This movie Is worth two million rupees

Slumdog Millionaire has received a great deal of attention on the Oscar nomination list. And according to Max Arambulo, it’s well-deserved.

If anyone gets a raw deal in western cinema, it’s the East Asians. If anyone gets an even rawer deal, it’s the South Asians. Often in films, they aren’t much more than an accent. But Slumdog Millionaire, a major west-made movie with actors you would likely only see in Bollywood films, is the first step towards better filmic representation. Slumdog, like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, is both a coming-out party and a formal, dramatic achievement.

Based on the novel Q&A by Indian author Vikas Swarup, Slumdog tells the story of two brothers, Jamal (Dev Patel) and Salim (Madhur Mittal), whose early childhoods are spent in the Mumbai ghettos. They are slumdogs. After their mother is killed in a riot, they survive on their own by working in an organized begging racket, then as crooked Taj Mahal tour guides.

Eventually, their paths split as the older Salim steals Jamal’s love, Latika (Freida Pinto), and chooses a life of organized crime, while Jamal gets a menial job at a call centre and lands a spot on the Indian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” With the TV appearance, Jamal not only gets a chance at two million rupees, but also a chance to win back Latika.

Director Danny Boyle (Shallow Grave, 28 Days Later, Sunshine) will never be confused with his stylistically muted peers, the Clint Eastwoods of the world. Remember the head-spinning, ceiling-crawling baby in Trainspotting? Slumdog is clearly Boyle-esque — audacious and flamboyant. There is an amazing foot chase, (the best on film since Keanu had a pitbull thrown at him in Point Break) through the Mumbai slums. It’s all harnessed chaos as the young brothers run across roofs and through an almost unending series of alleys.

Perhaps, most striking about Slumdog Millionaire is the way the story unfolds. With every “millionaire” question, there’s a flashback to the childhood experience that informed Jamal’s corresponding answer. At one point, for example, we’re whisked back to an instance where Jamal gives a U.S. $100 bill to a beggar. That’s how he correctly answers that C) Ben Franklin is on the bill. This flashback/question structure does two things: 1. builds a bit of audience compassion for our skinny everyman, Jamal; and 2. sets up the canvasses for Boyle’s showy set-pieces.

Boyle also doesn’t forget to, with a knowing wink, acknowledge that gaudy Bollywood tradition. It would have been a crime not to. There’s a choreographed dance piece, 100 people strong, in the closing credits. And there’s the film’s fairy-tale/daytime-drama tone. The violence, for instance, always feels safe. When Salim executes a criminal, it feels more like he melted him with a bucket of water, than shot him with a .45 at point blank.

The protagonists, furthermore, do not really struggle with morals or philosophy or logistics. They aren’t that deep. Latika asks, if she runs away with Jamal, “What would we live on?” Jamal, of course, replies, “On Love.” Jamal is the hero. Latika is the distressed damsel. Salim is the mischievous, but good-hearted force keeping them apart.

There is criticism precisely over Boyle’s choice of tone. Since he’s white and European, is he trivializing the actual depths of Indian poverty? If not a completely sound criticism, it’s at least a compelling and natural one. In this reviewer’s opinion, though, Boyle’s colonial sins are minor. Much like Brazil’s City of God, Slumdog is not a documentary about a country’s violence, disease, and institutionalized prostitution, nor does it have such pretensions. It is what it is: a piece of honest entertainment that does not disrespect the people and place who inspired the film.

What Boyle does seem to get right is the feel of the in-flux Mumbai. Though it is still a place filled with poor, it’s a place up-and-coming, the epicenter of new industry. Along with the traditional image of people in dumps and washing in brown water, we get the Mumbai of flashing lights, looming skyscrapers, and suffocating traffic — all infused with M.I.A. swag.

Baby steps. Maybe this film, made for western viewers about brave, strong, and good-looking (specifically Freida Pinto who is a dime) brown people, is just the beginning. Well, hopefully. I’m waiting, after all, for all those East Asian-starring, post-Crouching Tiger films I was promised a decade ago. Still waiting.

Concern over Gazan deaths prompt expulsions and sanctions by university administrators

Around the world those critical of Israel’s attacks into the Gaza refugee enclaves have been facing intimidation and even arrest. For students at Carleton u, this recently hit home. The Ottawa Sun reported that some Carleton university students may face expulsion and other sanctions from Carleton’s administration for “hurtful and discriminatory” actions.

These actions? The Sun reports that “Students Against Israeli Apartheid made waves last week when posters depicting an Israeli warplane firing a rocket at a Palestinian child were circulated around campus, and promptly ripped down.”

