Cancelled!

As has been noted by one of StudentUnion.ca's many anonymous commenters, the Canadian Conference for Student Associations (CCSA) has been cancelled.

This leaves one remaining conference: the Federation of Canadian Student Leaders' "Conference on Partnerships and Development," scheduled for June 3-7, 2006. Since registrations have been closed since May 10, refugees from the CCSA will presumably not be able to register at the last minute for this conference. However, the website has been updated to include a number of new sessions.

Also of interest, particularly to this blog, are the three Plenary Sessions that have been scheduled. The purpose of these sessions is to draft a "governance structure" for the Federation, to elect the Steering Committee for the coming year, and to select a new conference host for 2007. The draft governance structure has not been posted online, but it should nonetheless be available soon to registered conference attendees. Here's hoping that the Federation adopts a governance structure that's a good deal more sensible than that proposed in 2005 by certain unsatisfied student associations - and a good deal more democratic than the recently adopted bylaws of the Canadian Congress of Student Associations (Inc.)

The Smoking Gun

Click to download: Gavin Gardiner's Notebook [PDF]

Odds are, most readers of this blog are not familiar with the great controversies that surrounding the University of Saskatchewan Students' Union over the past year. Briefly stated, the organization applied for prospective membership in the Canadian Federation of Students in November 2004; they postponed their referendum after receiving legal advice that such a referendum would violate USSU bylaws; they attempted to merge USSU and CFS policies [PDF] by ordering the results of the referendum subject to the ruling of the USSU Elections Board; students voted 55% in favour of joining the CFS; the Elections Board overturned the referendum, citing numberous problems; and most recently, USSU Council ignored the decision of their Elections Board and accepted membership in the CFS.

And in the process, it was discovered that a number of pages of President Gavin Gardiner's notebook had been taken, scanned, and distributed to the public at large. This was noted in The Sheaf, and at a meeting [PDF] of the USSU Students' Council. Furthermore, the debate noted in the minutes of that meeting goes a long way towards establishing the authenticity and reliability of the document in question:

"Member Mowat stated that everyone probably received the email from the unknown source that had a bunch of information from President Gardiner’s book.

Chair Thoma asked President Gardiner to clarify this issue for people who did not receive the email or read the Sheaf.

Member Mowat stated he brought this up because of the article in the Sheaf and one of the councilors said to ignore this. I would like some clarification on some of the goals in President’ Gardiner’s stolen notebook. What kind of meeting was this? Was there a meeting at all? What do some of these comments meetings mean? I understand that there is a referendum here to join CFS but I am concerned that student money is going towards a goal to get UBC out of CASA to switch our health plan. President Gardiner stated that in the paper some of these goals were forged, and some were real, he didn’t want to go into this because it was personal. I am uncomfortable as a student paying his salary to spend time doing some of these activities, if he was at all. I would like an explanation.

Councilor Mitchell stated she does not want President Gardiner to have to defend himself right now. I don’t think this is appropriate considering it is under criminal investigation about how this information was obtained. It is offensive that our intelligence is being questioned as councilors. I would encourage President Gardiner not respond unless he chooses to.

President Gardiner stated he is going to stay away from the specifics. If Member Mowat wants to talk to me one on one I will do that. The fact at hand remains that my notebook and I have written lots of things down that are not necessarily my own opinion. A lot of this was taken completely out of context and I don’t think it is appropriate for me to explain a stolen notebook at a public forum.

Member Forbes asked if this Planning Session went ahead?

President Gardiner stated he was at a meeting and there were MSCs and lots of other people there besides me."

Please note that Mr. Gardiner never disputed the authenticity of the document in question. Further, please note that Mr. Gardiner's 'defense' consisted of his stating that many of the notes recorded in the notebook were not his "own opinion." In stating this defense, he implicitly admitted that they were, nonetheless, things that were discussed - by someone, at least.

