Jacob Serebrin

Student council makes a reasonable decision to overturn disqualification of opposition slate

The post election kerfuffle at the Concordia Student Union, which saw almost everyone who ran be disqualified, appears to be over.

On Wednesday, in one of their last actions, outgoing student council members voted to allow everyone who was elected take office and to reimburse candidates for election expenses.

The situation began around two weeks after the vote, held in late March, when elections chief, Oliver Cohen, disqualified both of the teams that contested the election.

A couple of weeks later, that decision was modified by the judicial board, who overturned Cohen’s decision to disqualify “Your Concordia,” the team that won the student union executive, a majority on council and most of the student seats on the university’s senate and board of governors.

However, the board upheld Cohen’s decision to deny both teams reimbursement for election expenses and to disqualify the other slate, “Action,” which won several council seats and a spot on the university senate.

The judicial board’s written report, released on Monday, alleges that both slates violated election rules by campaigning after polls had opened and that the winning slate engaged in negative campaigning. Shocking, I know.

According to the Concordian, councillors who supported reinstating the candidates said they were afraid that students in Concordia’s business school would be disenfranchised, as all their representatives remained disqualified.

It’s an interesting argument, but I think the real problem with the decisions to disqualify these candidates is that neither Cohen nor the judicial board attempted to prove that the alleged violations actually affected the results of the election. Disenfranchising every student is a serious action and should only be done in the gravest circumstances.

In “real” elections, it has to be proven that the results were actually affected for the vote to be annulled. As Ontario Superior Court Justice, Alexandra Hoy wrote in a 2011 decision about a Toronto election, “people have exercised their right to vote, and their votes should not be discounted without good reason.”

And the reasons presented here, especially considering the sorts of shenanigans that have taken place in previous Concordia elections, just aren’t good enough to throw out an entire election.

Sure, candidates shouldn’t break the rules, but should wearing a blue shirt after polling starts really be grounds for disqualification?

Some of the rules in this case seem downright ridiculous. According to judicial board member Tuan Dinh, “any rhetoric that refers to an oppositional party, even if through contrast” is grounds for disqualifying an entire team. Goodness. If Dinh was working for Elections Canada, we’d never stop having federal elections.

The “offending” item in question is a “rap” video where “Your Concordia” candidates spit cutting lines like, “nothing rhymes with Concordia except for ‘Action’ we’re sincerely getting bored of ya’.”

Cunning word-play it is not, but this was an election, not an MC battle and this video certainly wasn’t defamatory, slanderous or libellous as was claimed by Cohen and Dinh.

The other big problem with these disqualifications was that they penalized entire political parties for the actions of one or two individual candidates. Imagine if Elections Canada disqualified every Conservative who ran in the last election because one of them showed up at a polling station wearing a party t-shirt. Sounds pretty unreasonable, does it not?

Young MPs will be under the microscope

When Parliament resumes, the NDP’s Quebec delegation will include some of the youngest MPs ever elected.

On Monday night, Quebecers elected nine of the 11 university students running as NDP candidates in the province. At least two other new NDP MPs from Quebec are recent graduates.

Among the students is Canada’s youngest MP ever, Pierre-Luc Dusseault, an applied politics student at Université de Sherbrooke.

It definitely seems as though campaigning was optional for NDP candidates in Quebec. Charmaine Borg, one of several McGill students elected, didn’t speak to the local paper in Terrebonne-Blainville, the riding she represents, until election night. She spent most of the campaign in Montreal, helping out with Thomas Mulcair’s reelection effort.

She’s not the only young NDP MP coming under scrutiny, Isabelle Morin, a Université de Sherbrooke student who was elected in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce-Lachine, did her first interview with the Montreal Gazette on Tuesday. She told the paper that she had, in fact, been campaigning door-to-door in the riding and that, despite earlier reports, she could speak English, an important skill for the representative of a largely anglophone riding.

I probably don’t even need to mention the most infamous of the new NDP MPs, Ruth Ellen Brosseau, the Vegas-vacationing Ottawa bartender who still hasn’t spoken to any media.

The high level of scrutiny these MPs are under probably won’t be letting up soon, media here in Quebec will be watching to see if these new representatives open offices in their ridings and, in some cases, as they meet their constituents for the first time.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about this new crop of MPs.

I’m glad that ordinary young Canadians are taking seats in Parliament. I think that many of these young MPs will end up impressing people. Dusseault, in particular, has proven himself to be quite articulate. Even though most of these new MPs did not expect to win, all of them are engaged with, and clearly active in, Canadian politics, otherwise they would not have stood for election in the first place.

But I am concerned about what the election of these MPs says about the state of our system. None of these candidates were elected because of who they are, their record or their experience. No, they were elected because of the party they represent and that party’s leader.

