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DSU may vote to leave Students NS for second time in two years

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Dalhousie Student Union (DSU) council may vote to disaffiliate from Students Nova Scotia (SNS), their only external advocacy group, as soon as this Friday.

A special general meeting regarding this possibility will occur tomorrow, Feb. 25, at 4:30 p.m. in room 307 of the Student Union Building.

This meeting comes on the heels of a petition submitted to the DSU, verified by the Office of the Registrar, containing 101 registered Dal students’ names.

The petition asks for the following motion to be presented at a general meeting: “Be it resolved that the Dalhousie Student Union terminate its membership in Students Nova Scotia.”

In the 2013-14 academic year, the DSU paid $95,647 in membership fees to SNS.

According to SNS’ website, they represent 37,794 students in Nova Scotia – this number would decrease by over 18,000 if the DSU disaffiliates. Last year, DSU president Ramz Aziz said leaving SNS would “cripple” their operations.

The AGM vote will not be binding, says DSU

DSU general meetings require 75 registered DSU members to be present for quorum to be reached.

If and when 75 students show up to vote at this Wednesday’s AGM, the vote will only serve to show the opinions of the students who show up. By-law VIII of the DSU’s constitution states the union may disaffiliate from an external advocacy group after a vote from council:

  1. The Union may change its existing membership level within an external advocacy group through a vote at Council, provided Council has been provided with thirty (30) days’ notice, and the information made public via the DSU website, and the Board of Operations has reviewed the proposal for operational, financial, and legal considerations.

At the DSU council meeting of Feb. 11, council chair Andrew Christofi clarified that this clause means any vote held at a general meeting regarding the DSU’s status in an external advocacy group would only be advisory in nature.

A few days after Feb. 11, the DSU created a Facebook event page for the general meeting. On Feb. 18, a week before the meeting, the DSU said on this event page that it was not definitive that the vote would not be binding. Their legal counsel was reviewing whether the vote would be binding or not.

The next day – a week before the vote – the Facebook event page was updated to clarify that the vote scheduled to be held will only be advisory in nature.

DSU council will be able to vote on their membership within SNS at a special meeting of council that has been called by Aziz for this Friday, Feb. 27, at 5 p.m. at a location to be determined.

The deadline for the DSU to leave SNS this year is March 1. Councillors have had some notice that this vote was upcoming since the end of January.

While it wasn’t on the agenda for the Jan. 28 meeting of DSU council, Aziz put forward a notice of motion at the end of this meeting regarding SNS, giving 30 days’ notice for a vote, though he never explicitly stated there would be a vote on fully disaffiliating from SNS.

“I’d like to notice the constitution policy […] and also in one month, we’ll be basically making a decision around our membership in Students Nova Scotia, so that requires one month notice, so this is one month notice, and formal language on the motion will be sent out,” said Aziz.

He said the decision to review the DSU’s membership with SNS would be brought to council.

At the council meeting of Feb. 11, Aziz announced that he had just received the petition asking for the general meeting.

Little information available about DSU’s advocacy work this year, until today

If you’d like to find out about what advocacy work the Dalhousie Student Union has been up to this year, the Advocacy page of their website only contains a brief description of the union’s involvement with Students Nova Scotia – the group they may be leaving this week.

Until yesterday on DSU.ca, the only information on the DSU’s advocacy work from this year could be found in the executive reports located in the minutes of council meetings that have been posted, as well as a press release from November about the DSU’s stance on the changing consultation process regarding the Memorandum of Understanding between the provincial government and universities.

The DSU committee that was initially tasked this summer with researching and creating an advocacy report, the Advocacy Planning Committee (APC), has been inactive since November.

Jacqueline Skiptunis, DSU Vice President (Academic and External), says the committee has been defunct since the chair resigned and was not replaced. She says the conversations that would have been happening through this committee have instead been happening through the Academic and External Committee.

