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dalhousieuandu · 13 years

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What’s wrong with this picture? Considering Disqualifications

First off, before I start I would like to make a disclaimer. I feel that all the Candidates in this year’s DSU Elections are amazing individuals and those I know personally are very wonderful people with their hearts in the right place. I also need to state that I believe that a charismatic personality a leader does not make. I wanted to keep my own personal opinions away from my posts, but at a time like this I feel that I cannot. My opinions are my own, and if you take issue with them I request that you seek me out offline and speak to me in person about this post in a mature and respectable manner. Thank You.

Onwards.

First off, if you are looking for more information as to the process that the disqualified (DQ) candidates must go through to appeal the decision, please refer to Mike Smit’s post on Punditry.ca. Secondly, I appreciate everyone asking me if I knew the reason for the DQ’s. It shows that you think I know more than I do at times, and this humbles me. The reason I didn’t say anything, if I did know, which I really didn’t, is because I knew that the Elections Committee would be releasing, in due course, their official letter of reasons. So instead of repeating the rumours, I waited for the report so that rumors or speculations could be replaced with facts. Now that they are, I feel at liberty to speak my piece.

In the months that are to come there will be many debates, arguments, and questions about what has occurred. Some facts should be considered. facts I consider to be very important when considering the fate of the two DQ Candidates. The disqualifications may be overturned by the Elections Committee when the Candidates appeal the charges. If the EC chooses to rescind their fines enough to rescind the disqualification, it is very likely that Jamie, if not Aaron, will be re-instated, therefore allowing them to take office.

However, I feel that the following facts should be considered by the student body in wake of the DQ. What does it say about the two candidates who were fined several times over for the same reason? Lots, and what it says is scarier than what it doesn’t. Why would you support someone who broke the constitutional rules several times over? Why would you be in support of someone who broke those rules and were aware that their actions were breaking the rules, but chose to continue to do so?

All candidates are notified of their infractions and the fines levied upon them by the CRO. Therefore, this gives them no justifiable excuse for continuing to break the same rule. There is a chance that these infractions were only perceived as infractions by the EC and levied upon when they weren’t infractions. If this is the case they could have been contested at the time.If this is the case, then why didn’t the candidates contest the penalties at the time being notified of the fine? Sure, you might have been busy with campaigning. But if the fine was that big of a deal, which it should have been for someone who is supposed to be running for a position where obeying the letter of the law is important and not a flippant matter, you would have appealed to the EC at the time of the infraction.

Now here is where I throw my own opinion in, and here is where you are not going to like it.

I don’t know the story behind Aaron, nor do I know him well enough to personally state one way or another if he would have been bad for the student body in the position of Vice President Academic External. However, considering his actions and the state of affairs at this time, he was either acting as Jamie’s lackey or, having no mind of his own, following Jamie’s bad example. If he wasn’t just being a shepp then he may have believed that the infractions didn’t matter and that he could continue to break the constitutional rules for the sake of winning. In either scenario, ask yourself, do I really want that type of person running my student union???

In the case of Jamie; I have a stronger opinion to give.

Firstly, there were several things said to me that bothered me. A few people I spoke to, who had interacted with him on several occasions, or worked with him, felt that every time, when the time came to do something and they needed him to help get them done, he was nowhere to be found. Secondly, from my personal experience, I witnessed the following behavior from Jamie over the past two months. I volunteered to participate in the Brains for Change for the second year in a row. After about the third week of planning in, (in January), I chose to not participate anymore. I chose this not only because I had major things going on in my personal life which needed attention, but I felt excluded from the group beyond words, particularly after the following instance; I was more than willing to spearhead the B4C promotion team having helped do it in the past. I had expressed this several times. I knew that one of the goals of this year was to attract more and different types of students meaning that promotion on the other two campuses was critical. However, it wasn’t until I asked about promoting on Sexton, Carleton and in the Residences that the idea was even remotely considered by Jamie, and even though I offered my time for promotions despite my heavy schedule, showing my willingness to give my all, the offer was ignored. I was ignored, completely. It appeared that Jamie was intent on retaining control over the whole process. I had never in my life felt more ostracized than I had then, well not since High School at least, which was seven years ago. I heard later on that they only went to Sexton once, didn’t go to Carleton and only considered Residence seriously when someone else in the meeting i backed up my suggestion. Suggestions that didn’t meet with Jamie’s vision for B4C needed support from two or more people at the planning meetings to be given any consideration by Jamie.

*edit: B4C was promoted on Carleton. My mistake, hence why it has now be crossed off.

The second issue I have, which made me realize how awful a president Jamie would have (and might be) been is his own letter on Facebook to the Charity Ball planning group about his reasoning for not wanting to do Charity Ball this year. The letter is now gone from the group, but because it was an open letter I am sure if you ask someone for it you would be able to get it. Jamie, as VPSL has a constitutional requirement to run Charity Ball. He clearly, in his letter, fobbed off the work to the VP of Financial Operations because he had not wanted to do it. Every word in that letter was not a reason but an excuse. Jamie stated that he felt that the TEDx event would have been a better investment and by the time the planning went ahead for the program he was so involved that he was unable to plan the Charity Ball. That says to me that he was unable to plan his time effectively and willingly chose to disregard his constitutional requirement to run the Charity Ball for another program which he felt was more valuable. He also makes a point, albeit valid, about how the cost of a Charity Ball is often more than what they can raise for the Charity. My answer to that is this may be the case, but then you take the time to figure out where to cut costs and how to make it work to your advantage so that you can raise more money for the Charity. I recently had to do this as President of a Society for an event, and lo and behold, I managed to turn a profit (because the event wasn’t for Charity). It’s hard, but it’s not impossible, it can be done. Giving excuses for the matter because you don’t want to do it, is not a reason to pass on the duty to someone else no matter how willing they are to take it on. If he is doing this now as VPSL, what will he do as President?

The last point I feel the need to mention is his idea of what advocacy should consist of. In his platform, which can be found here (http://votejamiearron.ca/ under platform) the last point makes a comment about what Chris has done this year for CASA, and how he felt his time split between taking the position of chair and president of the DSU. Jamie’s point is that this role was too much for Chris and therefore, the role of advocacy should fall solely to the person in the position of VP Academic External. I would feel much more at peace with this issue if I felt that Jamie was taking Chris’s experience this past year and learning from it. Instead, I feel that he is using it as justification for fobbing off the full role of advocacy to External because he simply doesn’t want to do it. (See Charity Ball event point). This is unacceptable. As a president of a society, company or group, you must work to support the people who you work with. This means delegating the work properly knowing their strengths and weaknesses and know where they might fail before they do so that you can help them to complete their tasks successfully. I have learned this as president of a society this past year, and I feel that Jamie doesn’t understand this and would fail to do this as President of the DSU.

I know that you are probably thinking, but they got the most votes, they won! My only response to that is this, if they were post campaigning as hard as they were, then how many of those votes were won over ‘illegally’. And like I said, if the are willing to break constitutional rules now, then what will they do when in position of power?

Keep tuned for my next post which will discuss my personal problems, both good and bad, with this year’s EC and the fines they levied.

Till Next Post

#Dalhousie Univeristy #Dalhousie Student Politics #Dalhousie Student Union #Disqualifaction #Candidates

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