Day 4: The Calm Before the Storm

The second portion of Day 4 was when the KSA delegates split from each other to attend the different committees at night. Harj attended the campaigns committee, Reena, Matt, and Matthew all had shared votes on policies and I went to OSD to observe the results and recommendations to the closing plenary meeting. I am going to quickly explain each motion and the decision and rational, if any, to why it was voted in a particular way.

2009/11 039 – Recommend for Adoption
This motion was put forward to provide local webhosting and email addresses to each local to encourage the development of their online presence. Several spoke explaining that it will improve efficiency of the federation and accessibility. This motion was carried.

2009/11 068 – Recommendation to adopt
This motion involved the further developed the ISIC card, and was put to vote with no motivation
This motion was carried, then ruled out of order.

Motion 89 – recommended for defeat in entirety
Motion 89 was put forward to encourage the federeation to post all minutes associated with the DFS online for members to access at anytime. The individuals who spoke in favour of defeat, explaining that placing these minutes online is a breach of federation confidentiality and placement of informationation on this site would risk a potential breach in their system allowing their enemies to gain access to their strategies and goals. The next arguements is that the federation is not allowed to post unradified minutes on the site until the minutes are passed 6 months later. This lead to the end of discussion and the committee votes. The motion to defeat carried. Motion 89 failed

Motion 07 – recommended to adopt
The motion was to adopt he policy stating that the federation will not hold an online voting system at anytime in the future, as paper voting is more secure . Several individuals spoken in favour of adoption with points including paper ballots uphold the sanctity of the ballot, and cannot be replaced by an online vote. One individual stated that as there is no specific polling station, and each computer is technically a polling station there would be no allowance for campaigning on election day. As a point of information it states in KSA bylaws that we are not allowed to campaign during the voting hours to ensure the vote is preformed without bias. Several other points we made. Local 41 stated that they have help 3 votes online with online 1 successfully working. He stated that electronic voting is not reliable and the amount of fraud prevelant in todays online voting structure is too unsafe. Also mentioned was that people have the ability to hold parties, and transport the laptop(polling station) to individuals to encourage voting in the election. Both UBD and U of T were discussed mentioning the troubling fraud of online voting. There was no mention of the KSA or SFSS student union paper vote fraud, the US presidential election, or any fraudulent activitlies in which paper voting was involved. This motion was put to a vote and carried, recommended defeat.

Motion 09 – Recommended for adoption with amendment
This motion involved the conflict of interest policy put in place for the national exec where the amendment was to replace the “personal information protection and electronic document act in the policy. Both the amendment and the motion were recommended for adoption

Motion 12 – Motion to adopt
This policy was an anti-harassment policy in place to restrict and disciple any improper actions taken against another individual. This motion was carried.

Motion 13 – Motion to adopt with amendment.
Now I wish I could understand what happened here. The amendment was put in place to “clarify” the language of the policy and ensure that there is little confusion around the bylaw change. The initial intention of the motion is to change the words “federate” and “defederate” to “certifiy”, and “decertify”, respectively. Motion 13 is also considered motion 6 from last year that was illegal passed due to 2/3 vote not being met as many schools walked out during this motion. I will be able to clarify more on this motion after closing plenary. The motion to make an addition amendment was passed, after the motion 13 was notions for adoption at closing plenary.

Motion 15 - Motion to adopt
Motion to extend the notice of each general meeting from 6 weeks to 12., motion carried.

Motion 16 – motion to adopt
Motion to extend the deadline for motion submissions to 6 weeks before meeting. Carried.

Motion 20 – Motion to adopt
Repeal the operations policy and on pubilications be repealed. Carried

Motion 22. – Motion to adopt
All General meetings will be help in the Ottawa/Gatineau area. Carried

Motion 28 – Motion to adopt
Motion to increase quorum for election from 5% to 10% of student population. Carried

Motion 29 – Motion to adopt
Motion to prevent images, any unofficial logo’s on the petition for defederation. Motion carried

Motion 30 – motion to adopt
Motion to have the ability to remove names from a petition if requested by the student. Our BC chair person brought to light that her brother, whom attends Kwantlen, signed a petition to reduce student fees by $8 a semester. This student had actually signed a petition to defederate from the CFS, and was told by the chair to request his name removed from the petition. This motion was carried.

Uvic removed from room as they were video recording the meeting

Motion 31 – Recommended for adoption.
Motion to clarify the campaigning period in more detail. Motion Carried

Motion 32 – Motion to adopt
Motion to have the CFS have access to student lists of all CFS schools in the case of an election. If the student union is unable to obtain the list of students information for the CFS, and double envelope voting system will be put in place. This means that in order to vote a student must fill the ballot in the appropriate manner and place it in an envelope. The student must also provide a description of who they are, possibly address, full name, and other information to have contact information for the students. This is then placed into a bigger envelope along with the voted envelope, and mailed to the appropriate body. I know confusing. This motion is an invasion of privacy and violates the privacy act as student have not given consent for the release of this information. Vote performed, motion to adopt carried.

Motion 33 – motion for defeat
This motion was put in place to determine whether or not the CFS is accountable to its members to provide its outstanding dues before each meeting to ensure they are given access to all meetings and plenary sessions. An amendment was made, and adopted with the amendment
Registered letter defeated
45 days to 30 days amendment passed

Motion 34 – Motion to defeat
Allow members to hold votes with outstanding balance and have the ability to defederate with an outstanding balance. The discussion was made regarding the fact that locals will not be accountable to pay fees after defederation and motion to defeat was carried.

Motion 35 – Motion to refer to national executive
This motion was to have a disabilities representative to the national executive. This would show that the disabilities constituency would be recognized by the national executive. This motion was sent to the graveyard of all CFS motions. Motion to refer to national executive carried.

Motion 42 – Motion to defeat
This motion was put in place by the KSA to have multiple media present at the opening and closing plenary to provide information to the schools, and the public to understand the motions put forward by all the CFS delegates. It was discussed the issue with bringing media to the last meeting and privacy was invaded. It was also discussed that the CFS brings in a report to discuss motions and plenary although the paper is not readily available and the information is heavily manipulated. ODS called this motion bullshit and could not be refuted due to lack of speaking rights. Motion to defeat carried.

Motion 43 – Motion to defeat
This motion was also proposed by the KSA to have the CFS post all financial statements and budgets online. This motion encourages transparency and accountability to the released financial information. The motivation was introduced that even if these motions were placed online few individuals would access them, and the information would be available to public and let enemies understand what is going on in the CFS and open them for attack. It was also stated that the budgets would not be understood by the students anyway. It was even though this motion presents no harm to the CFS they state that the financial statements are available at the student union office to look at, and if you would like to request a copy by email although they will not be published online. The motion to defeat carried.

Motion 45 – Motion to adopt
Motion to repeal the travel cuts policy due to the sale of investment in November. Motion carried.

These were all the motions discussed, the motivations, and the rulings. I will make it easy in the next post to set what has passed and what hasn’t as i will not describe the motion or motivations as they are explained here. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to email me at academics@kusa.ca