So what's in the notebook? Here are some relevant extracts:

* NSHN talk to Tom
* GSA, USSU & URSU Health Plan Policy
* internal McGill levy
* time line for McGill
* Dastageer [sic] about Phil Ollete [sic]
* meeting w Don Rossick
* CAUT referendum
* Meshon and website
* Control voter turnout + demographics
...
Planning Session July 25/05

2004/05 Goal Review

1) Prospective by November
2) Full membership by May
3) Electing good slates for 05/06
4) Withdrawing from CASA
5) Stopping other members from joining
6) Purging bad staff
7) Replacing w good staff - CFS
8) Getting local 10 back
9) Getting UBC out of CASA / GM
10) Getting U of M and U of R out of Campus Advantage
11) Getting everyone out of Amiccus
12) Use CCSA to our advantage
13) Long term CUTS lease
14) Switching health plans & laying ground
15) Stoping [sic] Buckmank's [sic] expansion into SIAST
16) Phones for students
17) Shit from 03/04
18) Undermine Council

2005/06 Goals

1) USSU Website
2) Health Plan
3) Handbook
4) Elections
5) AMICCUS-C
6) McGill
7) Staff

......

* Get Premier to mention CFS

U of S referendum dates
Campaigning begins Sept 19
Voting
....
Education
1) Resign outright
2) Resign & S.A.C.
3) Stick it out until end of Sept.
4) Ignore
...
Staff
* Student hiring committee (talk to UMSU)
* develop list
* get out bad staff

Get Evan to resign? Angela - 613-612-4780

(Links and emphasis added.)

Very interesting, no? The goal "Use CCSA to our advantage" has certainly been corroborated by previous posts on this blog, but what about the other goals? And is there any evidence that similar strategies have been in place at other students' unions?

Also, what is this about McGill? Are they referring to the Post-Graduate Student Society of McGill, or the (undergraduate) Student Society of Mcgill University? And what sort of "internal levy" are they planning?

All Your Conference Are Belong To Us

In previous posts, I noted how the Canadian Congress of Student Associations and it's various sub-conferences (SuperCon, MoneyCon, and Canadian Academic Roundtable) had been incorporated as Canadian not-for-profit corporations - with a leadership that just coincidentally happened to consist mostly of Canadian Federation of Students executives. All this was thanks to the good people working for the Government of Canada, who had published such information on their webpage. But as it turns out, this is hardly the only information kept by the government. The Letters Patent, Bylaws, and Annual Reports for all not-for-profit corporations are kept on file, just ready for bloggers like myself to obtain them and publish them for all to see:

• Canadian Congress of Student Associations [PDF] - Letters Patent and Bylaws
• SuperConference (SuperCon) [PDF] - Letters Patent and Bylaws
• MoneyCon [PDF] - Letters Patent, Bylaws, and Annual Report
• Canadian Academic Roundtable [PDF] - Letter Patent, Bylaws, and Annual Report

CCSA and SuperCon do not have Annual Reports because they are too young, only having been incorporated in August 2005. In contrast, MoneyCon and Canadian Academic Roundtable have been incorporated long enough to have sent in an Annual Report - and to have changed their Board of Directors. Fortunately, the Letters Patent of these corporations clearly tell us who were the original directors of these two corporations.

The original directors of MoneyCon were:

• Amanda Aziz (who has been described earlier in another post)
• George Soule, National Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students. Mr. Soule is the former VP Finance of the Carleton University Students' Association.
• Jesse Greener, Ontario Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students. Mr. Greener is the former VP External of the Society of Graduate Students of the University of Western Ontario.

And the original directors of the Canadian Academic Roundtable were:

• Jeremy Salter (who has been described earlier in another post)
• Kelly Holloway [PDF], former Chairperson of the CFS National Graduate Caucus. Ms. Holloway was the former VP External of the Graduate Students' Union, University of Toronto. More recently, Ms. Holloway served as Chief Returning Officer for the 2006 Ryerson Students' Union general elections, and acquired no small amount of controversy for some of her decisions. Prior to her career in student politics, Ms. Holloway was a journalist for The Varsity, the student newspaper at the University of Toronto.
• Caitlin Brown, who has been described earlier. Ms. Brown coincidentally shares the same mailing address as Sarah Amyot.

Also of interest are the bylaws themselves. Considering that the CCSA conference coordinator, Adrienne de la Rosa, has appealed to potential conference-goers in the name of "democracy," one would - logically - assume that these bylaws would be the very epitome of democracy, yes?

Wrong. These bylaws are anything but democratic.

The membership of the CCSA, according to its bylaws, consists of students (note: not student associations) who have applied for membership, and whose application "has received the approval of the Board of Directors" (Bylaw 3.1). There is no obligation on the Board to accept, or not accept, any one application, nor is there even a mention that such persons should be delegates to a conference.

