They did take the time to get involved with the student society -- even if they fcked it up.
Their own lawyer actually agreed that they should pay the legal costs individually.
well. in the one hand, yes lets move one but moving on and paying someone elses mistakes is too cheap. I think they should still feel the consequences of screwing up and ignoring and lying to us. I just hope they'll LEARN (I know, thats what university is for ;) )
IMHO, their stupidity has cost the SFSS quite enough already. they caused this mess, the very *least* they should do is pay for the court costs. why the hell should my student fees pay for their insane attempts to thwart democracy?
$10,000 between 7 people is less than $1500 per person.
The actions of G7 have almost cost the job security of every SFSS staff and caused funding to clubs and DSUs to stop entirely, forcing individuals to be owned money in the order of hundreds and thousands of dollars. I have a friend who is _still_ owed over $2200 total from the SFSS for footing various bills for an event which took place in _September_, and I have heard of at least 3 more people that are owed costs for conferences hosted by various groups at SFU.
So, really, $1500 is insignificant relative to the amount of financial damage they have directly and indirectly caused.
Besides, that's less than what some of us have to pay for tuition every semester, before accounting for services fees.
eat it CFS, eat it hard.
eat it CFS, eat it hard.
They should totally pay. I think we can take the word of the judge on this..these folks paying the fees is not SDU being mean spirited, it is the judge--an impartial, uninvolved, and experienced person--deeming that this is fair.
I really don't think the SFSS should go against the judge on that decision.
Indeed. We should not confuse ourselves by calling the costs 'punitive.' What they are paying for is the legal action against the members of the SFSS who impeached them. Remember that it was they who brought this action forward. They could have walked away after the SGM, but they opted to go to court and this, for better or worse, is the cost of justice.
Mind you, the students of SFU could have argued for punitive damages as well; I think there may have been a good argument there.
I think som people are forgetting a couple of very important things here. Hattie Aitken went through thell on this one. Hell. As far as all the evidence I've seen (actions of the G7. conversations with other directors, conversations with Margo Dunnet, e-mails from Gallivan and Associates, rants by Apaak and most importantly, conversations with hattie herself) Hattie was guilty of NOTHING and has suffered greatly on this. Imagine working for an organization for 25 years and watching as 6 tin-pot teenage dictators who have obviously never had to survive without the safety-net of mom and dad try to destroy your career. Imagine he stress, imagine the sleepless nights.
I saw that happen to Hattie and I was furious. As well, I saw as the G7 were given every oportunity to go back on this. I saw Bryan Jones give them the petition and tell them they could turn back. I told Margo Dunnet that she was acting illegally and that there would be hell to pay if she didn't turn back. She got up and walked away. I saw them get warned at every turn that if they kept this up they would be disgraced, hounded and hurt financially.
And what did they do? They caused me to work my ass off the day of the SGM and go to SFSS meetings which I swore I would never do again. They caused about 20-30 SDU volunteers to BUST ASS to get them to obey the law; thousands of volunteer hours I'm talking here. They caused the other directors of the SFSS to take heat, work in a hellish environment, waste time, abandone their school work etc. (Has anyone looked at Joel Blok's energy meter recently? the guy has looked on the verge of collapse for weeks). They caused all SFSS staff to hate going to work and have to worry about getting paid.
They ignored the law, wasted THOUSANDS of dollars of money that should have gone to something better, made people waste time to ge them to follow the law, they sued Titus, Jan and Bryan, they fucked up a year of the SFSS and wasted all the effort I PERSONALLY PUT into trying to get the SFSS an active volunteer base when I was a director.
And why? These people were egotistical, malicious, petty and imature. If they came crawling nd begging forgiveness and willing to point fingers at who made them do it, I'd suggest forgivness. But at this point, with all the warnings and all the 'fuck you's' they gave everyone as well as the hell they put Hattie Aitken through, I suggest making them pay.
