What is wrong with the SCSU? How can we achieve a better Union?

Humza Mehdi Khan | December 6th, 2020

Content Warning: Mentions of Suicide and Sexual Assault

The vast majority of UTSC students do not care about the Student Union. That’s not to say that absolutely nobody cares. Around 10% of the student body voted in the elections last year and I along with around 150 very dedicated students came to the annual general meeting on November 26.

Unfortunately, the meeting did not necessarily go to plan. As this was my first SCSU meeting, I did not know exactly what to expect. The meeting started with a description of how the meeting would proceed, along with procedures for voting and raising a motion. The executives and directors began by describing what each individual member had been working on. Then the first few motions were introduced, which were to approve the agenda for the meeting, accept the executive report, approve the financial report and other formalities. After some changes were made to the agenda, a motion regarding the SCSU’s endorsement of Boycott Divest Sanction (BDS) was introduced as the first motion up for debate.

The purpose of this article is not to argue the merits of that motion (1). Good arguments were made both to accept and deny the motion. The problem, however, is the fact that the contentious debate over this motion took up so much time, that no other motion was even discussed. The meeting was adjourned a bit past 8 pm and the discussion and subsequent approval of the first motion was the only subject considered. That begs the question, what happened to the other important motions on the agenda? They were pushed back to the next general meeting, which will likely occur in March. There were over 10 other motions, some of which were incredibly important, which will not be debated for another 5 months. This is unacceptable. One of these motions is to allow international students to become SCSU executives, (the current maximum amount of credits an exec can take per semester is 1.0, but international students must take 1.5 to maintain student status). Crucially, the next general meeting will most likely not occur before the SCSU elections, which usually occur in February. This means that this coming election cycle, international students are yet again prevented from running for any executive position. Other motons included motions on transparency, finally implementing online voting, and sustainability.

As I said, I don’t take issue with zealous advocacy for a certain side on an issue. What I take issue with is a procedural system where the debate of a single motion means that no other issues get addressed. The objective of this article is not to simply criticize the SCSU. A friend I consulted for this piece reminded me: it's easy to critique, it's harder to find solutions. So along with identifying the problems, I hope to find reasonable solutions.

#1: The General Meeting Schedule is Inadequate

In theory, the SCSU has 2 general meetings per year. I say in theory because the winter general meeting was only created in 2018, with the first scheduled to occur in 2019. However, this first general meeting was cancelled. The reason? The meeting did not meet its quorum requirements, meaning it did not have enough participants in order to move forward None of the 17 SCSU directors attended the meeting. The second winter meeting was scheduled for March of 2020. Unfortunately, this was also cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, we have never actually had a winter general meeting, although hopefully, that will change in 2021.

However, even 2 meetings a year is insufficient. Having infrequent meetings hinders the ability of the union to react in a reasonable amount of time to developing issues in the community. The scheduling of the meetings means that any issues that come up after the AGM cannot be addressed by the union or its members until the next meeting several months later. Before meetings moved online, the argument could be made that the logistics and cost of holding several meetings a year would not be feasible. But this pandemic has revealed that online meetings can function just as well as in-person meetings. The cost and logistics associated with zoom meetings are not negligible, but they also certainly can’t be prohibitive.

The union is tasked with addressing the ever-emerging and changing demands of the student population. New problems and crises emerge constantly and need to be addressed in due time. For example, although this is by no means a new issue, the ongoing mental health crisis among U of T students should have been immediately addressed with concrete action by the SCSU in the wake of another student's suicide. Although it is nice to see the SCSU promoting resources through official channels, there is more it could have done. The SCSU has the ability to itself be a resource to address mental health. The union ran at a surplus of nearly $500,000 last year and has net assets of over $2 million, including over a million dollars in cash. If they chose to, it would be possible for the union itself to hire several mental health counsellors for students to access without even using up all of its surpluses.

Another example is the failure of the UTSC administration to properly assist sexual assault survivors. The deadline to submit motions to the AGM was November 9th. 6 days later, The Varsity published an article that made painfully clear what many UTSC students had already known. Multiple institutions at our campus have failed in their duties to adequately help sexual assault survivors. Now, these problems cannot be placed solely on the school administration, the article specifically mentions the failure of the union to properly assist survivors of sexual assault. “She initially sought out the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union (SCSU) for guidance because the union advocates for student concerns, but due to a lack of training, she was sent to the campus police, where she had a fairly traumatic experience” (2). Such an issue should have been immediately addressed at the general meeting, but seeing as the deadline to submit motions had passed, it could not be. Issues such as these could be more rapidly and efficiently addressed if there were more frequent meetings.