Moreover, this membership has very little power. They do not have the power to elect their Board of Directors - the bylaws specify that the Board is to consist of the Chairs of SuperCon, MoneyCon, and the Canadian Academic Roundtable (Bylaw 5.1). Nor do they have the power to see the Board's minutes, even if requested at a General Meeting, since the Bylaws specify that such minutes "shall not be available to the general membership of the corporation" (Bylaw 12.1). (Does your students' union have this sort of language in their Bylaws?) In fact, since the Board of Directors (all three of them!) has the full power to adopt a budget, hire staff, approve loans, and do everything else relating to the work of the CCSA, it is doubtful that these (hand-picked) members would, in fact, be given anything to do at all, other than show up.

What about the sub-conferences: SuperCon, MoneyCon, and the Canadian Academic Roundtable [CART]? Surely their Bylaws would be structured in a more democratic fashion.

But as it turns out, these organizations are even less democratic than those of the CCSA. The membership consists of the following positions:

• Chair
• British Columbia Representative
• Alberta Representative (BC and Alberta share one position in the MoneyCon Bylaws)
• Prairies Representative
• Ontario Representative
• Quebec Representative
• Atlantic Representative
• College Student Representative
• Graduate Student Representative

However, these positions are undefined. There is no obligation for the BC Representative to be from British Columbia, for example; nor is there any obligation for the sub-conference to even consult with the delegates who attend their conferences in determining who should be the next "BC Representative," etc. Elections for these positions take place at the Annual General Meeting, where the existing members (all eight or nine of them!) unilaterally choose their successors.

The Boards of Directors of the three sub-conferences also consist of three members: the Chair of the sub-conference in question, plus two other members (out of the seven or eight possible choices). In the case of SuperCon, these two members are elected at a General Meeting; but in the case of MoneyCon and CART, they are appointed by the Chair!

And again, as with the CCSA, these general membership of these sub-conferences - even though they are self-perpetuating and extremely small in number - have absolutely no right to view the minutes of meetings of their three-person Boards of Directors.

There are other problems. The MoneyCon Letters Patent and Bylaws - despite being approved by such eminent individuals as George Soule and Jesse Greener - contradict each other in regards to the location of the MoneyCon Head Office (Winnipeg according to the Letters Patent, Toronto according to the Bylaws). The use of male personal pronouns ("he," "his," "him") are used exclusively throughout all four sets of Bylaws - except in the CART and MoneyCon Bylaws outlining the responsibilities of the President of the respective corporation, where one will find "he," "she," and "she/he" used confusingly and randomly together.

So, a message to all attendees at the upcoming Canadian Congress of Student Associations (or whatever it's being called today): Know that you have absolutely no right to vote at the General Meetings of the CCSA, or of SuperCon, MoneyCon, or CART, unless expressly granted that privilege by the current office-holders; nor do you have any power to elect these leaders. If the leadership holds a "general meeting," and says that delegates have any power whatsoever (either on a one-vote-per-delegate basis or on a one-vote-per-student association basis) to determine the course of the organization - know that you are being deceived.

This is not your mother's Congress. Welcome to CCSA, Inc.

Points of Contention

The Canadian Congress of Student Associations (CCSA) has been covered a fair bit on this blog in recent times: how an alternate conference has been organized; how the CCSA and its sub-conferences have been incorporated, mainly by provincial and national executives of the Canadian Federation of Students; and how CCSA conference organizers have struggled to prevent dissatisfied student associations from abandoning the conference itself. But thus far, I have not gone into much detail describing the root of the recent conflict.

The attached "Letter to Potential CCSA Delegates" [PDF] should provide some important background information. It is a letter that was circulated by seven student associations (Alma Mater Society of Queen's University; Alma Mater Society of the University of British Columbia; Brock University Students' Union; Students' Union, University of Calgary; University of Alberta Students' Union; University of Regina Students' Union; and University Students' Council of Western Ontario) to their counterparts across Canada. It claimed that "many student associations have been disappointed with the demise of the CCSA conference over the past two years." Waxing poetic, the letter cited "political backdrops" that had "cast a looming shadow over flickering rays of innovation and the general will to share ideas and make progressive strides together." And to the end of "generat[ting] proactive resolutions" to this quandary, it offered the following prescriptions:

1. "AMICCUS-C Must Attend the Conference as Delegates." "General Managers are vital arteries in many facets of successful student associations.... this conference represents an ideal situation for student leaders to develop strong working relationships with their general managers." (The letter said nothing about the many student associations that do not have general managers.)
2. "Professional Development Component." "Giving the timing and nature of the CCSA conference, there must be sessions focussed on professional development and sessions focussed on organizational development respectively."
3. "The Conference Must be Apolitical." "It is paramount that no staff members from CASA or CFS participate in the CCSA conference as delegates, visitors, session chairs, or session presenters."
4. "Open Space Concept." The letter urges the CCSA organisers to provide for multiple workshops in a given time, so that delegates could attend whichever workshop they felt most applicable to them.
5. "Session Presenters." Without saying so explicitly, the letter seemed to request that student association managers be given a more prominent role in leading workshops.
6. "Joint Plenary Session for Future CCSA Conferences." The letter urged the formation of an organizational structure, complete with a set of bylaws that were helpfully attached to the letter.
7. "Conference Agenda." The letter requested that a "detailed conference outline" be made available by February 3, 2005 [sic].

And what can I say about the proposed "governance package" that was attached to this letter? Simply put: I cannot conceive of a better way to guarantee employment security for professional parliamentarians. Let me go through the main procedural problems with these bylaws:

• Student associations are referred to as "schools;" interpreted literally, this means that the university and college administrations would be running the show! Interpreted with a bit more flexibility, this terminology would allow high school student councils to attend the conference, while prohibiting the participation of student associations that represent graduate students only, undergraduate students only, students from a specific campus (in the case of a multi-campus institution), etc.
• The bylaws define a "complex motion" as meaning "a motion requiring a two-thirds (66%) majority affirmative vote from the present voting members in order to pass." Aside from the hackneyed nature of the term "complex motion," this sentence is absurd: the terms "two-thirds," "66%," and "majority" all have completely separate and distinct meanings. (And yes, there have been times in parliamentary history where the vote exceeded 66% but was less than 2/3.) Unanimous votes are irritatingly referred to as "ultimate motions."
  
• The bylaws stipulate three different motions that can override the bylaws (i.e. itself): a unanimous vote, a two-thirds vote, or a unanimous vote of a sub-conference (MoneyCon, SuperCon, and Canadian Academic Roundtable). In essence, this means that people who are trying to keep track of the conference's rules need to keep track of all the various "ultimate motions" and "complex motions" that would have overridden the bylaws at various times.
• A membership fee of $250 "per school" [sic] is established, but there is no means by which non-payers can be penalized.
• The entire operation is to be overseen by a "CCSA Steering Committee," of which one of its members is to be the "President of the host school [sic] or their designate." This arrangement excludes student associations that have no President from ever hosting a conference.
• The bylaws relating to SuperCon, MoneyCon, and Canadian Academic Rountable stipulate that "Votes by secret ballot or by role call [sic] may take place at the request of no fewer than five members of the [sub-conference name] membership. All other votes shall be carried out by a simple show of hands. This bylaw contains no provision for dealing with a situation in which five (or more) members want a secret ballot vote at the same time that five (or more) other members want a vote by roll call.
• SuperCon, MoneyCon, and the Canadian Academic Rountable are all given the power to enact bylaws, each in their own section. However, there is nothing in the bylaws that suggests that bylaws enacted by the conference as a whole take precedence over bylaws enacted by a sub-conference. This sets the stage for various sub-conferences enacting their own bylaws, potentially creating a huge mess of contradictatory bylaws....
• When electing members of the sub-conference Advisory Committees, delegates are prohibited from voting for "fewer candidates than there are available seats;" such votes "shall be deemed spoiled." Why?
  

In any event, it should be noted that the entire "Letter to Potential CCSA Delegates"
was dated November 28, 2005, well after the incorporation of the Canadian Conference of Student Associations and its various sub-conferences took effect! All of which means that a "governance package" had already been selected - though not necessarily in the form suggested by the authors of this letter. In accordance with the Canada Corporations Act, these four corporations do have a set of bylaws to guide their internal operations.

And what exactly do these bylaws say? Stay tuned.

Canada's Next Marketing Professionals?