Sue them for the money they illegally spent, the hell they put the SFSS through, punitive damages galore, especially for the slader against Hattie. In fact I suggest bleeding them for whatever you can, not out of malace, but simple collection of the bill which they were warned they would incure for their asinine actions.
Letting them off the hook is the worse thing you could do.
Is the judgment available anywhere?
No, the judgment is not available. I will post it as soon as it arrives.
But let's be clear - for all the damage you cite, they have not exactly gone unpunished. Their legacy won't be forgotten for a long, long time. I do think it is amazing how this one choice - terminating a staff member - which is done all across Canada by student societies every year, tumulted into a huge showdown. Yes, they made the wrong choices - they should have listened and backed down.
But $1500 is a lot for a student to pay. And it's not that they sued students who impeached them for no reason. They turned out to be wrong, but don't you think they honestly believed that the meeting was invalid?
I think it would go a long way to mending things and building a stronger, more united student body to cover the legal costs and put it behind the new SFSS. Let's hope whomever gets in can work on building consensus and unity.
So we shouldn't punish the G7 anymore, and instead the $10000 in legal fees should be paid by Titus, Jan, and Bryan? Because they did exactly what they were supposed too?
Okay.
Forgive me if I can't wrap my head around your thought process.
If they honestly believed the meeting was invalid, they wouldn't have attended it, spoken at it and voted at it (and made sure their individual votes were noted in the minutes).
I'm all for accepting that people make mistakes, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't take responsibility for them. Part of making a mistake is accepting that responsibility and if part of that responsibility is financial, so be it.
I know two grad students (not SFU) who lost major grants because they failed a grad course for the simple reason of not showing up and not handing in assignments. Obviously the uni. can support that 'loss'more than they can - should they have kept their grants? No. Lesson learned.
The same applies here.
It's a moot point regardless: the judge awarded costs to the respondents and the petitioners' lawyer agreed with that. They knew what they were getting into. They knew the risk they were taking. If they really cared about the students, like they say they did, they would have been at the hearing together, but only Margo Dunnet was there and not a single one of them was there for the verdict. If they really cared about the students and about the running of the society, they wouldn't be trying to issue draconian work directives _while_ their case was in court. In fact, they wouldn't be issuing draconian directives at all.
This whole thing stinks from the beginning onwards. It's not just a 'simple firing'...it's the process of firing via a closed meeting of a committee that takes no minutes without the full approval of the board; it's the hiring, without the full approval of the board, of a $345/hour lawyer and the continued disregard of the collective agreement = while staff may indeed be fired at universities across Canada, as Anonymous claims, most student unions don't collect grievances (20 plus) like the sfss did. This is no 'simple mistake'
and let's not forget the whole privacy concerns - taking computers off campus - computers filled with personal data? Excuse me? Then lying about it?
Shit happened. lots of it. I feel sorry for them, yes, because they were obviously completely deluded, but that doesn't absolve them of their responsibilities...or of the consequences of not living up to those responsibilities. Let's not forget who brought the case to begin with here.
My hope is that the G7 will have the courage to admit their mistakes and permit some real closure to this obviously tendentious issue. Even if they thought that their actions were justified, they should be able to accept that their approach was wrong. Whatever people may say about their actions, I think that the G7 really did believe that they were acting in the student's best interests. That doesn't make them right, of course, but that's how it works in a lot of cases.
Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic about how this will all turn out. Maybe the G7 may be tragically stubborn and refuse to relent. Or maybe they'll make the right choice, this time, and help bury the tomahawk.
A lot of people have been upset by this whole issue. The grad caucuses were upset because of the ignored grievances (i.e. all those non-confidence motions). The TSSU and CUPE were upset because of the sudden firing of a longstanding employee, one with whom they had personal relationships. But the G7 were also upset by what they perceived to be a political plot against them. Everyone was upset.
