RSU BUDGET TURMOIL

The RSU is struggling with a prolonged battle between board members who see the union as an agent of political advocacy and those who mostly favour social events.

At the Sept. 23 Board of Directors meeting, members were divided on a variety of issues ranging from peace initiatives to education and advocacy work.

The board voted against joining the Canadian Peace Alliance, but supported a motion to keep American war resisters in Canada.

They supported the Presumption of Innocence Project but withdrew their support for U of T students who were arrested for protesting against tuition fee hikes.

The tense meeting climaxed with a battle over the budget. It resulted in half the members walking out to halt the budget from passing as amended. The budget proposed by Toby Whitfield, Vice-President of Finance and Services continued the RSU’s history of promoting social justice, giving money to campaigns like student rights awareness. The second, proposed by Chandan Sharma and George Phu, both on the finance committee, takes the RSU away from education and advocacy campaigns and focuses instead on social events. Their budget cut all education campaigns funding to zero, which they justify by arguing the student union should localize its activities. Snickering and interruptions rang throughout the seven-hour meeting, which ended at 1:06 a.m. Just as Sharma finished presenting his alternative budget, students’ union president Muhammad Ali Jabbar expressed his frustration. “I have honestly lost hope and I do not think I will be able to stand in this meeting where we are mocking our students. We are saying your money, we’re going to play with it,” said Jabbar before leaving the meeting along with RSU executives Rebecca Rose, Whitfield and their allied board members. Under Sharma and Phu’s budget, campaigns such as Education Not Occupation, Student Rights and Voter Education would receive zero funding. At the same time, every events line-item, like concerts and club nights, was increased. The meeting came to a quick end and as directors piled out, people expressed different opinions of what caused the fallout. “I’m kind of shocked,” said Phu. “We’re here so late and everybody speaks of unity but how’re we going to have unity if things like this happen?” But for Rose, Vice-President of Education, unity can only be met when students are put first. “I walked out because I think it’s absolutely outrageous folks in that room are pretending to care about students,” Rose said. “Every single person in that room ran on a platform to reduce tuition fees and fight for accessible education, no matter what slate they ran with. And I absolutely will not allow a meeting to go forward when they are proposing to gut an entire committee.” Although Sharma and Phu’s proposed budget increases funding for bursaries and scholarships, all of the education money would be used to provide students with doughnuts and coffee during exams. “What was given by Mr. Whitfield was a joking matter,” said Sharma, referring to Whitfield’s proposed funding of $168,350 for social events. “We study hard,” Sharma continued. “We’re a commuter campus, a lot of people don’t stay after school to go for a coffee and have fun.” “It’s the networking outside of school that is very important. If we go to an event we learn about different cultures, we meet different people, improve our social skills which is very much paramount in the future of our graduates.” Whitfield disagrees, “I don’t think replacing educational issues campaigns with milk and cookies is a good idea.” The RSU has been trying to pass a budget since the summer but has failed to do so. As a result of various board members being absent, and the last meeting’s inconclusive results, the student union is still operating under last year’s budget. On Oct. 6, there will be a meeting to discuss the future of the proposed budget. “We have two perspectives; it’s not that we’re fighting each other. Nobody’s actually thrown a fist at anybody so I think it’s a healthy divide,” said Abdullah Snobar, a business faculty director, during one of the board meeting breaks. “You can’t expect to have a student’s board holding hands and running down the street together saying ‘hey we’ve done it, we’re all here we’re a united front,’ there’s going to be an opposition obviously.”

Judge Harry LaForme resigns from Truth and Reconciliation Commission

It was reported today that Justice Harry LaForme has resigned as Chief Commissioner of the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission. LaForme cited conflict with government appointed commissioners as his reason for the resignation.

The federal government launched the Commission the same month that it apologized for its complicity in the genocidal policy. It was launched as part of a solution to a court-ordered settlement to settle outstanding legal claims brought against the federal government and churches for abuses from within the schools.

