With a referendum underway on whether students will contribute around $20 million to build a new student centre, election officials have torn down posters opposing the measure. At the same time, the “yes” campaign, whose prominent campaigners include several University of Toronto Students Union executives, hung a banner near a polling station in a major campus hub, which appears to violate UTSU’s own bylaws.
The referendum asks full-time undergraduate students if they agree to pay two-thirds of the centre’s construction costs over a term of up to 25 years, and to shoulder a levy to pay operating costs once the centre opens. Volunteers and staff of the Association of Part-time Undergraduate Students have complained that their posters opposing the referendum are being torn down. Volunteer Katie Wolk was handing out APUS leaflets in front of Sid Smith on Monday, Oct. 29, when UTSU’s VP internal and services Faraz
Siddiqui issued her an ultimatum: either Wolk could surrender her leaflets to him, or he would call for the Campus Community police to step in. Siddiqui told The Varsity that, because APUS had not registered as an official “No” campaign in the referendum, UTSU’s bylaws prohibit them from campaigning.
A long-standing APUS volunteer, Wolk instead told him to contact Chris Ramsaroop, APUS’s campus coordinator. Campus police met with Ramsaroop and found that, though the groups postering conflicted with UTSU’s bylaws, APUS was not bound by those. The police refused to intervene.
Nonetheless, Gail Alivia, who UTSU hired as Chief Returning Officer for the referendum, confirmed that she and her Deputy Returning Officers have been tearing down APUS posters whenever they see or are informed of them.
UTSU’s general manager Rick Telfer has alleged that the posters are potentially defamatory and said that Student Affairs had given support to taking them down. He added that a lawyer retained by UTSU had found that the poster’s wording could be possible grounds for a libel suit. Telfer cited a phrase he said implied certain “yes” campaigners were corrupt.
APUS volunteers have complained about being followed closely by “yes” campaigners who would step in whenever they were talking with a student, interrupting them and telling the student that APUS was not telling the truth. This happened when a reporter from The Varsity approached an APUS volunteer on the Sidney Smith patio.
Most of the “yes” volunteers asked by The Varsity were aware that they were required to stay at least six metres away from polling stations while campaigning.
Yet volunteers hung a banner from a balcony in the Sidney Smith lobby, within direct view of the polling station there, in apparent contradiction of the UTSU charter for referenda, which reads: “Campaign banners may not be placed within six (6) metres or within sight of the polling station.”
The “yes” campaign, whose prominent volunteers include UTSU’s president Andréa Armborst, VP external Dave Scrivener, and VP equity Sandy Hudson, have been highly visible across campus wearing green shirts and buttons promoting the Student Commons levy and the website studentcommons.ca.
For most of Wednesday, campaign workers also operated a table serving free coffee and displaying “yes” posters almost directly opposite the polling station in the Sidney Smith lobby.
Opponents of the referendum claimed the table broke the spirit of non-interference in voting. “If [the table] was not within six metres, it was ridiculously close,” said James Janeiro, a member of the official “no” campaign.
Asked by The Varsity to explain the banner, both Alivia and Telfer said they were unaware of the “within eyesight” portion of the rule it broke, which is written in section 7.l of the union’s charter on referenda. The banner has since been removed.
The charter has different rules for posters and banners, and refers to a U of T document defining banners as signage in excess of 17″ x 22″. The charter on referenda itself was unavailable online due to an apparent technical glitch on UTSU’s website when The Varsity called, and has since been posted.
APUS has consistently opposed the Student Commons project, taking the position that government assistance and the university should pay for the building, not students. If the Student Commons construction goes through as planned, APUS’s current home will be demolished to make room for the new centre, the union’s third eviction in recent years.
The “no” campaign, Coalition for a Democratic University of Toronto, has also complained that students at Victoria University had been disenfranchised in the referendum, which has no polling station on its grounds. Alivia said she initially contacted Victoria University Students’ Administrative Council members and Jason Hunter, the college’s dean of students, to set up a polling station, but that calls were not returned. Janeiro, also a member of VUSAC, said that the council checks their messages regularly and was not aware of receiving such a message. Hunter could not be reached at press time.
A letter obtained by The Varsity, sent to UTSU’s elections and referenda committee and signed by Janeiro and VUSAC president Zinzi de Silva, complained that claims of administrative errors were no grounds for Victoria to lack a polling station. The committee’s chair, Ahmad Khan, responded that VUSAC’s letter came far too close to the voting period to make any changes. The referendum was announced in mid-October.
Victoria University is in the planning stages of its own student centre, an expansion of the Wymilwood building. If it is built, Victoria students would contribute to its costs as well as those of the Student Commons.
If the referendum passes, each fulltime undergraduate on the St. George campus will pay $5 per semester to the construction budget until the centre opens. At that point, the levy would rise to $14.25 per semester and students would also start paying $6.50 per semester for operating and renewal costs, totaling $41.50 over the fall and winter terms. The levy could be raised no more than once each term, by no more than 10 per cent per term, to cover inflation.
Voting continues until Friday, Nov. 2.
