All Posts Tagged With: "Concordia University"

Luka Rocco Magnotta may be in France

Lin Jun (Facebook)

Montreal Police say the victim of Luka Rocco Magnotta was a Chinese citizen who attended Concordia University in Montreal where he studied engineering. Lin Jun, 33, was last seen on May 24 and was reported missing on May 29 by family.

Magnotta is believed to have posted the killing to an internet gore site before sending parts of his victim’s body through the mail, including a foot that arrived at Conservative Party headquarters in Ottawa earlier this week.

Montreal Police believe Magnotta flew out of Montreal’s Trudeau airport on May 26 and French police are searching for him, according to CBC.

Magnotta was a pornographic film actor and once worked as an exotic dancer in Toronto. He was falsely rumored to have had an affair with serial killer Karla Homolka.

160 arrested in Gatineau

Photo by yanik_crepeau on Flickr

In Quebec, where many students have boycotted classes for months, attempts by universities to hold classes and exams are being severely tested.

More than 160 protesters were arrested on Wednesday at the Université du Québec en Outaouais’s Gatineau campus, after an injunction ordered protesters off campus for two weeks starting Monday. The adults among them were charged hundreds of dollars each for blocking the highway to campus, reports the Montreal Gazette.

Also on Wednesday, the province’s biggest school, the Université de Montréal, called off classes in departments whose student associations have held successful strike votes, despite having earlier encouraged willing students to return to classes this week. The capitulation followed incidents where protesters blocked students from entering and leaving buildings and set off fire alarms during exams, reports the Gazette.

Continue reading Quebec protesters block classes, exams

Concordia will shut on Thursday

Photo by Tim & Selena Middleton on Flickr

As students prepare for a national day of action on Thursday to protest a $1625 tuition fee hike, today’s provincial budget will serve as a reminder of Quebec’s wobbly financial picture.

In an interview with the Montreal Gazette, Finance Minister Raymond Bachand said he will not raise income taxes, which are already the highest in Canada at 16 to 24 per cent. By comparison, Ontario’s max out at 11.16 per cent.

But even with high taxes, Quebec’s debt has grown from $133 billion (53.5 per cent of GDP) in 2003 to $184 billion (55.5 per cent of GDP) in 2012. That means credit ratings agencies will be looking to Bachand for fiscal restraint.

The $1625 rise in tuition fees is just one way that Bachand plans to wrestle down the debt. He notes that while income taxes won’t go up, payroll deductions for pensions and parental leave will rise, the new $200 health charge will be fully implemented this year, the sales tax was already increased to 9.5 per cent in January, an extra gasoline tax has been added and hydro rates will increase.

But many student associations believe that taxpayers can and should continue subsidizing tuition to the point that Quebec’s students pay less than half what the average Canadian student pays.

Protesters blocked access to Montreal’s Champlain Bridge Tuesday morning. It was a prelude to the demonstrations expected to cripple the city on Thursday when as many as 100,000 may march.

Meanwhile, Concordia says it will shut down campus on Thursday “in light of security concerns” as it expects 15,000 students will gather there before marching to the bigger rally at Canada Place.

$2 million fine is misdirected

John Molson School of Business by Canuckistan

Late last week, Quebec’s education minister Line Beauchamp announced that she will fine Concordia University $2 million for giving former administrators “excessive” severance packages.

More than $4 million in severance was paid by the university to seven former administrators, a move that was criticized by faculty. The criticism has prompted an external audit of human resources.

The two biggest payments went to former presidents Judith Woodsworth ($703,500) and Claude Lajeunesse ($1 million), who both departed mid-way through their terms after disagreements with the 42-member Board of Governors, which has been called “a clique of self-appointed outsiders.”

Also on the list are two former auditors who were dismissed by the university and who then sued for wrongful dismissal. The auditors settled with the university for more than $600,000 each.

Continue reading Once again, the students lose at Concordia

Montreal only Canadian city in Top 10 Best Student Cities

Photo by alexandermensa on Flickr

Montreal is the only Canadian city to crack the Top 10 list in a new ranking of the best cities above 250,000 for students—a list that will be considered by jet-setting scholars everywhere.

Montreal’s tenth place in the QS World Best Student Cities rankings was earned through high scores in all five of the criteria areas considered.

First, its institutions are high quality: U de Montreal and McGill U are in the Top 200 worldwide; Concordia U is in the Top 600.

Next, Montreal’s quality of living is high when measured by the Mercer Quality of Living Index.

It’s reasonably affordable too, when measured by international student tuition ($13,400), the Mercer Cost of Living Index and The Economist magazine’s Big Mac Index.

Its “mix of students” is also high—Montreal has a high proportion of students, both domestic and international. Foreign students make up 21 per cent of the mix, compared to 10 per cent in Toronto.

And finally, both domestic and international employers rate Montreal’s university graduates highly.

Continue reading Toronto and Vancouver too expensive: rankings

Where does your business school stand?

John Molson School of Business by Canuckistan on Flickr

The Economist has released its annual ranking of full-time M.B.A. programs. Below, we show you all the Canadian schools on the list, with their 2010 ranks in parentheses. The thing that jumps out here is how much Montreal’s two primarily English-language programs have climbed. After winning a long fight with the Quebec government to charge tuition in line with what other schools charge, McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management leaped onto the list at 64th. It’s unclear whether those two facts are related, though the upped tuition did begin in 2009-10. Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business also made a significant gain. Congratulations to all.

Continue reading Montreal MBAs jump in Economist rankings

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?

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.

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.

Student union executive who resigned running for re-election with opposition slate

The sudden resignation of a Concordia Student Union vice president on March 3 may have been pre-election posturing.

Morgan Pudwell announced her resignation with an email accusing the current CSU executive of, among other things, financial mismanagement. Last week, a CSU council meeting descended into chaos when councillors voted to move into closed session to discuss Pudwell’s resignation.

On Monday night, campaigning for the upcoming CSU elections began. CSU elections have a strong party system, candidates for the executive stand as teams, or slates, and candidates for council, who are elected individually, tend to affiliate themselves with an executive slate.

This year, there are two slates running: Action, which has close ties to the current executive and Your Concordia, an opposition slate.

Pudwell is standing for vice president with Your Concordia and the slate has turned her accusations and the reaction to them into election issues. In an interview with student newspaper the Link, Pudwell claimed that she was only approached to stand with the slate after her resignation.

But considering the amount of work that goes into organizing a CSU election campaign, I find it difficult to believe that a slate would switch one of its vice presidential candidates less than two weeks before the beginning of the campaign. It also seems pretty clear that Pudwell’s opponents knew something was up, an open letter criticizing her was released on March 9, and signed by several members of the Action slate.

It’s worth noting that while Your Concordia may be an opposition slate, it’s hardly a group of CSU outsiders. Several members of the group, including presidential candidate Lex Gill, were elected to council last year as members of the slate headed up by the current executive.

It’s also going to be interesting to see how the Link handles election coverage, Gill and the paper’s editor-in-chief, Justin Giovannetti share a blog. While this certainly isn’t a secret, I wonder whether the average Link reader would be aware of it. Giovannetti has said, on Twitter, that he won’t be writing about the election. But writing isn’t the only area with the potential for conflicts of interest when a newspaper editor has close ties to a political candidate. (UPDATE: Link editor says steps taken to prevent conflict of interest)

It’s also become clear that Action candidates were involved with the small, mysterious protest outside the Link’s office on March 7.