Harry LaForme is a member of the Mississaugas of New Credit First Nation, the Nation that has claim over most of the City of Toronto, including Ryerson University. He is also a judge with the Ontario Superior Court of Appeal.

The Commission was supposed to be a forum where victims can heal from the abuse they endured while at residential schools. The intention of the commission was not to lay blame upon any individuals or institutions and, unsurprisingly, it has been widely criticized.

One of the criticisms leveled against the Commission was triggered by the appointment of lawyer Owen Young to the Commission. Earlier this year, Young urged a judge to impose a “financial penalty that hurts,” against the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug 6 (the KI6) for protecting their traditional lands from Platinex Corp., a platinum mining company. As reported by the Globe and Mail, Young was the Crown prosecutor in the case.

There were also calls for the Commission to be independent. Rather than independence, however, the Commission reports to the Minister of Indian Affairs, Chuck Strahl. This is a position of power, as defined by the Indian Act, that today remains a paternal figure who can exercise control over First Nations peoples in a variety of ways through the Act.

The root of the problem is simply the Indian Act. It was the piece of legislation that first allowed residential schools to be established (the jurisdiction to set up residential schools still exists today).

The Act has within it a formula that will essentially reduce the number of status Indians as generations pass and people marry with non-status people, a clever assimilation policy to say the least. It also places a myriad of restrictions upon status Indians that Canadians do not have to contend with (and would likely riot over had they these restrictions imposed upon them).

Until the Indian Act is repealed and self-government is recognized in a real way, no amount of apologies, commissions or government [in]action is going to address the hurt inflicted by colonization.

White Culture Club again rears its ugly head, this time it’s ‘Ryevolutionary’

On Tuesday night, Ryerson’s Senate met as it normally does, to discuss the various aspects of running a University.

And, as they normally do, the two students’ unions served a motion calling for academic amnesty on the province-wide Day of Action to Drop Fees.

Ryerson’s administrators, not ones to make waves, usually pass these motions and encourage students to get involved. They’re also not ones to stand out. So it’s unsurprising that they passed the motion considering that similar motions of support have already been passed at the University of Ottawa, Queen’s University and York University.

The motion was served by Rebecca Rose from RSU and Tania Hassan from CESAR. It called on the Senate to strongly urge professors to allow students to be away from class should they choose to participate in the Day of Action.

In an all too typical example of how right-wing student representatives operate, Natasha Williams, a member of last year’s ‘Ryevolution’ election block, spoke against the motion. She’s likely best known for her work with the ryevolutionary Ryerson Commerce Society (RCS).

Williams argued against the motion, suggesting that students who want the day off should write letters MPPs about tuition fees rather than taking a day off to demonstrate. In effect, she called for the academic punishment of all students who participate in the Day of Action. What a student representative!

While known for her work with the RCS, Williams is lesser known for her support of a White Culture Club at Ryerson, where white students could gather and discuss issues of common cause. Of course, this notion is offensive and lacks any historical, anti-racism, anti-oppression or even societal analysis.

When the ‘White Culture’ debate gripped the RSU two years ago, most of the activity was online. And, as is known by most who use the Internet, online posts can be forever. In Williams’ case, her words remain there:

“I have a HUGE issue with someone who says there is no such thing as white culture. How dare you, that is no different to saying there is no Black culture or no Asian Culture. White culture isn’t simply north American culture. I posted on another groups board saying that for example Classical European Music (and I’m speaking of for example Mozart, Vivaldi, Beethoven etc.) is white culture, but is definatly not north american culture, because these composers were from europe. Ballet is also white culture, and that definatly didn’t originate in north america either.”

How representative. How Ryevolutionary. How offensive.

Williams may have been the only student to speak against the motion for academic amnesty, but a large majority of her fellow Ryevolutionaries voted with her. These included: Shakera Martin, Darius Sookram, Merit Abadir, Ken Chadha, Paul Yoon and Melissa Piacente (former staffer at the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities and Ryerson Commerce Society executive member).

