Did anyone ask you if you wanted your city and campus to change for the benefit of private interest? Taking money out of your pockets? Halifax and Dalhousie may be undergoing some big changes, and it doesn’t look like citizens or students are being consulted on how their limited funds are being spent.
The university administration and the Student Union are currently negotiating the future of the Student Union Building (SUB). Under the terms of the agreement the DSU will give up autonomy over SUB food services, and allow a new residence dining hall to be added to the current building.
This agreement will see one of the last campus spaces which is operated ‘by students, for students’ sold off. The deal will further reduce the SUB to a marketplace where students are the product.
The agreement will also see the Union pay $3 million towards the SUB renovation. The operation and management of food services in the new SUB would be surrendered to the administration food-provider. Today, that provider is Aramark, a U.S.-based multi- national food distributor. By June, when the contract is re-negotiated, it could be any one of three large, corporate food providers: Aramark, Sodexho or Chartwells.
So the DSU surrenders sovereignty over our food contract, and commits to paying through our noses for a huge renovation.
The university won’t release the final details of their deal until Nov. 24, and expect council to decide the matter by Dec. 1. We have more details on this in News.
How can our Union leaders be expected to make an informed choice based on student consent in such a limited timeframe? Has any effort been made on the part of the DSU to let students know that this agreement is being considered? In an era of increasing student apathy, how can leaders engage with students when students aren’t asked to participate in the debate?
This isn’t the first time the Union has played to non-student interests when it comes to our food services on campus. Several years ago, the DSU signed a secret contract with Sodexo giving them control of food in the SUB.That still-secret agreement is set to expire at the end of this year and now a new, potentially even less consensual agreement is about to be rammed through.
We only have one shot at this. If we give up control of the food contracts in the SUB, we’ll never have another chance to reclaim them. We as students stand to lose a great deal in the coming weeks, yet lose we shall. Perhaps the sale and surrender of student-run food services on campus will be a costly opportunity for us to ask ourselves if we deserve the right to on-campus autonomy in the first place. Or is this an opportunity to ask ourselves if, this time, we’re up for the fight.
Non-consensual use of public money for private gain is by no means limited to our campus. In the case of Halifax, the province and city, spurred by private developers have decided upon a new Convention Centre development to be located on the empty lots on Grafton Street (think between the Toothy Moose, Maxwell’s Plum and Club Soda).
The plan will see the construction of an 18-storey hotel and 14-storey office tower connected to the new convention centre, new restaurants, and retail space. The city, the province and—they hope— the federal government are being asked to put up between $250-$300 million of the cost for a new building. In return, the new convention centre, dubbed a “no-brainer” by Mayor Peter Kelley, will bring economic good-times to the city, flooding downtown with spendthrift conventioneers. As additional incentive to loosen public purse-strings, the Province will have the opportunity to lease back two sub-basements from the developer for the next 25 years.
If someone asked you to pay for a large percentage of a new building, why would you rent it back from them? Something here doesn’t add up. World Trade Centre Limited (WTCL), an arms- length crown corporation owns our city’s current convention centre which operates at a staggering loss; the Province has covered an average cost of $2.5 million per year over the last 10 years.
Perhaps this would be a worthwhile investment if the business case for the new development wasn’t so suspicious. Read News Editor Laura Conrad’s article to find out why.
So: a government-owned company that loses money every year wants us to pay to build and then lease back a new building dedicated to the same money-losing purpose when it is not guaranteed these so-called investments will actually generate profit for anyone. Additionally wasteful is the large amount of new office space in the current plan, while many existing offices in the city sit vacant.
Do Haligonians seriously fear that our town is going to be overtaken by New Brunswick as the Atlantic region’s leading economic light? The new convention centre is supposed to address the city’s steady economic decline, but will a mega-project actually be able to compete with real investments in the citizens of Halifax and Nova Scotia?
If the city is looking for a downtown renaissance imagine the benefits of transforming the convention centre into an urban park. If we want our city to stand out as something special shouldn’t we consider perhaps breaking with convention for once?
The well-known concerts on the commons over the last few summers, held in the same vein should serve as a warning against publicly funded ‘put-Halifax-on-the-map’ initiatives. Funded in part by WTCL, the musical spectacles attracted lack-lustre crowds and even less revenue. In fact, Power Promotions, the company that officially operated the events has filed for bankruptcy, even after provincial guarantees and bail-outs. And now WTCL is considering buying Power Promotions and continuing the misguided mega-event trend.
The rhetoric is that these bold moves will catapult Halifax onto the forefront of the international scene. This while a global recession is limiting inter-country travel and increasing competition amongst cities worldwide. Not to mention, the rising cost of oil and environmental consciousness are keeping people closer to home. London won’t be calling anytime soon.
This kind of shortsighted deal, facilitated and encouraged by a crown corporation lacking disclosure or tangible gains should be met with outrage, and should be an isolated affair. The parallels between the province and WTCL, and Dalhousie and the Student Union are sharply clear. Both host money losing concerts. Both lack transparency when playing with millions of dollars of our money when they don’t clearly make the case on how these deals will help us. Both fail to give the public satisfying answers.
The real question is why we let it happen.
-J.R. and J.T.
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