Friday, February 16th, 16:00 EST.

The Board presides in the case of the Trent Central Student Association (TCSA) v. its membership.

In what can only be described as a sucker punch to those of the Association’s membership who showed up to vote on specific by-law amendments which they rejected—twice—during a February 14th Semi Annual General Meeting (SAGM), the TCSA decided to ignore the will of students who cast their vote in a duly convened meeting and force the questions to appear on a referendum on the Spring Election ballot. 

The proposed By-Law amendments, which include a litany of changes to how petitions and referendums are carried out and approved by the Board, failed to be passed in their original form. They then failed to be passed again after Lady Eaton College Prime Minister, Noah Edwards, re-introduced the amendments as a separate motion, cherry-picking out the ones he unilaterally divined were “controversial.” 

How Edwards determined which ones the membership were voting against specifically remains a mystery. 

The proposed changes run the gamut from innocuous—the changing of position titles, rewording of imprecise sentences, and the replacement of relativist measures with firm dates—to those which propose a radical shift to the conduct of the Association’s elections whose ramifications could be felt by students and community groups for years to come.

Specific highlights include the removal of a longstanding stipulation that petitions on the collection of Levy Group Fees meet the threshold to bind the Association, mandating that they appear on the ballot regardless of the board’s position. As it stands, the Association’s Board is (theoretically) never involved in the arbitration of Levy Groups fees, instead acting as a supervisory body to facilitate the democratic petitioning and voting on of them by the student body.

In effect, this change presents the possibility that future referenda on the creation or amendment of ancillary levy fees might be brought before the Association’s Board of Directors to debate their merit or validity.

How this bodes for the liability of Board members, who—as the Directors of a not-for-profit corporation in Ontario, are each legally responsible for decisions made at the board level—was not discussed at this, or any prior presentations of the proposed amendments, despite their potential ramifications for independently incorporated organizations in the Trent Levy Group community.

The TCSA’s sudden insistence on changing by-laws and procedures related to petitions is in itself questionable, especially as these amendments are being brought forth with zero consultation with the Levy Community.

When pressed as to why this consultation did not take place, Association Resource Manager, Wendy Walker, stated that “the short answer is that there wasn’t a Levy Rep in place for a number of months.” 

This assertion, which Walker has repeated at several meetings, is patently untrue, as despite Trent’s Levy Council not meeting regularly for a period of several months, the position of Levy Representative has not been vacant in the interim. Whether Walker’s comments are reflective of a fundamental misunderstanding of the circumstances or a piece of willful revisionism is unclear, though either one ignores the fact that—as a Levy Group itself—the Association possesses every right to call a Levy meeting to inform groups of such proposes changes, and indeed an onus to do so in writing. 

The contact information for every Levy Group is even posted on their website.

In other words, if they wanted to reach out to Levy Groups, they could have. They just chose not to. 

What the TCSA has done here is, in effect, intentionally drafted by-law amendments without taking even the smallest step towards speaking to members of the community who these policies are most likely to affect while instead working to concentrate ever more power into the hands of fewer and fewer students.

The question is—why? 

Unfortunately, for everyone involved (including the TCSA Board and staff) the reasons behind their lack of consultation remains a mystery, because whenever asked specific questions about procedure, Association Staff and Board Members have deflected with non-sequiturs such as those outlined above.

Interestingly, apparently in an attempt to justify a naked attempt to steal power back from students who dared vote against their proposals, Walker did seem to attempt to suggest there were concerns over the turnout at the SAGM itself. Specifically, Walker seemed to imply that the students who were there didn’t matter enough to garner the association's respect for their opinions concerning the proposed amendments—a curious point given the fact the policies these same students approved are not being revisited.

“Unfortunately, there was quite a low turnout—we just hit quorum,” Walker stated during the February 16th emergency meeting. “I think that some of the things that we needed to get passed did and there were some other things that didn't—most notably, our bylaw package.”

While it is heartening, in some ways, to see the TCSA suddenly take a vested interest in participation in student politics and the affairs of the levy community, it pointedly comes at a time following the Association not getting what they want. Their response to this, as is the case with all responsible bodies who operate democratically, is to ram through policy on short notice without first alerting their membership to the fact they are doing this (Editor’s note: sarcasm).

Key here is Walker’s noting that the SAGM did, in fact, meet quorum, meaning that the decisions made on the by-laws as presented at that meeting were, under the Association’s existing by-laws, legitimate and constituted a consensus among the members who attended.