To me, this is just another sign that MPs have become faceless, interchangeable representatives of their parties, rather than local individuals who represent their communities. There’s a reason we vote for candidates, not for parties or leaders.

Also, I’m a little jealous of these new MPs. They’ll all be looking at annual salaries of over $150,000 for, at least, the next four years.

Second-place team remains disqualified, neither slate will have expenses reimbursed

The team that won March’s Concordia Student Union election will take office after all.

Two weeks ago, the chief electoral officer disqualified all the candidates from the two main slates, accusing them of multiple election rule violations. On Wednesday, the student union’s judicial board overturned his decision to disqualify the members of Your Concordia, which won the executive along with a majority on council, according to board chair Bella Ratner.

The Your Concordia slate had received harsh criticism from elections chief Oliver Cohen, who banned members of the group from running in CSU elections for two years.

However, the board did uphold Cohen’s decision to disqualify the Action slate, which won nine of 29 council seats and one of four student seats on the university’s senate.

The board also upheld Cohen’s decision not to reimburse the slates for election expenses, over allegations of over-spending.

A full judicial board report will be issued next week.

The Link has more.

A small number of independent candidates also stood in the election, however all of the positions were won by members of the two slates.

Third Quebec student union to file suit against national lobby group

The Concordia Graduate Students’ Association has filed a lawsuit seeking to have the results of a referendum to leave the Canadian Federation of Students recognized.

The referendum, held last spring, saw students vote 456 to 148 in favour of leaving the organization but the vote, which was conducted without CFS support, has not been recognized by the Federation.

Undergraduates at Concordia and McGill graduate students are also suing the Federation, seeking to have the results of votes to leave the group recognized by the courts.

The two Concordia suits share several similarities, in both cases the CFS refused to allow referendums , in part, on the grounds that the student unions had years worth of unpaid membership fees. According to the GSA’s motion to institute proceedings, the CFS claimed they were owed $200,000. According to the motion, a lawyers letter sent to the GSA six weeks prior made no mention of an outstanding debt, as well, they argue that if the GSA had a debt dating back to 1994,  it would have been claimed before March 2010 and would have been mentioned at a CFS general meeting.

Like the Concordia Student Union’s suit, the GSA attempts to establish a pattern of bad faith by the CFS when it comes to referendums. They also claim that students’ Quebec charter rights were violated and are seeking $100,000 in damages.

The CFS is now facing five lawsuits in Quebec. In addition to the three suits filed by student unions the lobby group is also being sued by its former Quebec branch and that organization’s former landlord.

The only CFS member in Quebec not currently suing the organization is student union at Dawson College, a CEGEP, a referendum was supposed to take place there but it still hasn’t happened.

The GSA and CFS will be in court on May 20.

PQ platform will include tuition freeze, restricting access to English-language CEGEPs

The Parti Québécois held their big party congress over the weekend. This conference was particularly important because Quebec’s largest opposition party was deciding on the policies that they will be bringing to the voters in the next provincial election.

The biggest news out of the congress was the overwhelming level of support for leader Pauline Marois. She received over 93 per cent in a confidence vote, well over the 80 per cent required to avoid a leadership contest.

There were also some interesting developments on the education front, with delegates voting to oppose the tuition hikes introduced in last month’s provincial budget and, if elected, to freeze tuition at 2012 levels. That proposal has received support from the province’s largest student lobby group.

Delegates also backed recent calls by PQ members of the National Assembly to extend the province’s language laws, which currently restrict access to English-language primary and secondary schools, to CEGEPs. Students in Quebec, who graduate high school in grade 11, must attend a two-year CEGEP program before going to university. The colleges also provide vocational programs.

Currently in Quebec, children can only attend schools in the English-language system if one of their their parents or siblings was educated in English in Canada, or if the child began their schooling in English elsewhere in the country before moving to the province. Everyone else, essentially all francophones and immigrants, must attend French-language schools. The restrictions apply to all schools that receive any government funding, including most private schools.

The PQ has always been something of a strange animal. It is, essentially, a single issue coalition, centred around Quebec nationalism and promoting the French language. Yet, it has formed the province’s government on several occasions and, according to a poll that appeared in Saturday’s Le Devoir, may be poised to do so again.

Over the past few years some high-profile former PQ members, including former leader, Lucien Bouchard, have publicly denounced hard-line nationalist positions. This movement away from the party seems to be coming mostly from its right wing, leaving the PQ more left wing and more radical, at least when it comes to issues of Quebec nationalism and the French language.

But while Marois may be more radical than some of her predecessors, she is certainly not on the party’s radical fringe. Over the weekend, she convinced the majority of delegates to backtrack on a policy that would have called for all commercial signs in the province to be exclusively in French. Instead, the party will be sticking with the status quo, which allows multilingual signs, as long as French is predominant.

