Campus: SGM achieves quorum
Earl Tapia, Sean Wilkinson, The Peak
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On Wednesday, October 25, the Annual General Meeting, called by the SFSS Board of Directors, and the Special General Meeting, called by Forum, took place at SFU’s Burnaby Campus.
The SGM was held in Convocation Mall, while the AGM was held in the East Gym. Both meetings were called to order at around 2:30 p.m.
At least 730 students attended the SGM. Though the cold, windy weather, combined with the length of the meeting caused students to leave at a slow and steady trickle, enough students stayed for the entirety of the three-hour meeting to maintain a quorum of at least 500, ensuring that motions to impeach members of the so-called “Group of 7” could be put forth and voted upon, as well as amendments to bylaws granting greater autonomy to graduate students.
Patrice Pratt, vice chair of the Board of Directors of Vancity, was approved as chair of the SGM. After her approval, and after approving the format of the meeting, the motions to impeach the “Group of 7” were put forth.
Meanwhile, the AGM was attended by about 50 – 75 students, far less than the 500 needed to pass any new resolutions, but still sufficient to ensure the meeting could be held and to pass the necessary resolutions needed to keep the Society functioning.
During the AGM, right after Treasurer Vanessa Kelly’s report, President Shawn Hunsdale received a phone call and quickly left for the SGM. The meeting was adjourned shortly after, and the remaining members of the G7 went to join him at the SGM.
Bryan Jones put forth the motion to impeach Hunsdale.
“Shawn has, as leader of this Board, seen that many bylaws, policies, and even the constitution of this society has been broken . . . he has spent tens of thousands of our dollars on improperly retained legal counsel,” he said. “He has opened up the society to lawsuits by encouraging the slander and libel of this former employee, yet he has always maintained an arm’s length so he can never be held personally responsible . . . For these reasons I want to impeach Shawn Hunsdale.”
Student Paul Browning spoke in Hunsdale’s defense.
“I consider Shawn Hunsdale to be a fine upstanding individual, and to be doing a good job as president of the SFSS. Back during the summer, some issues arose. Due to the collective agreement, the Board of Directors were not allowed to disclose these issues,” he said. “Therefore, action was taken, and the Board was unjustly attacked for not revealing the reasons for their actions when in fact they were upholding the terms of the collective agreement that required confidentiality to be upheld.”
The motions proceeded in this manner, with alternating speakers for and against the impeachment motion. However, after Hunsdale’s vote, each individual director up for impeachment took the opportunity to defend themselves, despite maintaining that the SGM was invalid. As well, after the first motion, all subsequent motions only had two speakers, one for and one against, before the motion was put to a vote by a student.
External Relations Officer Margo Dunnet spoke as to why she should not be impeached.
“I was elected to represent students, grad and undergrad, and that is what I have done. I think there are some graduate students who took it very personally when we [fired Hattie Aitken,] she said. “I’m not trying to stop the Grad Health Plan, I’m not trying to stop grad autonomy.”
Member Services Officer Glyn Lewis criticised the already agreed-upon time limits for speakers.
“Not allowing a student to have his voice heard who is up for impeachment is not right. I truly do not believe how this assembly can say they stand for democracy, stand for transparency, yet you won’t give me the time to say what I want to say and to answer your questions,” he said.
However, when the format of the meeting was being decided, before Lewis and other members of the G7 had appeared at the SGM, the assembly had voted to limit each speaker to three minutes of floor time, alternating between those in favour and against the motion, and to limit the total debate time to 16 minutes.
Pratt acquiesced, and put it upon the attendees to decide whether the time should be extended from three minutes to 10, where it was defeated.
The last motion to impeach was for At-Large Representative Erica Halpern, to which Kelly gave a moving defense.
“[Halpern] had nothing to do with any of this. This clearly demonstrates how much of a political witch hunt this is . . . she has been giving her heart and soul and time and health into this society,” Kelly said. “She has brought so many initiatives to this society. . . if you vote in favour of impeaching Erica Halpern, you are only proving how misinformed you are.”
Despite the various individual directors being given the opportunity to defend themselves, all resolutions to impeach them passed. Each motion garnered 95 per cent in favour, when only 75 per cent was needed, except for the motion to impeach Halpern, which received just over 85 per cent of the votes. While the SGM overall proceeded smoothly, there were a few issues brought up by various students from the assembly.
Browning called a point of information, stating that Pratt should call the SGM out of order. He cited a legal opinion from Don Crane, the SFSS legal counsel, stating why the SGM is invalid. Pratt countered by saying that Ulf Otto, legal counsel for the SDU, had given his opinion that the meeting was, in fact, valid. Another student wanted to move all the impeachment motions to be dealt with until after the motions to amend the bylaws, which was put to a vote and defeated.
Perhaps the most contentious issue arose when one student wanted to move to take each vote via a roll call. A roll call would entail that the chair would have to record, one by one, the names of each of the attendees and how they voted, which would greatly extend the length of the SGM. Dunnet defended the motion, stating that a roll call had to be implemented at the request of a student. Titus Gregory, parliamentarian for the SGM, had to reference directly from the Robert’s Rules for Order handbook the passage stating that a roll call could only be implemented by a majority vote from those assembled, after which the motion was put to a vote and defeated.
The motions to amend the bylaws granting graduate students greater autonomy passed with a near-unanimous vote.
The SGM marked the first time that any General Meeting has obtained quorum in several years. In 2003, the quorum of 500 was briefly attained when the Student Society purchased half-chicken dinners for attendees. However, many of those students left before any motion could be put forward.
Prior to that, quorum was attained in 1996, when President Kristjan Arnason and Treasurer Frank Karabotsos were impeached for downloading pornographic pictures onto SFSS computers.