But, I don't want people to be upset anymore. I want all these issues dealt with properly. I want closure. There have been too many friendships or otherwise good working relationships fractured by this entire debacle (one only has to read of Clement Apaak's former endorsement of Hunsdale, or even the mere fact that Dunnet and Sandau were elected on the same slate, to see what sort of thing I'm talking about). The entire student society has been fractured, in one way or another.
It doesn't always have to be this way. It doesn't always have to be "us versus them", tyrants versus populists. No, the student society always works better when the active members are willing to build consensus, when the members thereof are motivated by a love of the community they serve. We should all be working together, not against each other.
Some of you are probably already fed up with all this political stuff, but so am I. Some of you will say that my desire for a truly unified student society is an idle dreamer, and that I am an idealist. I am not an idealist, and it is no dream. It is a reality that can be achieved, if we are only willing to put aside our petty concerns and understand that, in the end, its about everyone.
Ok fine, you can continue to post a litany of complaints. Alternatively, instead of revelling in everything you think these people did wrong, you could attempt to unite the student body, rather than divide it. It's really up to whomever gets elected.
Ah yes, the "unity" trope. Last refuge of the desperate.
Should we hold people to account for their misdeeds? No, that would be divisive. Let's let the CFS and their various suck-hole acolytes off the hook, because that will engender "unity".
Way I see it, SFSS members were more or less united in getting rid of the G7 creeps. This unity meant nothing to those creeps. They cannot, therefore, play the "unity" card when asking for leniency.
The tougher a line students take with the lying, manipuative, dishonest types (many but not all of whom are well in bed with the CFS) who claim to act in students' names, the better off the student movement will be.
I (and some of the others) never said that the G7 shouldn't be held accountable, or "let off the hook". I think that their punishment, whether legally by the court or socially by the student body, was fair. What I said was that, ideally, they would hold themselves accountable, they would accept responsibility for their actions and let everyone move on.
What a lot of people seem to want here is to crush them into the ground until they beg for mercy. That is not a just solution. If they want to stubborn, fine, let them be stubborn, but if they're sincerely sorry and want to make up for it, then by all means let them. Their actions should be held to scorn, yes, but that is not equivalent to treating them like dirt.
Sure, the G7 have done some things that made people very angry, and have tainted both their good name and that of the Society as a whole. But that doesn't mean that we should hold some kind of perpetual grudge against them. They've been punished already, both with the court fees, the loss of reputation, and the disdain from the student body. Moreover, the G7, whatever you may think of them, are ultimately people - are ultimately students - just like you and me who've made some bad mistakes. They're down. Let it go, and have a little heart; we all need it.
A "woot" is in order for sure. :)
Firing a person with 26 years of experience after the third degree for 5 hours is just so... corporate CEO-ish.
That, I think, is what really triggered the sudden (and I think in retrospect, justified) pillorying of Shawn Hunsdale.
It is good to see that the lawsuit has properly upheld the SGM and forced the impeached directors to pay the costs of the suit.
I feel kind of bad for some of them (Erica Halpern, Glyn Lewis) as I know them somewhat, but Shawn Hunsdale can go fly a kite as far as I'm concerned. Heehee.
I just have to say, seeing how this turned out in the end and the dedication of all those involved has rekindled my faith in the student population.
Congratulations to all of us, we did it.
If the G7 is smart, they'll turn around and sue Don Crane for bad advice. It would seem that his pathetic understanding of law greatly contributed to their current position.
Some time ago a person wrote that he couldn't help but notice the look in their faces that they didn't understand how it all went horribly wrong. I saw that look at the AMS two years ago when the attempt was made to fire our general manager (the Council quickly overturned it, leading to the exec being able to keep their jobs). The executive didn't understand why this was happening to them and were convinced that they were right.
Why did they think this? Their lawyer (anybody? anbody? bueller?) Don Crane was telling them the law was on their side.
Student leaders need to stop believing in the infallibility of lawyers and recognize that generally, the law is just common sense.
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