The party’s plans to extend the language laws to CEGEPs are controversial and may not be very popular but it’s probably not going to cost them politically. The number of students who would be affected by this change is small, around 4,000 a year, the far majority of whom are in the Montreal area, which isn’t exactly a PQ stronghold. As well, it’s a much bigger issue for anglophones, who wouldn’t have voted for the PQ anyway, than for francophones.

Quebec’s next election could still be a long way off, Premier Jean Charest doesn’t have to call one until December 2012, so it’s much too early to call this one for the PQ. But, when it does come, many young Quebecers will most likely be feeling that both of the province’s major parties are working against their interests.

Proposed law would require 60 per cent of a university’s board members to come from outside the school

The Quebec government appears to be moving ahead with legislation that will change the way every university in the province is run.

Bill 38, currently before the National Assembly would standardize university governance and make universities boards of directors more accountable to the provincial government. It would also require that 60 per cent of a university’s board members be from outside the school and that all boards include an equal number of men and women.

The government began discussing university governance reform in 2008, in the wake of a financial crisis at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

While legislation was first introduced in June 2009, it lingered in committee before dying on the order paper when premier Jean Charest prorogued the National Assembly for one day in February. The day after the Assembly reconvened, Bill 38 was reintroduced.

Now, the law appears to be moving forward once again, albeit slowly. The bill appeared on the agenda of Friday’s legislative session for a second reading. While the session ended before that item was reached, it does seem likely that it will be approved in principle within the next couple days.

Currently, each of Quebec’s universities has a different board structure. For example, Concordia has 40 members on its board, while UQAM’s has 16 members. Each board also has different representation: UQAM’s board includes a representative for local CEGEPs; Concordia and McGill both have representatives of their non-teaching staff on their boards, while UQAM and the Université de Montréal don’t. On the other hand, both UQAM and the U de M have some of their board members appointed by the government, the English-language schools don’t. I could keep going, but you get the idea. The universities like this, they say that they’re each different institutions with different missions, so they should have different governance structures. The province doesn’t agree.

For faculty and students, the most concerning part of the proposed law has been the requirement that 60 per cent of board members come from outside the university. Of Quebec’s six largest universities, Concordia and U de M already have this ratio. UQAM, Université de Sherbrooke, Université Laval and McGill don’t. At Concordia, there have also been concerns that a smaller board would diminish student and faculty representation.

There’s another issue at Concordia, the school is currently in the midst of a review of its governance structure. That process could be rendered completely irrelevant by this law, at a cost of $60,000.

The other big concern, at least at McGill and Concordia, is that under the bill, the province would appoint one member to each university’s board. For schools in the University of Quebec system the province would appoint three board members. For most French-language universities this would actually mean fewer government appointees on their boards.

The propose og law does have some positives though, it includes reasonably strict conflict of interest rules and, perhaps, most interestingly board members would be prohibited from serving more than two terms. There is one caveat to that rule, terms as chair of the board would be counted separately from regular terms; so a board member could serve for six years as a regular board member and another six years as chair. If the bill becomes law, it would see at least eon of the most controversial figures on Concordia’s board forced out quite soon.

There is also an interesting disclosure requirement in the bill, universities would be required to post board members’ meeting and committee attendance records online.

Conseil supérieur de la langue française recommends maintaining the status quo

Quebec shouldn’t restrict the ability of CEGEP students to choose whether they study in English or French, according to a new report by the government agency which advises the minister responsible for the province’s language laws.

The opposition Parti Québécois has called for Bill 101, which restricts access to English-language elementary and secondary schools, to be extended to CEGEPs.

Quebec high school students graduate in grade 11 and must attend a two-year CEGEP program before attending university in the province. CEGEPs also provide vocational training.

The PQ claims that allowing large numbers of francophones and allophones, those whose first language is neither English nor French, to attend English-language CEGEPs is contributing to the “anglicisation” of the Montreal area.

According to the Conseil supérieur de la langue française, restricting access to English-language CEGEPs could upset the linguistic balance in the province.

In their recommendations, the Conseil points out that the majority of allophone and 95 per cent of francophone CEGEP students attend French-language schools. The report also says that the percentage of allophone students choosing to attend French-language schools has increased by around 20 percentage points in the past 10 years.

Quebec’s culture minister, Christine St-Pierre welcomed the recommendations, once again describing the PQ calls to extend the language laws as “radical.”

PQ language critic, Pierre Curzi was less impressed, accusing the Conseil of not being rigorous enough in their report.

While Curzi said it was understandable why francophones and allophones in the Montreal area would choose to attend English-language CEGEPs, he said, in French, that there need to be clearer “signs the French language is the official language, it’s the communal language, it’s that language that we live in, period. Work, study, everything.”