In my last post, I noted that the Concordia Students' Union appears to be unable to finish an election without a cry that all sorts of less-than-aboveboard shenanigans were taking place - either on the part of the Chief Electoral Officer, or the candidates, or the incumbent executive, or the Judicial Board, or the University administration, or even the alumni association. But we must give credit where credit is due. With the possible exception of UBC's Radical Beer Faction, I do believe that the budding student politicians at Concordia deserve an award for the most creative slate names. Here are the various slate names that have been chosen over the years:

2001 By-Election

• New Organized Way
• Democracy in Action
• The Left Opposition for a Really, Really Democratic Representative Union
• Students who Have an Understanding of Lampoon and Have Tremendous Zeal
• Representative Union
• An Umbrella Party

2002 Election

• Representative Union
• Team CanDo

2003 Election

• Evolution, not Revolution
• Clean Slate
• Aspiring Students Promoting Education Responsibility (ASPER)
  
• Renaissance Concordia
• Free Thinkers Parliament
• Progressive Student Alliance (Council)
  

2004 Election

• Aaart Matters for President ("determined to be at the top of the ballot")
• Free-Thinkers Absolute Riot 99
• Communists in Action (CIA)
  
• Concordians in Action (CIA)
  
• Reclaiming Concordia's Main Purpose (RCMP)
  
• Renaissance Concordia
• New Evolution
• Evolutionary Progressive Zionist Division
• Progressive Coalition for Student Involvement (Council)

2005 Election

• Evolution
• Conscious Concordia
• Movies of Tomorrow
• The Higher Cause
• A-Hole Moron Dark Wizard Force

2006 Election

• Conscious
• Experience
• Focus
• iCUpTV
• Justice
• Conscious of Interest (formerly known as Conscious Concordia?)
  

Controversy Surrounds Concordia Election, Again

For the sixth consecutive year, controversy has clouded the elections of the Concordia Students' Union. Accusations of administrative malfeasance, procedural irregularities, and bias on the part of the incumbent executive, staff, electoral officers, and university administration are hardly foreign to students' union elections, of course. But it is the rare students' union, indeed, that is able to so consistently attract allegations of improprieties. Here is a brief survey of elections at Concordia:

2001 By-Election

• Concordia Students Union appeal to Labour Unions (Sept. 31) - CSU claims University supporting recall efforts, asks outside labour unions to condemn University actions
  
• Recall petition handed in (Oct. 18) - CSU forced to hold by-election halfway through term due to a petition of 3,173 students, demanding the resignation of the incumbent executive
• Referendum Questions for upcoming CSU elections (Nov. 6)
• CSU election campaigns start today (Nov. 13) - list of slates running in by-election
• Umbrella will shelter students from slime (Nov. 20) - letter-writer accuses "harassment [againt the CSU by] prominent newspapers, Concordia administrators, lobby groups, anonymous right-wing zealots"
• Keefer is the conspirator: candidate (Nov. 20) - candidate accuses incumbent executive of choosing timing of election, number of ballot booths to their partisan advantage
• Referendum questions: why should you bother? (Nov. 27) - The Link alleges that CSU deliberately ran deceitful referendum questions
• CSU hopefuls debate policies (Nov. 27) - Representative Union slate slammed for allegedly being supported by University administration
• Bribery scandal on eve of election (Nov. 27) - Representative Union disqualified for bribery
• CSU Elections hit road block (Nov. 27) - Disqualification of Representative Union reversed
• Candidate receives death threats (Dec. 4) - No commentary necessary
• Representative Union wins CSU election (Dec. 6)
• Why did we bother voting? (Jan. 8, 2002) - Various improprieties summarized
• Interim government ratified by council (Jan. 10) - By-election results delayed due to contestations before Judicial Board
• CSU by-elections annulled in 3-1 vote (Jan. 22)
• Bernans: my face is red (Mar. 12) - CSU staffer criticizes election slate that might have been his future employer
  

2002 Election

• CSU Election slates (Mar. 12) - Team CanDo vs. Representative Union
• CanDo wins election by 327 votes (Mar. 29)
  
• Cando wins, Schulz loses in CSU elections (Apr. 2)

2002 By-Election

• CSU by-elections risk annulment (Oct. 2) - due to various problems
  

2003 Election

• Candidates face off in debates (Mar. 18)
• Election notes (Mar. 25) - Slates accused of tearing down each others' posters
• Alumni could play important role in CSU elections (Mar. 25) - University allegedly violated privacy laws by giving student contact information to Alumni Associatoin
• Evolution wins by landslide (Mar. 28)
• So ya say ya want an Evolution? (Apr. 1)
• CEO disqualifies two councillors (Apr. 30) - for submitting fraudulant campaign finance disclosure forms

