Archive for Anne Kingston

How Carleton council members made such a botch of things

Procedural breakdown. A government tone-deaf to its public. Demonstrations by a usually apathetic electorate. Calls for the leader’s ouster. It’s a familiar theme in Ottawa lately, both on Parliament Hill and up the Rideau at Carleton University where its student association, CUSA, sparked a national furor in late November by dropping Shinerama, its annual frosh week fundraiser for cystic fibrosis, in search of a more “broad reaching” charity.

Media was alerted to the vote by Nick Bergamini, a third-year journalism student who was the only council member present to oppose the motion. He was savvy enough to know the press would seize on the false claim that cystic fibrosis “has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men,” presented to buttress the assertion that orientation volunteers “should feel like their fundraising efforts serve their diverse communities.”

Of course there was the predictable stampede to mock what appeared to be yet another case of political correctness run amok in academe. Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente presumed, as did many, “that no one on the council had the brains to Google ‘cystic fibrosis.’ ” Such reasoning assumes, of course, that CUSA is a rational, democratic governing body, of which evidence is scant. Indeed, council member Michael Monks did have the brains to Google “cystic fibrosis” and relayed from Wikipedia that the childhood degenerative genetic disease afflicts boys and girls of various ethnicities (there’s even a photo of an African-American girl on the site). But CUSA rules don’t allow a motion to be amended after it is proposed, says Monks. So rather than redraft and excise the incorrect clause, council shifted discussion to the need to find a more “inclusive” charity.

Was there proof students wanted a more “inclusive” charity? Well, not really. “We don’t question the student who brings the motion,” CUSA president Brittany Smyth, a fourth-year part-time criminology student, told Maclean’s. “It’s just their own personal idea.” That this “personal idea” was presented by Donnie Northrup, who represents science students, only added to the insanity.