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DSU divests after never publicizing months of divestment discussion

Vote probably a surprise to majority of students

What could have been the biggest publicity point of the Dalhousie Student Union (DSU) council meeting of Dec. 5 was council’s successful vote to divest the DSU’s investment portfolio of its shares in the 200 companies deemed to have the highest carbon reserves.

The total amount to be divested will be $99,317 from the union’s total investment portfolio of $2,389,575. This is approximately 4.1 per cent.

The divestment motion that was previously presented at council meetings was amended before it was voted on. The amendment inserted a clause saying the DSU shall extract its indirect investments and mutual funds in the 200 companies and subject those investments to a separate procedure with a timeline of six months.

dsudivestmentchart

It is uncertain how the DSU will proceed with its investments, but they are hiring someone specifically to assist in this process in January.

Outside of brief mentions in president Ramz Aziz’s executive reports in October and November council meetings, a single advertisement placed in the Gazette in late October and through multiple reports in the Gazette, there was no way general Dalhousie students would have known the DSU was hiring a Divestment Commissioner.

The position of Divestment Commissioner, paying $1,000 for a semester of work, appeared on the DSU’s hiring site in mid-October.

When the Gazette asked DSU Vice President (Internal) Jennifer Nowoselski at the Nov. 24 DSU town hall discussion on divestment why the position had not been advertised outside of a single ad in the Gazette, Nowoselski said she did not have an answer.

The position continued to go unadvertised until it was taken down. The DSU has confirmed with the Gazette that hiring will occur in January.

Hima Merdan, Commerce Rep, was the only councillor to vote against divesting. No councilors abstained.

The divestment vote itself was not advertised within the week prior to its occurrence.

The vote even came as a surprise to Divest Dal, the activist group that originally inspired the DSU to pursue divestment.

Speaking to the Halifax Media Co-op, Divest Dal organizer Evelien VanderKloet said that in advance of the council meeting, Divest Dal “didn’t really know when this vote would happen or if it would happen or how it would even go.”

The vote was originally intended to symbolically occur before the Nov. 26 vote on divestment by Dalhousie’s Board of Governors. DSU president Ramz Aziz said at the DSU’s AGM on Oct. 23 that council would hopefully vote on the divestment motion at the council meeting of Nov. 5., but the process was delayed.

While giving a report on the DSU’s performance this semester at the same council meeting, councillor Kaitlynne Lowe mentioned how many students may not have known the vote was happening.

“Students at large are still not very engaged with DSU issues,” said Lowe. “They might not even know we were talking about divestment tonight, which is sad.”

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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