2004 Election

• Evolution gets wrist slapped (Mar. 16) - for campaign-related violence by its supporters
• Farrington deceiving students (Mar. 23) - CFS-Q criticizes candidate in CSU election, even as one of their own executives is running in the election
  
• Elatrash support telling (Mar. 23) - Samer Elatrash allegedly lied about having put up posters for slate
• Impeach the president: CEO (Mar. 23) - Chief Electoral Officer publicly demands the head of CSU President for allegedly interfering in the election, then suddenly retracts demand
• New Evolution wins election... maybe (Mar. 30) - New Evolution slate allegedly commissioned a "push-poll" to help them win the election

2005 Election

• CSU Election Results 2005 (Apr. 1) - Evolution wins, again
• CSU election contestations (Apr. 12) - Chief Electoral Officer accused of bias; refuses to punish Evolution for campaign violations

2006 Election

• Experienced at what? (Mar. 21) - Chief Electoral Officer accused of bias in support of Experience slate
  
• Conscious uses posters, decreases voter turn-out (Mar. 21) - Conscious Concordia accused of trying to lower turn-out for partisan purposes
• Ballot box confusion (Mar. 28) - "Conscious" and "Conscious Concordia" slates both on ballot; "Conscious" claims that "Conscious Concordia" is a phantom slate created by "Experience" to confuse voters,
  
• Word of the day: corruption (Mar. 28) - Conscious Concordia called "corrupt" because one of their candidates is living with someone who is suing the CSU
• CSU election results 2006 (Mar. 31) - Experience wins; comments reveal that Chief Electoral Officer walked off with the election tallies, thereby making it impossible to know whether said CEO fudged the numbers or not
  
• I still know how you voted (Apr. 4) - Ballots not anonymous, plus a number of other incompetences alleged on the part of the Chief Electoral Officer
• CSU elections shows signs of Watergate (Apr. 11) - Due to fake slate "Conscious Concordia" being on ballot, led by a supporter of Evolution
  

Conflicting Meetings?

The Canadian Conference for Student Associations (CCSA) and the Federation of Canadian Student Leaders (FCSL) are not the only organizations putting on conferences these days, it seems. As it turns out, the Association of Managers in Canadian College, University and Student Centres (AMICUSS-C) is also putting on a conference. This conference, called the National Professionals Conference 2006, will be taking place in St. Catherines, Ontario on June 3 - 7, 2006 - on exactly the same dates that the Federation of Canadian Student Leaders will be hosting their conference. In essence, the FCSL is forcing students' union managers to choose between their professional association and itself....
..................
UPDATE (2006-05-09): Sorry, my mistake. As has been pointed out in the comments, AMICUSS-C and the FCSL are in fact holding their conferences at the same location, thus enabling people from student unions to attend both conferences.

See below for a new post regarding the recent incorporation of the sub-units of the Canadian Congress of Student Associations.

Sneaky, Sneaky...

"To help protect the unique identity and integrity of Government of Canada Web sites, GC organizations must register and maintain the registrations for any domain names that include their title in commonly used domains such as .com, .org, .net, .ca, etc." (Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, Common Look and Feel for the Internet, Standard 3.1 [Cybersquatting])

In a previous post, I talked about the "Federation of Canadian Student Leaders" (FCSL), who are advertising their upcoming Conference on Partnerships and Development on their website, http://www.canadianstudentleaders.com/. Unfortunately for them, the FCSL failed to register the similar domain http://www.canadianstudentleaders.ca/. This domain name has since been registered by one Alex Lisman, who has redirected all who mistakenly access his domain to a webpage produced by the Ascendant Strategy Group.

Alex Lisman was VP Education of the Ryerson Students' Administrative Council (RyeSAC, now known as the Ryerson Students' Union) in 2001-2002. After his term in office, Lisman became a member of the Ryerson Activist Coalition. This Coalition, also known as RyeACT, became heavily involved in the RyeSAC 2002 elections, where Mr. Lisman "told The Eyeopener that he plans to campaign like he's never campaigned before to make sure Dave MacLean is not elected president" (Eyeopener, 2002-03-05). A heated election ensued. Sure enough, Mr. MacLean's main competitor for President (whom Mr. Lisman supported), Ken Marciniec, was elected President (albeit amid allegations of corruption and bias on the part of the Chief Returning Officer). And, as it turns out, Mr. Marciniec has also enjoyed a little cyber-squatting on his own.