#2: When they do happen, General Meetings are inefficient

Since I arrived at UTSC in the Fall of 2019, only two motions have been passed during these union general meetings, and only 3 have even been discussed. At the 2019 AGM, an electoral equity motion was debated for the entire meeting before a vote on the motion failed, the room lost quorum and the meeting was ended.

By my count, there were 14 substantive motions on the 2020 AGM agenda. Only 2 were discussed. The first was a motion that allows the board of directors to appoint individuals to vacant director positions without an election in the case that a situation such as COVID-19 prevents in-person voting. The prospect of undemocratically selecting directors is a bit problematic, even more so when considering that there was already another motion on the agenda that would have solved this issue. The motion was to institute online voting, which would have allowed the union to maintain democracy whilst in the midst of a pandemic. That motion, however, was never discussed. The second motion passed was the aforementioned motion on BDS.

A 3-4 hours General Meeting is simply not enough to go over all the motions that are raised by the union members. Further, most students aren’t willing to sit through such a long meeting just to vote on something they care about. This may be a contributor to the very low amount of people who actually come to general meetings. At the last zoom general meeting, only 150 people or around 1% of the total student body/union members attended.

#3: Motions are too complex

The motion for online voting in this year’s agenda took up 5 pages. It included 4 pages of whereas statements. For the average student not well versed in the parliamentary language and procedure, it can be very difficult to understand what they are actually voting on. Such complex motions and formal language probably furthers the assumption many students make, that annual general meetings are only meant for political science students, members of the law society, or model UN participants. The union should structure procedures in a way that is understandable for all and allows more people to participate.

Solutions:

In writing these solutions, I have drawn heavy inspiration from the work of former SCSU executive Rayyan Alibux who laid out a comprehensive series of changes to the union last year, which unfortunately did not get to be voted on due to the pandemic.

1. Institute an online voting platform

2. This enables elections to happen even when in-person voting is impossible

3. Include plain text summaries of all motions on a general meeting agenda

   1. These summaries would be reviewed by the Board of Directors to ensure they are accurate to the actual motion. These will help students understand what they are actually voting about and make the process more accessible to all student

4. Overhaul voting on motions

   1. Voting on motions can no longer be tied to general meetings. The union has already investigated an online voting platform for the motion to move elections online. This same system can be used to streamline voting on motions

      1. The New process:

         1. Students would submit proposed motions to the SCSU through an online form that the union would send out

            1. These motions would be checked by the board of directors to ensure they are sensible, feasible and do not conflict with any core values of the union (equality, assisting students)

         2. A ¾ majority of the BOD is needed to reject a motion, and if a motion is rejected, the reason for the rejection must be sent to the original person who submitted it

            1. Any motion that is approved is uploaded onto the SCSU website and using an encrypted voting service students can vote on which motions matter most to them in order to set agenda priorities for the meeting

         3. In addition to the general meetings, monthly or bi-monthly town hall meetings will be held to amend proposed motions

            1. These meetings will be solely dedicated for union members to propose and accept amendments to any motions (the amendment system will function similarly to how it currently works at General Meetings)

         4. Following town hall meetings, amended motions will be posted on the online voting system where students can vote yes or no. The voting period will last for a week and if a majority of students have voted yes at the end of the week the motion will pass

5. Change general meetings in order to provide more accountability

   1. In the time created by removing motion voting from general meetings, executives and directors can be more available to the student body to answer questions

   2. Following the updates by directors, as well as approval of the budget, financial statement and executive report, the remainder of the general meeting can be dedicated to students asking questions of the executives and directors on decisions made and problems important to the student body

This is by no means an exhaustive list of policy proposals. But I feel they are a good step towards making a better student union that works for everyone. These proposals would make direct change easier to enact and create better dialogue between the student body and the union. The student union has immense resources and power and in a perfect world would be the greatest force in fighting for us. It is our responsibility both as students and union members to better it so that it can serve that purpose.

Endnotes

1. Although, I question the potential precedent such a motion sets. Should the SCSU next cut off relations to the Chinese Students Association or Turkish Students Association over the human rights abuses of those respective countries?

2. Lily Knaggs, "“Lonely, Unsafe, and Unheard”: Four Women Speak out About Experiences Reporting Assault at UTSC," The Varsity, last modified November 15, 2020, https://thevarsity.ca/2020/11/15/lonely-unsafe-and-unheard-four-women-speak-out-about-experiences-reporting-assault-at-utsc/.