The February 11th Trent Central Student Association Board of Directors meeting saw multiple heated discussions, and the announcement of new measures, from $12,000 of funding for Sadleir House put up for referendum, to by-law amendments simplifying the TCSA’s internal impeachment processes.

The meeting’s first Executive Report was presented by TCSA President Aimee Anctil. Anctil reported on her work planning the upcoming Anti-Racism Conference, which was later announced to be taking place on March 1 and 2, trying to facilitate transportation from Trent’s Durham campus to the Peterborough campus for the event. She also mentioned working with the Community Race Relations Committee, who will attend the event.

Anctil also spoke about the latest Trent Board of Governors meeting which was held on February 2nd. The Board discussed the recently announced cap on international study permits by the Federal Government and noted that she had spoken to Trent President Leo Groarke and VP of Communications and Enrolments, Marilyn Burns, about the implications of this cap and “hypotheticals about how finances would be impacted.”

According to Anctil “there's still an intention to let students know what the impacts will be, but there shouldn't be explicitly any implications to current students, especially ones who are graduating.

“This is definitely something that will be impacting people within the...next few years,” she continued.

The next Executive Report was that of VP Health & Wellness Bri Policchico. VP Policchico reported an extremely low rate of use of the Bata Bean’s new frictionless system, which allows students to pay for food through Trent Food Services’ BOOST app, without any human contact. She noted that only 2% of sales were going through the BOOST app, and that Trent Food services contractor Chartwells would take up “another round of promotions and then … reassess from there.”

Policchico also reported on the planning of a TCSA Gender-Affirming Care event on March 5^th,  which will offer “self-selected care packages,” “gender-affirming haircuts” and guest speakers passing on trans knowledge and experiences. 

She noted that she’d be seeking student feedback during a meeting after reading week, as well as “a little story post on [the TCSA’s] Instagram asking students for their feedback and opinions.”

Arthur asked Policchico, as well as Queer Students Commissioner Elias Malcolm, about putting more focus into more direct forms of Gender-Affirming Care such as Hormone Replacement Therapy. Policchico responded that “different community partners and people” would be bringing “different resources,” “not only from the community, but also … local businesses, people from Toronto.” Malcolm also responded that Trent already has medical resources for HRT, and that “getting someone at the event who can talk to their experiences with HRT is probably the best we can do.” 

He clarified that haircuts are the more “superfluous” service the event will be providing to “help people figure out what aesthetic they want to present with.” As attacks against Gender-Affirming care arise across Canada, the TCSA’s focus on “aesthetics” and purported inability to do more than talk about HRT bore a chilling resemblance to Arthur editor Evan Robins’ caricature of their approach to Trans care. 

Closing off the executive reports was VP of University & College Affairs Rovel Rehman, who reported some upcoming curriculum changes, including additional nursing placements, arising from her work with the Undergraduate & Graduate Studies Committees in the Trent Senate.

While the meeting’s agenda featured a review of the TCSA’s audited financial statements, the Board elected to move these documents without board endorsement to their February 14^th Second Annual General Meeting, due to the absence of representatives from the accounting firm which had produced them, Baker-Tilly. 

The Board reviewed the Policy Amendments and By-law proposals being brought to the SAGM. One amendment By-law, also among the subjects of the next TCSA referendum, seeks to change the yearly augmentations of the Health & Dental Plan and Transportation fees to follow Statistics Canada’s Consumer Price Index, as opposed to the current model of 3% per year.

Another proposed By-law seeks to facilitate the removal and impeachment of Board members, allowing for the impeachment of a director through a 2/3 vote of the Board. Furthermore, any Board member who has three unexcused absences from Committees, Meetings, or other positional duties would immediately be assumed to have resigned. Despite comments made by directors about this policy resolving issues that had happened with past directors, no recent director resignations were named as drivers of this change.

The most heated discussion of the Meeting arose from the proposed Petition and Referendum By-law changes. Among these, the Board’s Election Committee would gain the right to determine the wording, campaign guidelines, disciplinary actions, voting and counting mechanisms of any referendum.