The Ascendant Strategy Group is a for-profit consulting agency that is primarily geared towards providing consulting services for student unions (which they call "student government associations"). Despite its tag line, which describes it as a "World Leader in Student Enhancement," the organization appears primarily geared towards American student unions. Why exactly Mr. Lisman believes that it would be reasonable for such a consulting agency to possess the domain name "canadianstudentleaders.ca" remains a mystery to me....

In any event, anyone who wants to waste their money is welcome to register studentunion.org, studentsunion.ca, studentunion.ca, studentsunion.ca, etc.

Covering All Their Bases

In a previous post, I noted that the CCSA (Canadian Congress of Student Associations) has recently been incorporated, and that persons closely associated with the Canadian Federation of Students now constitute the Board of Directors of the organization. But as it turns out, our friends have been very busy: in addition to incorporating the Canadian Conference of Student Associations, they have also incorporated three of its components: SuperConference, MoneyConference, and Canadian Academic Roundtable (CART). Here is the relevant information concerning the interesting individuals who now control these organizations:

1. SuperConference (SuperCon) - Corporation #4315090
Incorporated August 8, 2005
Mailing Address: Sarah Amyot's home address
Directors:

• Sarah Amyot (also on the CCSA Board; described earlier)
• Jeremy Salter (also on the CCSA Board; described earlier)
• Amanda Aziz (also on the CCSA Board; described earlier)

2. Moneycon - Corporation #4264215
Incorporated December 12, 2004
Mailing Address: Amanda Aziz's former home address
Directors:

• Amanda Aziz (also on CCSA Board; described earlier)
• Pat Barbosa, Organizer of the Okanagan College Students' Union (CFS Local 53). Mr. Barbosa has served as the Chairperson of the North Island Students' Association (CFS Local 72); was elected Director of Services of the Malaspina Students' Union (CFS Local 61) in 2005; and currently serves as Treasurer of the Canadian Federation of Students - British Columbia Component.
• Shamus Reid, outgoing Director of Finance of the University of Victoria Students' Society (CFS Local 44). Mr. Reid also sits on the Executive Committee of CFS-BC. In June of 2005, Mr. Reid accompanied two CFS-BC staffers to the Cariboo Student Society (MS Word doc), where he successfully convinced that student union to take out "prospective membership" in the Canadian Federation of Students.

3. Canadian Academic Roundtable - Corporation #4255208
Incorporated August 30, 2004
Mailing Address: 109 NIAGARA ST. BOX 88, Toronto, ON (anyone know where this is?)
Directors:

• Jeremy Salter (also on the CCSA Board; described earlier)
• James Bouen, for which information is currently unavailable
• Caitlen Brown, a staffer working for the University of Winnipeg Students' Association (CFS Local 8). Mr. Brown has served as the Vice-President of UWSA in 2004. She served as Chief Returning Officer (CRO) for the 2006 UMSU (CFS Local 103) elections, where she was slammed by the local student newspaper for alleged partiality. She presently serves as the Women's Representative on the Executive of CFS-Manitoba, and also represents the CFS at meetings of the Winnipeg Labour Council.

Translation: Traitors!

Yet another anonymous informant has obtained a copy of a letter that was apparently sent to student unions in Canada by a group calling itself the "Canadian Conference of Student Associations" (CCSA). This may or may not be related to the "Canadian Conference for Student Associations" (CCSA) that is being held in one month in Ottawa; and it may or may not be related to the "Canadian Congress of Student Associations" (CCSA) that recently became a federally incorporated (but apparently dormant) organization. The letter reads as follows:

Monday May 1, 2006

Dear Colleagues,

I trust that by now you have received the information package for the Canadian Conference of Student Associations. As you may know there is another group of schools that are attempting to organize a competing conference immediately following the CCSA.

At the annual CCSA in Vancouver in June 2005, student representatives from across Canada democratically voted to hold this year’s conference in Ottawa, with Carleton and ourselves, hosting. For the past ten months we have worked in preparation for hosting this year’s conference. Now, with only weeks before its scheduled start, it appears that the competition is looking to override the democratic vote of last year’s conference by organizing a similar but opposing event, the schedule of which overlaps with the CCSA.

We at the Student Federation at the University of Ottawa have invested a significant amount of time, energy and money into to organizing this year’s CCSA. Amongst other thing, deposits have already been paid to the University of Ottawa Conference Services for accommodation, to the company providing French- English interpretation services, to the company supplying the party boat for the Ottawa River boat cruise and to the company that will be ferrying participants between the University of Ottawa and Carleton University on the historic Rideau Canal.