In fact, while the association requires a ⅔ majority for the approval of policies, by-laws, and other decision taken at the SAGM, both motions failed to garner even simple majority, implying more than half of the students in attendance did not wish to see the proposed by-law changes enacted.

While the TCSA is suddenly concerned about lack of turnout and consultation at the SAGM, it would seem the only reason for said concern is that the points mentioned did not pass at the General Meeting.

Naturally the policies that passed were passed legitimately and are not being taken back for referendum to gain wider support from the membership. 

Now, why is that? 

Well, frankly, they got the result they wanted. Any further consultation would be besides the point.

What all this demonstrates is that the TCSA only seems to care about “student engagement” and “consultation” when it can see a way to achieving a specific end and a result that it wants.

This was later confirmed by Walker herself when she stated in her opening remarks that “some of the students felt that because there was such a low turnout at the SAGM, the vote might not be reflective of the greater student population.” 

“So that did lead to a lot of our bylaws not passing,” Walker continued. “With that being the case, the Policy and Governance Committee basically met and pulled out the two really crucial bylaw changes that we would like to see happen” — emphasis added.

It’s just a shame that the same students who voted against adopting these same by-law amendments did not want to see them happen. Meanwhile, Walker and presumably most of the TCSA’s Board, remains assured that a sufficient number of students voted in favour of the policy updates. No need to be concerned there.

At this point, one may reasonably ask themselves whose will does the TCSA actually represent? Is it the voice of the students? And if so, which students and when? How do they decide when or if enough consultation has transpired, and when, and how do they determine if they’ll listen to the results of a vote?

We will say it again, for the record—they will only when they like the result.

If democracy is run like a race where we can restart at the beginning whenever those in power lose or like a game wherein the rules are changed half-way through when one team is losing in the middle innings, then it’s not democracy and the voice of the people doesn’t count for shit.

However, for those who have power and want to abuse it, that’s exactly how they see the world. The TCSA Board, both presently and historically, have made a habit of this kind of behaviour. Indeed, when it comes to consolidating power and exerting its own will upon its membership, the TCSA is masterful at feigning ignorance and concern for the population it purportedly represents. 

The problem, however, is that those in charge are either not smart enough to know how bad they are at what they do, or they are vindictive enough to carry out misguided anti-democratic practices without feeling a twinge of guilt or shame. 

For many, like us, we tend to feel it’s a cruel combination of both.

An example, following a TCSA  Board of Directors meeting on February 11th during which these by-law amendments were adopted by the Board prior to being voted on by the membership, Noah Edwards wrote to Arthur, unprompted, to state that he “was under the impression that petitions relating to levy fees would still be required to be binding.”

“Even though I was on the Policy and Governance Committee, I failed to see that this was not the case,” he went on to write. “I believe a petition regarding levy fees should be binding (10%), as it [sic] required currently.”

The next day, Edwards wrote again, of his own volition, to state his position that “I think it is best left up to the Membership at the SAGM.” 

“What I do know is that there should have been more consultation, something I wanted. I would have liked to hear more from groups to understand the best way forward for everyone,” he went on to say.

However, when Edwards didn’t get the result he and the rest of the Board thought they would get on Wednesday, he changed his tune. Suddenly, the voices of those who attended the SAGM wouldn’t suffice. 

“We're going to ask the entire membership ‘Do you agree with us?’ and not just people who can come to the meeting,” Edwards said during the Emergency Meeting on Friday afternoon. 

Edwards is to be commended, of course, for following through on his beliefs to the extent that he did and within the rules set forth in the by-laws. However, he should be condemned for his inability to accept the result of a vote by the membership whose will he is elected to represent. The same of course goes for the rest of the Board members who voted against passing these failed amendments on to referendum. 

As the TCSA’s meetings take place on Zoom, it is unclear who voted which way on the motion to adopt these by-law amendments and place them on the Spring Election ballot.

Given the TCSA’s endless reluctance to engage with and consult its membership and community groups on significant changes to its own policies, it is incumbent students make an informed choice when they head to the polls this month. 

As it stands, the current TCSA Board and its increasingly obstinate and tactless staff present the Association’s members and the larger Trent community with a fundamentally galling and backwards approach to governance which can only undermine trust in process and policy. Nothing good comes from consulting fewer people, and that seems to be the TCSA’s main interest and mode of operation. It is a shameful example of misguided, cynical, and ego-driven politics. 

We here can only shed light upon it, continue to demand answers from those reluctant to tell the truth—it’s for the Association’s members to collectively determine if the TCSA gets away with it.