The terms of reference for the APC asked for the committee to come up with a detailed report that would be presented to council at the first meeting of November. This report would include, among other points, “An overview of SNS’s goals and methods, including the role the DSU plays in the organization”. A finalized version of the report was meant to be presented at the first meeting in January, but this didn’t happen.

A 16-page report regarding the DSU’s advocacy work within recent years, and the qualities of different student union external advocacy groups including SNS, was uploaded to DSU.ca at 11 a.m. today. No authors are listed on the report.

Appendix X1 – A Snapshot of Advocacy at the Dalhousie Student Union

DSU’s involvement with StudentsNS

Last year, DSU council made a series of controversial moves with their membership in the two external advocacy groups they belonged to, Students Nova Scotia and the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA).

On Feb. 26, 2014, DSU council voted to end their membership with CASA and SNS. On March 14, 2014, they rejoined both groups, then less than a month later they voted again to leave CASA. Each of these moves was fraught with debate in a process DSU president Sagar Jha called “long and volatile”.

According to the Students Nova Scotia website, their board of directors has met 11 times since May 16, 2014.

The board meets to decide policies and stances on issues and to plan their actions. Three DSU council members are present on the SNS board: Ramz Aziz, DSU president; Jacqueline Skiptunis, DSU Vice President (Academic and External); and Vishwa Patel, vice-president external advocacy of the Dalhousie Association of Graduate Students.

Aziz was present at all but three of these meetings. Skiptunis was present at all but five. Patel’s name does not appear at all on the minutes from the meetings held from Oct. 24 onward, but he is listed as absent for the nine meetings where his name is listed.

All the minutes from these meetings are available here.

At the SNS board meeting of August 23, 2014, Aziz was appointed to the position of Vice President Administration. This position primarily deals with ensuring financial procedures are being followed correctly.

The DSU opted out of a SNS democratic governance review in September. Aziz said at the time the DSU council would start talking about trying an internal review within upcoming weeks. These conversations were later postponed to the winter semester, and at this Wednesday’s council meeting, councillors will discuss whether the union should hire an independent governance review consultant or strike an ad hoc governance review committee.

SNS’ annual plan for 2014-15 shows their priorities for the year.

Previous student vote showed support for SNS

The most recent vote regarding SNS made by Dal students have shown support towards the DSU remaining affiliated with the organization.

In February 2012, SNS was still named the Alliance of Nova Scotia Schooling Associations (ANSSA). A referendum question in the DSU elections that month to increase the levy paid to ANSSA by $3 for full-time students and $2 for part-time students passed with 53.3 per cent of votes in favour of the increases, doubling the amount the union paid them.

Just over a year ago, leaving an external advocacy organization had to go through DSU members via a referendum vote. But last February, DSU president Sagar Jha put through a motion at an AGM to amend the DSU constitution so that a vote by council is enough to leave these organizations.

Mentions of external advocacy groups could be removed from DSU constitution in March

The DSU constitution currently contains by-laws regarding the DSU’s processes for joining and leaving different external advocacy groups.

However, council will vote this Wednesday, Feb. 25, on whether to approve of a series of proposed constitutional amendments to be put to a vote at an AGM in March at a date to be determined.

One of the amendments proposed would have the entire section regarding external advocacy groups removed from the constitution.

Jesse Ward
Jesse Ward
Jesse, editor-in-chief of the Gazette, is a fifth-year student of journalism at Dalhousie and the University of King’s College. He started university with three years of experience writing for Teens Now Talk magazine, where he is now copy editor. Before writing a story Jesse likes to think about how his metal detector could finally be useful in researching this one, but there is never a way it could be. Jesse has produced writing and interactive features for Globalnews.ca and The Chronicle Herald. He may be followed on Twitter, @RealJesseWard, or from the Gazette office on Mondays around 8 p.m. to his home in West End Halifax. Email Jesse at editor@dalgazette.com.
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