The Conseil is also recommending that French-language CEGEPs make themselves more attractive to anglophone and allophone students and that English-language CEGEPs should improve French language instruction.

The full report is available here, it is in French.

Valery Fabrikant pursued civil suit against colleagues for 19 years

A Quebec Superior Court Judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by convicted killer Valery Fabrikant against five of his former colleagues, on Wednesday.

Fabrikant first filed the suit, against two professors in Concordia’s mechanical engineering department, in 1992,  a few months before he went on a shooting rampage, which left four professors dead and another person wounded.

After the shooting, Fabrikant added three other professors to the suit, claiming that they had taken credit for his work.

The case was thrown out of court in 2007, after the judge said he could no longer remain impartial due to Fabrikant’s attitude. During those hearings, Fabrikant said his killings were justified, insulted the judge and filed motions for a larger table in the prisoner’s box. The case returned to trial earlier this year, after the Court of Appeals ruled that it had been dismissed in error.

This isn’t the only recent loss Fabrikant, who is currently serving a life sentence, has had in the Quebec courts. Earlier this month, the Court of Appeals dismissed a suit he filed against the attorneys general of Canada and Quebec. In November, he was denied leave to appeal in a suit against the prison where he is being held.

Students back university, criticize lack of provincial bursary support

The majority of McGill MBA students support the program’s high tuition, according to a survey released by the MBA Student Association on Friday.

The release comes just days after the provincial government announced it would be fining McGill $2.1 million for raising MBA tuition without permission. Fees in the program rose from $3,400 to $29,500 last fall. The university has refused provincial funding for the program since the increase.

According to the student association, 70 per cent of those surveyed said that “the program is at a reasonable or below reasonable price.”

Students in the program are no longer eligible for provincial bursaries, in an interview about that issue last month, the president of the MBA Student Association, Pat Tenneriello, told me that the majority of students support the increase “because we see the investment.”

According to the student association, new professors have been hired and the program has already improved in international rankings.

The student association also used the release of the survey to criticize the lack of bursary support. “Our decision to pay the market price for our education should not affect our ability to receive funding in support of our endeavours to become future industry leaders within Quebec,” the release says.

While the Quebec government continued to thaw the tuition freeze in Thursday’s budget, tuition fees for provincially funded programs will still be assessed at a standardized per-credit rate.

Provincial budget also includes increased funding for universities

The Quebec government tabled its provincial budget today. As expected, tuition in the province, currently the lowest in Canada, will increase.

Tuition fees will rise by $325 a year, over five years, beginning in fall 2012. The increase will bring the cost of full-time studies to $3,793 per year, for Quebec residents. Full-time students currently pay $2,168 a year.

While the timing is a little different, the increase is pretty much exactly what the heads of the province’s universities have been asking for.

Predictably, student groups have condemned the increase. The Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante, the more radical of Quebec’s two main student lobby groups, described the budget as a “declaration of war against students.”

Quebec’s Finance Minister, Raymond Bachand, told the National Assembly that the increase will return tuition fees to 1968 levels, adjusted for inflation. Tuition fees in the province have been frozen for 33 of the past 43 years. Even after the full increase, Quebec’s tuition rates will still be 30 per cent lower than the current Canadian average, according to Bachand.

University administrators seem to be pleased with the budget, which also includes new provincial funding and measures to encourage private donations to universities.

According to Bachand, the province’s universities will have access to an additional $850 million in annual funding by 2016-17, though that figure includes an estimated increase in donations, so it may not be exactly accurate. Direct provincial funding is set to increase over the next six years, starting with a $74 million increase this year and reaching $430 million in additional funding for 2016-17.

Student aid funding is also set to increase. Student loans will remain the same and all new aid will come in the form of bursaries. The province is also reducing the contribution that parents are expected to make in student aid calculations but the student lobby has criticized this, saying that it’s really just a cost of living adjustment.

The province also intends to establish “performance targets [for universities] regarding the quality of training, student services, the graduation rate and the intensification of their research activities” as well as financial management.

All in all, it’s a very middle of the road Jean Charest government budget. Quebec’s left is criticizing things like the tuition increases for going too far, while the right is criticizing them for not going far enough.

The other key take-away is that most of the big spending that was announced today isn’t actually scheduled to happen for several years. So while the government may be saying that they’re going to increase university funding by $430 million, the funding increases won’t even be close to that level for years. Unlike tuition fees which are scheduled to increase at a steady rate, the increase in university funding starts off slowly, with the biggest jump planned for 2014-2015.

My final thought on the budget, and this is a bit of an aside, is that despite its faults, the Quebec government does an excellent job of making public documents easily available online. By 4 p.m., the time Bachand’s speech to the National Assembly began, all the budget documents were available online in English and French.