In Vancouver, all schools had every opportunity to submit a bid. No one else chose to do so at that time. Now with only a few weeks left, an announcement is made that a competing event is unilaterally being organized.

Since the 2005 CCSA in Vancouver, we have worked diligently to address the concerns of student associations that both attended and did not attend last year’s conference. We will have more specific sessions for colleges and smaller universities. We have worked to include Quebéc [sic] and francophone student associations to provide a venue that can truly meet the needs of all student associations in Canada. And, as delegates agreed last year, there is no better place to have this type of truly national conference than in the heart of our nations capital. We do not understand why the decision was made to go out of one’s way to divide and undermine the one opportunity for all students, regardless of affiliation, to meet, learn and discuss with each other.

I encourage you all to go with the democratic process that all our student unions and associations are modeled on. This year’s CCSA promises to be a dynamic and engaging event that will allow student leaders to form those necessary bonds to colleagues all over the country. The CCSA is a grouping of three conferences, which brings together post-secondary student leaders and students’ association staff from all over Canada. Each year, student leaders and their staff meet to share their ideas, learn new skills, and celebrate their achievement and progress. I hope to see you in Ottawa.

Yours truly,

Adrienne De La Rosa
Conference Coordinator, CCSA 2006

Student Federation of the University of Ottawa

Adrienne De La Rosa is the former Vice-President, Student Affairs (2005-2006) of the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa. Since her term ended one month ago today, she was presumably hired by one of the sponsoring student unions just a few weeks ago for the purpose of coordinating this conference.

In addition, one will note that the letter states that "[t]he CCSA is a grouping of three conferences." Persons familiar with past CCSA conferences will know that it is - or at least was - a grouping of four conferences: MoneyCon, SuperCon, CART, and AMICCUS-C.

Translation: Give Us Money

StudentUnion.ca has intercepted a letter sent one month and ten days ago to AMICCUS-C, the association of student union managers, from the newly-formed "Federation of Canadian Student Leaders," in regards to their "Annual Conference on Partnerships and Development." Here is a copy of that letter:

March 20, 2006

AMICCUS- C Executive,

This letter is being sent on behalf of the Federation of Canadian Student Leaders (FCSL), Annual Conference on Partnerships and Development Steering Committee. This committee has emerged from the will to deliver a national conference where student leaders can be exposed to a suite of educational sessions focused on professional and organizational development. Moreover, this conference is meant to serve as a forum for student leaders to interact with one another to network, and to interact with our full-time managers.

Given the timing, location and nature of the relationship between the FCSL and AMICCUS-C, we believe that both groups can help one another in the planning and delivery of their respective conferences.

This letter is to request the assistance of the AMICCUS-C Executive on matters related to the planning and delivery of the student conference which could include but may not be limited to the following:
a. Conference funding;
b. Scheduling of educational sessions;
c. Accommodation logistics;
d. Social event and keynote speaker bookings;
e. Food and beverage logistics;
f. Travel logistics;
g. Transportation logistics; and,
h. Sponsorship recruitment.

We are pleased to work with AMICCUS-C on this project and hope to continue to work together on similar projects in the future.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me by phone at 905-688-5550 ext. 3101, or via email at president@busu.net.

Best regards,

Bryan Hicks
President, Brock University Students’ Union

Mike Waters is an Unperson

Those familiar with my earlier coverage (here, here, and here) of the UVSS (University of Victoria Students' Society) 2006 general elections will know that Mike Waters was a candidate with the "Students for Students" slate for Chairperson, facing off against incumbent Penny Beames and independent candidate Chadi Akouri. But one would not know that simply by looking at the UVSS homepage. Said homepage now contains the "2006/7 UVSS Final Election Results," (PDF) but Mr. Waters' name appears nowhere on these results. For Chairperson, the Final Election Results simply state that there were two opponents for Chairperson: Penny Beames and Chadi Akouri, and that Beames beat Akouri 962 to 680 votes. The results did not even indicate that Mr. Waters had been disqualified....

All of which contradict the latest relevant minutes of the UVSS Board meeting that have been posted online, wherein the Board refused to reverse the decision of the UVSS Elections Committee not to disqualify Mr. Waters for alleged electoral infractions.

Developping...