A proposed By-law also states that organizers of petitions regarding Trent Levy Group’s Levy Fees hold the responsibility to contact the relevant Levy Groups to inform them of their petition. Failure to meet this responsibility, however, would not absolve the petitioners of their responsibility to inform the Association of the petition. 

On the topic of access to information, Levy Groups Representative and Arthur journalist, David King, expressed concerns about Levy Groups’ lack of warning about relevant petition and referendum By-law proposals, such as the reduction of the minimum support threshold for petitions to be brought to Board of Directors Meetings from 10% to 5% of the student body. 

Arthur was informed by a member of the Board of Directors that the Board had been notified of the potential changes to Levy petition and referendum policy on January 25th. Yet, King explained that these By-law changes were never brought to the February 9^th Levy Council Meeting, and that their being shared on the TCSA website was insufficient towards effectively informing Levy Groups of the proposed changes.

King further explained “to immediately be thrown in a situation like this where I do have to represent the interests of all levy groups…makes me very anxious and stressed out, especially considering the fact that…I don't think it was sufficiently communicated what was going on.”

Lady Eaton College Prime Minister Noah Edwards rebutted the changes as “actually good for Levy Groups.” 

Arthur Editor Evan Robins explained “the decrease in a threshold for a consideration of a petition from 10% to 5% is itself concerning. That represents a decrease in consensus of about 500 students from what it currently stands at, which is a significant number of the student population for things to be brought forward to the board.” 

Association Resource Manager acquiesced to King and Robins, stating “the fact that we’ve been waiting for a Levy Group meeting to happen for 4+ months is something to consider.”

She added “the proposed removal of the article which states that petitions requesting a referendum to approve, amend or remove a Levy Group fee must be binding is deeply concerning to Levy Groups … it means that this is no longer representative of a popular consensus amongst the study body that must be binding upon the Association."

When asked by Arthur about concerns that these new regulations could make it easier for small groups to de-facto defund Levy Groups, TCSA Board Resource Manager Wendy Walker retorted “I'm not sure where there's this assumption that a small group of students would be able to defund a full levy or overthrow them. This is just for a petition to bring to the board…and the board could choose to not even have it be taken to referendum. It could also go to referendum and the students choose to not support the referendum.”

Where could this assumption come from? Perhaps it could be the petition campaign attempting to de facto defund Arthur last year, which spread disinformation that the TCSA did not acknowledge?

Unless the Association denies that using accusations of Arthur not issuing severance pay to staff who had quit – and therefore never qualified for severance pay under Ontario law – as part of a petition campaign composes “bad faith,” then they themselves must acknowledge that their allowance of the continuance of this campaign as a legitimate Levy fee Petition campaign has set a precedent of not following their own By-law XIV. 9. 5. i., stating that petitioners hold the responsibility to “insure…that [their] petition is undertaken in good faith for a legitimate reason.” 

With this being the case, the loosening of the threshold for petitions to be considered by the Board of Directors represents a possible troubling development. Referenda could become less and less representative of the Trent student body as a whole, and of the potential mere 5% of students supporting these future referenda, who knows how many could be swayed by unchecked disinformation?

As a result of these discussions, Board members were forced to organize an emergency Levy Committee Meeting, to inform Levy Groups of these proposed changes. 

The meeting went on to cover proposed referendum questions, featuring one on the aforementioned Transportation and Health & Dental fee changes, and another on the reallocation of $109,000 in funding from a defunct Levy Group to current ones. The Board members voted to amend the second question, so that $12000 out of the $109,000 would be allocated to an expansion of Sadleir House to include a new media lab, were the referendum adopted.

The session ended with the approval of the proposed members of the Student Excellence Committee, its future implications leaving Arthur members with a chilling sense of déjà vu.

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Editor's Note: This article has been updated to reflect a quote which had been wrongly attributed to TCSA General Manager, Tracy Milne when in reality it was spoken by Wendy Walker as it appears above.