punditry.ca — uncovering DSU elections

Dal News has posted a set of DSU Election campaign photos by Martina Marien.

The Gazette is reporting that Arron and Beale have filed appeals.

The headline and the first few paragraphs are dedicated to Arron’s allegation that a “smear campaign” was launched against him, referring readers to punditry.ca as evidence.  (To be clear to new visitors, I believe he’s not alleging that the site itself is orchestrating a campaign, or the pundits, but rather that evidence of such a campaign may be seen on this site given its role as a nexus of election information.  No hate mail, please.)

It’s not clear from the article which of the offences was caused or perpetrated by the smear campaign, or if that is just a parenthetical remark.  (Arron took to Twitter to clarify that this was a secondary comment; we’ve reached out to him to offer to publish in full his case).

They largely ignored my comments on working-around-the-rules appeals, which is fair as I was not optimistic about most of them.  Beale in particular blames an unregistered volunteer who was not aware of the rules; Arron variously notes there is no specific prohibition against campaigning in residence, that his posts weren’t campaigning, that the video is owned by an independent director not the DSU, and that his website could not have had any impact on the election.  The Gazette article has details.

Update 02/26: Jamie Arron has put up a website detailing his appeals.

With two candidates disqualified – and the results of both races changed as a result – now would be a good time to review the process of disqualification.  Some of these points came up in notes at the end of the results post; this is a more detailed treatment.  It’s tough to comment specifically on Arron and Beale because the exact nature of their disqualification has not yet been announced (this is entirely reasonable; in addition to such delays being permitted, on a day when the EC is busy trying to actually run the polls, it’s entirely reasonable for them to ask for a little time to assemble the details of their decision.)  Where possible I have marked such comments in italics.

The short version is this: disqualifications could not be announced or even discussed publicly until polls closed by rule. Disqualifications can be appealed to the Elections Committee within the next 3-4 days, as up to this point they could not include much of the candidate’s side of the story in their deliberations because of the ban on discussing the charges outside the Committee.  If the candidate is not satisfied with their decision on appeal, they can take it to the Judicial Board within 5 days of receiving the appeal decision.  The JB is essentially the final word on the matter.  The CRO will likely be invited to submit to the JB.  They will hold a hearing of some form (within 2 weeks), and within one month of the hearing will produce a written decision (possibly with dissenting opinions).  Maximum time is almost 8 weeks, though in practice it will likely be less.

For the longer version, read on!

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Based on lessons from 2002 (see my earlier post), I do have a set of suggestions for students and their elected representatives. I also have a set of suggestions for what the DSU should not do. It’s not my place to advocate for any of these; rather, these are the things I wish I had known in February 2002.  I should note that I was very active during the strike, engaging in many conversations with the DFA and the students supporting them (my sent mail shows 800 emails that month).  I was engaged in the DSU discussions.  And today, I write as someone whose career path will lead him to be a member of a faculty union somewhere.  I see and recognize many perspectives; this is my conclusion based on all of them.

What should individuals do?

Hope for the best, plan for the worst. The posturing that’s happening now is very concerning. I do believe they are making more progress than they were in 2002, but they have yet to even start formally discussing what I see as the biggest issue.  I also suspect at least some of this is intended to bring pressure on the government to a) increase funding and b) relax pension solvency rules, which would require angry students and parents.  A strike may be averted, and if it comes it may be brief, but you never know. This whole post is written as a plan for the worst.

The university will do what it can to preserve the semester, and will go to some pretty extreme measures to do so. In 2002, the university pledged to compensate students for changed travel plan costs, help find alternate accommodations, and to do what they could to request leniency from employers [read the full memo here]. They also were good about giving tuition credits to students who withdrew during the strike. There is no guarantee that will happen again, so try these things at your own risk and remain as flexible as you can.

The extreme case involves a ruined summer with no refunds, like the oft-cited York University case (speaking as an employee of York University, these people are out of their minds). I wouldn’t be too worried about that happening at Dalhousie. Do consider your plans in the event of a lost semester, but don’t jump to react to it – warning employers, family, and friends not to expect you to graduate on time would be premature.

More after the break…

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As Halifax continues to slowly grind to a strike-ridden halt, and the Dalhousie Faculty Association conducts a strike vote, my thoughts have turned to the last Dalhousie strike.

The potential DFA strike hasn’t really been a campaign issue, because odds are it will have played out completely by the time the current candidates take office. It is my sincere hope that the bargaining process can resolve these issues before a strike. In the event it cannot, I thought it might be interesting to hear the story of the last strike from a student who lived through it. The story will at times be dull, but it includes the story of Occupy Dalhousie, DSU in-fighting, and battles with the administration.

This is Part I, the history. Part II will be my advice to students and to elected student leaders in the event of a strike.

In 2002, the DFA went on strike for 26 days; they walked out effective March 4 at 8am; classes resumed on April 1st [fear not, many jokes were made]. It was the fourth Dalhousie faculty strike and the second in four years (in 1998 they walked for 8 days). The cast was the same for both of those strikes, so there was a lot of ill will (the cast has changed somewhat but many admin members and faculty were present for the previous strikes). As is usual, the Administration locked out the professors the day they went on strike.

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(This will be top post during the voting period, scroll down for the new content.)

You should be voting in the DSU Elections if you haven’t already.  If you are still trying to make up your mind, read on.

Opinion: You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting opinion and commentary on this site; use the Search bar at the right to find information about specific candidates, or browse through the various posts.

Convenient access to Information: We have the official Posters of all the candidates for your viewing pleasure, and have links to websites, Facebook groups, and Twitter in the sidebar on the lower right.

We also have FULL TEAM COVERAGE of elections events:

• Hot Chocolate Stations
• Presidential Debate  (also with video coverage)
• Kandidate Karaoke
• Sexton Debate
• Studley Debate
• Video Awards

See also: I recommend the Gazette profiles and CKDU interviews.  As they are the student media you finance, seems logical to avail yourselves of them.

Word clouds for the presidential candidates.  For these I’m excluding any words used only once which makes the results much less cluttered and more relevant.

NB: I used only the “core” platform of each, excluding extensions added throughout the campaign week.  Each has extensions to their platforms on their website.  Unfortunately the core of Arron’s platform is only 330 words; this means a) adding any extension is a strange skew of the numbers, and b) there are only 17 non-stop words used more than once.  (remember, student and societies are considered stop words for DSU elections).

• Like his campaign for VP SL last year, Food is the most common word for Arron.  Bouchard’s top word last year, work, is in the top 5 again this year.
• You see change in Arron’s; Bouchard talks about new things but also puts heavy weight on continue.
• Bouchard shows explicit acknowledgement of a leadership role (support, executive, team) while Arron puts more weight on outreach.
• When I read the platforms, I noted the same difference I saw in the Larkin-Gault race a few years back, the last time a sitting VP SL went up against a sitting VP AE (or equivalent).  The VP SL tends to look inward, talking about events and engagement and reaching students.  In comparison, the VP AE tends to focus outward, highlighting external advocacy (though also internal academics).  Both recognize the importance of adding the other perspective, knowing the president has to mix both.  For my money, Bouchard did this better out of the gate (of the two, she’s the only one to mention CASA, ANSSA, advocate, while also mentioning food, SUB, engaged, etc.), but Arron has worked hard to add these components to his campaign including the lengthy external advocacy document posted late last night.

Arron

Bouchard