Most revealing about this vote is the fact that these people appeared to vastly misrepresent themselves during the election by running on a platform calling for tuition fee reductions and even outright elimination. It appears after talking the talk, they aren’t walking the walk.

Not that Williams’ racist and offensive comments are representative of a group of students who purport to be representative of Ryerson’s diverse members, students should be concerned with anyone who makes an alliance like this just to be able to gain power.

White Culture Club again rears its ugly head, this time it’s ‘Ryevolutionary’

On Tuesday night, Ryerson’s Senate met as it normally does, to discuss the various aspects of running a University.

And, as they normally do, the two students’ unions served a motion calling for academic amnesty on the province-wide Day of Action to Drop Fees.

Ryerson’s administrators, not ones to make waves, usually pass these motions and encourage students to get involved. They’re also not ones to stand out. So it’s unsurprising that they passed the motion considering that similar motions of support have already been passed at the University of Ottawa, Queen’s University and York University.

The motion was served by Rebecca Rose from RSU and Tania Hassan from CESAR. It called on the Senate to strongly urge professors to allow students to be away from class should they choose to participate in the Day of Action.

In an all too typical example of how right-wing student representatives operate, Natasha Williams, a member of last year’s ‘Ryevolution’ election block, spoke against the motion. She’s likely best known for her work with the ryevolutionary Ryerson Commerce Society (RCS).

Williams argued against the motion, suggesting that students who want the day off should write letters MPPs about tuition fees rather than taking a day off to demonstrate. In effect, she called for the academic punishment of all students who participate in the Day of Action. What a student representative!

While known for her work with the RCS, Williams is lesser known for her support of a White Culture Club at Ryerson, where white students could gather and discuss issues of common cause. Of course, this notion is offensive and lacks any historical, anti-racism, anti-oppression or even societal analysis.

When the ‘White Culture’ debate gripped the RSU two years ago, most of the activity was online. And, as is known by most who use the Internet, online posts can be forever. In Williams’ case, her words remain there:

“I have a HUGE issue with someone who says there is no such thing as white culture. How dare you, that is no different to saying there is no Black culture or no Asian Culture. White culture isn’t simply north American culture. I posted on another groups board saying that for example Classical European Music (and I’m speaking of for example Mozart, Vivaldi, Beethoven etc.) is white culture, but is definatly not north american culture, because these composers were from europe. Ballet is also white culture, and that definatly didn’t originate in north america either.”

How representative. How Ryevolutionary. How offensive.

Williams may have been the only student to speak against the motion for academic amnesty, but a large majority of her fellow Ryevolutionaries voted with her. These included: Shakera Martin, Darius Sookram, Merit Abadir, Ken Chadha, Paul Yoon and Melissa Piacente (former staffer at the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities and Ryerson Commerce Society executive member).

Most revealing about this vote is the fact that these people appeared to vastly misrepresent themselves during the election by running on a platform calling for tuition fee reductions and even outright elimination. It appears after talking the talk, they aren’t walking the walk.

Not that Williams’ racist and offensive comments are representative of a group of students who purport to be representative of Ryerson’s diverse members, students should be concerned with anyone who makes an alliance like this just to be able to gain power.

Will Dion give Ken Dryden the boot?

No One Is Illegal-Pictures from today’s rally

Today, there was a rally organised by No One Is Illegal calling on the federal government to stop the deportation of Isabel Garcia, a woman who left Mexico to flee domestic violence.

The RFP went to press today, but during that fury, we managed to get pictures from the rally.

Click here for more information about today’s rally. Also, keep watching the RFP’s website for a story about Garcia from June.

No One Is Illegal-Pictures from today’s rally

Today, there was a rally organised by No One Is Illegal calling on the federal government to stop the deportation of Isabel Garcia, a woman who left Mexico to flee domestic violence.

The RFP went to press today, but during that fury, we managed to get pictures from the rally.

Click here for more information about today’s rally. Also, keep watching the RFP’s website for a story about Garcia from June.