Chief on the agenda of the October 20^th's Trent Central Student Association (TCSA) Board of Directors meeting was the recent cancellation of the Fall By-Election, which Association staff revealed was caused by multiple accounts of cheating by former Association Interim President, Riya Jaykar. 

Per consequence, the Association’s Fall by-elections have been officially rescheduled, with a voting period spanning from October 31^st to November 7^th.

The Sunday afternoon  meeting opened with the sharing of Executive Reports, with two out of three TCSA executives missing and having their reports presented in absentia by TCSA Resource Manager Wendy Walker.

Vice President of Health & Wellness Kyra Myderwick was out sick, and wrote about her participation in the Association’s Head of the Trent cleanup gathering. 

Five volunteers assisted the cleanup, gathering ten bags of garbage in the middle of HoTT weekend. Myderwick also participated in Higher Education Strategy Associates, a nationwide meeting of student union representatives discussing enrollment, finances, and funding of post-secondary education around the country.

Iyiola Alade, Vice President of University & College Affairs, described his experience representing the Canadian Federation of Students in Ottawa. Alade spoke about wanting to lobby for student needs, but finding himself discouraged by state Senators and MPs’ detachment from student issues.

Alade also discussed his presence at the Canadian Federation of Students’ Racialized and Indigenous Students’ Experiences Summit, a place for “delegates, presenters, and organizers” to “heal, connect and learn.” Indigenous Students Commissioner Katie Lariviere served as Trent’s sole Indigenous Representative.

Finally, Jaykar’s Presidential Report was presented by Walker, noting the former President’s attendance at Peterborough Pride Week & President Cathy Bruce’s Installment ceremony. 

After a closed session to discuss electoral procedures, Lead Electoral Officer Wendy Walker revealed the full details for the Fall By-election's cancellation. On October 18th, students came to her to report having been encouraged to vote by Jaykar. 

This was “typical candidate behaviour,” according to Walker, yet Jaykar took it a step further. 

Students alleged that Jaykar had taken their phones and went through their election ballots with them. They claimed that Jaykar had then selected herself as Presidential candidate, pointed out other candidates, and submitted ballots on students’ behalf.

The Election Committee was able to get confirmation of this from Jaykar, and while Walker said they were unsure of the amount of ballots affected, the Committee chose to cancel the election.

As a consequence, Walker immediately disqualified Jaykar from the election and asked for her resignation, which she gave that same day. Other candidates were informed of the situation and of the rescheduled voting period, and were given an additional budget of $50 for further campaigning.

According to Walker, this kind of ballot tampering “has never happened before in a TCSA election.” She describes this situation as “uncharted territory,” and while the Electoral Committee has yet to discuss any changes to Electoral policy, Walker is “open to hearing feedback on and hearing ideas from the Board and other students’ recommendations.”

Next, the Board of Directors voted in favour of the creation of a new Photocard Bursary, in collaboration with Trent International, which will provide $30 to students in the process of obtaining an Ontario Photocard. 

This bursary was put in place to assist international students who may otherwise struggle to find pieces of Photo ID. If this bursary were to reach higher demand than the current annual budget of $4000 can support, Trent International has “agreed to go up” in their funding of the program.

Finally, General Manager Tracy Milne presented the Association’s 2024-2025 First Draft Budget. Most notably, this draft includes a reduction in the Student Emergency Relief Fund (“SERF”)’s budget, as it was underused last year.

Milne explained that the TCSA has been seeing less and less of its budget going to student funding programs, from 20% in 2020 to 7% now. She attributes a portion of this change to lower use of the Emergency Relief Fund and Co-op programs, and hopes that the creation of new programs will lead to more TCSA funding going towards financially supporting Trent students.

In response to this, Arthur asked Milne if further promotion of existing student funding programs would be considered, rather than only creating new programs. Milne responded that she believed the issue at hand was not promotion of existing programs, but rather their eligibility criteria. In Evan Robins’ words, the TCSA will be shifting from “asking which people need our services the most, to finding the most people who might theoretically need our services.”