The Trent Central Student Association (TCSA)’s November 10^th Board of Directors Meeting saw the ratification of the Association’s Fall By-Election results, featuring the first candidate tie in the organization’s history, and the revelation of further details on the cheating scandal which delayed its electoral process earlier this year.

This Board of Directors meeting opened with a set of Executive Reports, delivered by each of the Association’s Vice Presidents.

The first report was delivered by VP Health & Wellness, Kyra Myderwick, who participated in the Association’s Mclean’s pumpkin patch trip, and helped plan events for Trans Day of Remembrance with Trent’s Wellness Centre.

While the Centre has yet to release any official account of the events planned for the day, its website describes Trans Day of Representation as an event “marked [...] by the sharing of stories and calls to action” and a “a poignant tribute to the memory of transgender individuals who lost their lives due to acts of anti-transgender violence.”

VP Campaigns & Equity, Anshika Gaur’s Executive Report went over her role in planning two Intersectional Inclusion Events, in collaboration with the Racialized Students Commissioner, Sckyda Soviel Subay. These events were held in Otonabee College & the Student Centre, and featured trivia games about microaggressions.

Gaur also announced the upcoming Trent International Students Association Global Dinners event, with a tentative date of November 30^th. This event will highlight "African, Jamaican, Japanese, Indian, and Korean dishes.” 

The last Executive report was from VP University & College Affairs, Iyiola Alade, who spoke about his participation in the aforementioned Pumpkin Patch, a delightful first experience for he and many other International students present. 

Alade also sat on the Vendors Committee, overlooking vendor applications for the TCSA’s Holiday Market where he affirmed the committee’s commitment to following the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement’s guidelines, in hopes of avoiding another instance of TCSA funds going to companies in support of Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. 

Alade also discussed his representation of the TCSA at the Canadian Federation of Student’s (CFS) Annual General Meeting. He participated in the Federation’s Black Caucus, and was elected as Treasurer of its Budget Committee. Alade spoke enthusiastically about the networking occasions the event offered, and its strengthening of the solidarity between smaller student unions.

The most awaited item on the agenda, however, was Lead Electoral Officer Wendy Walker’s Electoral Report which presented the retabulated results of this year’s tumultuous Fall By-Election.

The Association’s membership elected Diamond Akinbaleye to the title of Off-Campus Commissioner. Akinbaleye’s electoral platform cited her intention to “improve access to campus resources, enhance communication between off-campus students and the university, and organize events that foster inclusion and community-building.”

Akinbaleye won 49% of the student vote, ahead of rival candidate Dhan Nagra’s 37%.

Kenzi Noble ran unopposed for the title of Gender Issues Commissioner, with a platform which focused on her experience on other nonprofit boards, such as the Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG), Trent’s Amnesty International Club, and the Kawartha World Issues Centre (KWIC).

In the event of an unopposed candidacy, the election of a TCSA Commissioner is determined by a vote on students’ approval of the sole candidate. Noble’s candidacy received an approval rating of 90%.

For the first time in TCSA history, one of the races in this election came to an exact tie. Upon both receiving exactly 40% of the vote for Environment & Sustainability Commissioner, candidates Ananaya Gupta and Sakshi Shrivastava pleaded their cases to the Board of Directors, who performed a tie-breaking vote.

Prior to this meeting, both candidates had requested to share the position, a request which was reluctantly denied by electoral staff for its incongruence with the TCSA’s electoral by-laws. 

The board ultimately elected Shrivastava after a passionate speech about her own involvement in local nonprofit organizations such as OPIRG, and her desire to use her role to promote collaboration between the TCSA and the rest of the local non-profit ecosystem.

The TCSA’s next President will be Nav Chugh, who won 58% of the student vote, ahead of Yugad Nagra’s 29%. Chugh’s platform cites her areas of focus as community-building to enrich student experiences, easing the financial strains of student life, building stronger supports for student mental health, and including the whole array of cultures which make up Trent’s student body.

Other key findings from Walker’s Electoral report include further detail on the cheating scandal surrounding former President, Riya Jaykar, and a large drop in student engagement in this election due in part to the added round of voting.

Walker revealed that the estimated number of votes tampered by Jaykar was between 40 and 50. Overall turnout for the first round of voting was of 12.9% of the 10, 076 TCSA members, indicating that this tampering was unlikely to have a large impact on the results of the election, but the Elections Committee nonetheless chose to cancel the first round of voting due to the unverifiable nature of that claim.

The second round had much lower turnout, at 8.9%. While this may be partially attributed to general confusion among the student body, many not realizing that a second round of voting was afoot, another notable factor was TCSA ballot emails ending up in students’ spam folders. 

Walker claims she was told by Trent IT that this issue was beyond the scope of their control.

It bears mentioning that the TCSA continue to count any open ballots as a vote. The highest engagement on the ballot was 90%, meaning that likely only around 8% of the student body actually provided a partisan vote on any of the By-Election questions. Robert’s Rules of Order, which the TCSA purports to follow, stipulate that blank ballots are not to be counted as votes, despite the TCSA’s current practice.

Finally, Arthur requested comment from the TCSA on Peterborough’s 2025 staff budget, which could lead to cuts to services such as the Art Gallery of Peterborough & city-operated daycare services, in order to meet City Council’s mandated all-inclusive tax rate increase of 5%.

No one on the Board of Directors provided direct comment, which Chair Rob Monico attributed to their being underinformed on the issue. 

The Association has since posted a statement on the items outlined in Appendix B of the Draft Budget overview, which can be read on their website.