The UTSU’S Defeat Reflects Crisis of Legitimacy

Aron Nimani

Spencer Burger (2L)

The University of Toronto Students’ Union recently suffered a significant and shocking upset.

At this year’s Annual General Assembly, the UTSU’s governing executives (who are part of a slate that has been in power for a decade) failed to pass their proposal to radically change the UTSU’s board structure. Their Board Restructuring Proposal would have ended college and faculty representation and eliminated the law faculty’s sole representative position at the UTSU.

Why was its rejection so surprising? Because the UTSU’s governing slate has a longstanding record of always getting what it wants – regardless of the costs to democratic principles, campus unity and student life.

The UTSU wanted to remove college and faculty representation and replace it with a set of Equity Directors. The opposition was not necessarily against giving more representation to equity groups that are perceived as underrepresented. However, they saw the proposal for what it was: a desperate reaction by the UTSU to its deepening crisis of legitimacy that would have increased the UTSU’s already excessive executive power at the expense of the colleges and faculties and at the expense of democratic representation and principles.

How does all this affect the Faculty of Law (and you)?

The Faculty of Law is a part of the undergraduate UTSU student government body. That means each law student pays approximately $350 annually to an organization with which they have little to no contact. The law faculty’s current representative at the UTSU was acclaimed last year – without a vote. Thus, even though this organization may sound foreign to you, it actually handles a significant amount of your personal funds that are automatically charged to your ROSI account.

And unfortunately for us, the UTSU seems to be increasingly unaccountable, not just to law students, but to the University of Toronto generally. The governing UTSU slate has been plagued for years with serious allegations of outright corruption and of using their incumbency power to abuse the democratic process.

In an ongoing issue reflecting a profound conflict of interest, the elections officer responsible for supervising the UTSU’s elections is appointed directly by the UTSU executive, which is controlled by the incumbent governing slate. More serious allegations have ranged from not giving students notice of elections and other bylaw violations to damning allegations that the incumbent slate has been fixing election results.

Last year, in an unprecedented but necessary move, the Vice-Provost for Students, Jill Matus, asked the UTSU to seal ballot boxes after several close races that the incumbent UTSU slate almost lost including an unusually high number of spoiled ballots – raising suspicions that elections staff had disqualified legitimate ballots that went to non-incumbent slate candidates. The UTSU ignored the request entirely.

In light of the UTSU’s past behaviour, and because we disagreed with the proposed UTSU board structure changes, the Students’ Law Society (SLS) released a very strong statement opposing the proposal and expressing concern over the UTSU’s alleged violations of the democratic process. Still, we did not expect our statement to have much of an impact, and we certainly did not expect the result to be anything other than what the UTSU wanted based on past precedent.

So it was extremely surprising that the UTSU lost its bid to solidify its power by altering its governing structure. Indeed, it was all the more surprising in light of a number of inappropriate shenanigans at the AGM itself that seemed to reflect an attempt to illicitly influence the result. For one, the UTSU staff member who wrote the board restructuring proposal also “happened” to be the same person counting votes. In addition, almost all of the proposal supporters (the governing slate’s supporters) had eleven proxy votes, the maximum allowed (the UTSU allows for proxy voting whereby students can sign their votes to a proxy at the AGM). By contrast, the opposition’s voting placards ranged significantly, with very few elevens.

When I remarked upon this to one of the leaders of the opposition, she explained to me that her proxy votes had been systematically reduced by the UTSU staffers that validated the proxy forms – without any explanation whatsoever. Indeed, these staffers refused to provide any documentation to justify the disqualification of students’ proxy votes. She explained that this had happened to many students from colleges that were known to oppose the UTSU’s governing slate. In other words, there are serious allegations that the UTSU attempted to rig the vote by disqualifying the proxy votes of students from certain colleges and faculties.

In addition, in a completely new addition to the AGM, the UTSU hired bouncers from the Mississauga campus bar to provide “security.” These big, bulky men, dressed entirely in black uniforms, often formed lines around where opposition students were sitting. They were noticeably very familiar with the UTSU executive, much of which is from the Mississauga campus. Students complained that this entirely unfamiliar presence of “security” men paid by the UTSU executive and who were known to have good relations with UTSU executives was intimidating to students opposing the board proposal. Certainly their presence within the AGM room itself – including during votes – was grossly inappropriate and uncharacteristic of any university AGM I have ever experienced.

Still, despite their best efforts, the UTSU’s executive failed to push through the most significant of their controversial reforms (another bylaw change that effectively removes the requirement to provide students with adequate notice for AGMs was passed). Its loss reflects the profound crisis of legitimacy that the UTSU is facing: the vast majority of students at the St. George campus no longer respect the UTSU as an organization and are very aware of its alleged abuses of the democratic process.

How does the law faculty fit into this? Under President Natalie Lum-Tai’s leadership, the SLS has attempted to take a more assertive role, reflecting our exasperation with the UTSU’s alleged abuses and undemocratic tactics. But perhaps more is necessary. As law students we should be especially sensitive to abuses of power; we have a special responsibility to ensure that violations of the democratic process and the rule of law have consequences. I am not yet sure what those consequences should be. But what is certain is that the UTSU’s ongoing crisis of legitimacy means real change is coming – and that the law faculty should play an active role in shaping that change.

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