AMS Council discussed all things AMS elections at the last meeting before nominees are released on Friday.
Here’s what you might have missed.
Three AMS referenda make it on the ballot
The AMS will be putting three separate referenda to the ballot.
Council approved a ‘Yes’ position on an increase in the Sexual Assault Support Centre (SASC) fee. SASC leadership are asking for a $6.42 increase. This would bring the student fee up to $16.
Aashna Josh from SASC said the centre’s usership has increased dramatically since 2018. In 2018, SASC saw 726 students, but in 2021, the service saw 2,028 users.
Josh said SASC’s current budget limits them from meeting the demand. If the fee is approved, Josh said SASC will be able to hire more support workers and educators to properly meet that demand.
Councillors all supported the fee increase, but conversations emerged around the size of the increase and concern that SASC hadn’t provided a proper breakdown of what it would do with the significant increase in cash.
SASC said further information on budget breakdowns would be provided if the fee passes. Evans said he would provide a three-year projection to Council at the next meeting.
Councillor Minaho Chew suggested rewording the question to simply state that the fee would increase by $6.42, rather than including that it would increase from $9.58 to $16. Councillor Julia Burnham raised concern that this might be interpreted as “sneaky,” or that the AMS is trying to hide the full cost increase from students.
The question was officially reworded to “Do you support an increase of $6.42 in the fee for the Sexual Assault Support Services Fund ($9.58 to $16) for the academic year 2022-23?" Council approved that the referendum be on the ballot and adopted a ‘Yes’ position in favour of the referendum question.
Council also approved a referendum on bylaw changes to align the society with the Societies Act, and a referendum on some fee reductions and on allowing digital opt-outs of certain AMS fees.
Postering motion sent back to committee
Councillors discussed proposals to allow the Elections Committee to have greater ability to poster, and to allow candidates to post campaign material without approval from the committee.
The first proposal prompted a heated discussion around the use of posters, and if allowing the Elections Committee to put up posters of candidates would create issues for the Elections Committee and spark questions of the committee’s confidentiality.
However, it was sent back to committee after a conversation around conflict of interest. Speaker Neal Cameron ruled that councillors who are planning to run for election could participate in discussions over postering, but not campaign material. In Governance Committee meetings, councillors planning to run for election weren’t able to participate in either discussion, prompting a motion to refer the proposal on postering back to committee.
Council then approved a motion that would allow campaign materials to be posted without Elections Committee approval.
Councillors seemed in agreement that such a proposal would reduce the workload of the Elections Committee, but asked how potential campaign material violations would be caught.
Evans said it would be a mix of relying on complaints and using social media to monitor all materials.
“So probably a combination of those two things but I don't foresee it being a huge issue because a lot of campaign material … that would have to be approved anyway like social media graphics and other things are pretty out in the open anyway,” he said.
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