But hold on here, artistic licence aside, just how far from reality is such a depiction?

Palestine has been called an “open air prison” in the mainstream media. In Israel’s latest offensive into Gaza, it has been widely reported that over 1,300 Palestinians were killed. Among those were more than 400 hundred children. Despite the Israeli Defense Forces’ attempt to reduce the impact of these numbers by claiming that most (including children) were “terrorists,” demands are being made for an investigation into the apparent deliberate attacks against civilians. Such attacks and its alleged use of banned weapons have resulted in the real possibility that Israel will face charges of war crimes at the UN.

Whether or not Israeli Defense Forces specifically targeted children in Gaza is an open question right now. But depictions on Carleton campus of children being affected by the Israeli military can not be so far off that debate should be stifled and students expelled. Unfortunately, this is not the first time university administrators have used university resources to demonstrate their support for Israel.

While university administrators are working behind the scenes to derail free speech on issues they or their donors disagree with, they act outraged when the right-wing media concoct stories of censorship by students. Confusing? It is. But don’t be surprised, the common denominator here is the attack on progressive campus organizing by any means available.

The attempt by Carleton University to silence debate on Israel’s militarism amounts to more than siding with the aggressor. It also chokes off public discourse on an issue that desperately needs debate now more than ever. No matter what one thinks of Israel or Palestine, the politics, the religious debates or the history, it is wrong to not speak out against the indiscriminate killing of civilians and children in Gaza. Students by-in-large recognise this.

At Ryerson, students have also been victim of this type of repression. In years past, a more political Arab Student Association was threatened over space use and status by the administration. Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights almost didn’t exist because of similar friction, not the least has been rumoured to come from inside the Ryerson Students’ Union itself.

Progressive people everywhere need to do a better job at unifying in the face of regressive push-back from university administrators and media. Only public pressure and a united progressive campus movement will stop the unchecked right-wing onslaught on our campuses.

Ryerson Commerce Society looking to pick business students’ pockets with 200% fee increase

Somewhere in North York, Ted Rogers is rolling over in his grave. The Ryerson Commerce Society, representing 6,000 business students in the faculty named after Mr. Rogers, will be asked from March 2–5 to approve a fee hike which would bring their fee up to $60 per student. This represents a tripling of the current $20 RCS fee. According to the Eyeopener, this will amount to a $170,000 windfall for the RCS. Other estimates put the boost closer to one quarter of a million dollars, leaving the RCS executive members with a total of $360,000 dollars to control. Either way, this move is likely to rub business students the wrong way.

According to the RCS constitution (Article 6), any fee increases must be approved by the membership via referendum by November 15 in order for those fees to be implemented in the following year. The University’s Board of Governors must also approve the fee.

This massive fee hike not only directly affects business students, but is also of concern to all Ryerson students given that many of the architects of the fee hike are vying for control of the Ryerson Students’ Union. Five members of the RyeChange slate are outgoing members of this years’ RCS board, including presidential candidate Abdulla Snobar. The others include: Jordan Becker, Naeem Hassen, Aishah Nofal, Natasha Williams. Only one RyeChange candidate from the faculty of business is not currently affiliated with the RCS board. None of the business candidates from the major competing team, Undivided, are members of the RCS board.

Observers see the timing of the announcement of the fee hike as somewhat curious. With the RSU election freshly underway, disgruntled business students may seize the opportunity to voice their opposition to the massive RCS fee increase by rejecting the RyeChange ticket. Time will tell.

RSU audit: scope narrows, price tag balloons

The Ryerson Free Press has just learned that the initial price tag for the audit of RSU will be at least $85,000. The audit was imposed on the RSU by RyeChange executive candidates Dana Houssein, Osman Hamid, Abdul Snobar and their supporters currently on the RSU board. We have to admit that this whole thing seems a little fishy, especially the administration’s willingness to fund this grandiose expenditure based on unsubstantiated allegations by one slate in the RSU election. Interestingly, even though the initial allegations by Snobar and company focused on financial matters, the audit’s scope has been narrowed to look only at election procedures and the RSU’s health plan. No longer caring about the $400,000 that Snobar alleged was missing from the RSU, he now claims that this change in scope is all he ever wanted in the first place.

Michael Parent, a representative of Deloitte and Touche and former executive director of the Humber Students’ Federation, is coordinating the audit. An initial opinion was expected today, just two business days before the RSU election begins. Did we say this whole thing sounds fishy? Stay tuned.

On guard for sell-out student leaders: lessons from the past

To some in the student press, the recent election antics by Abdullah Snobar, Dana Houssein and Osman Hamid of the RyeChange ticket, reveal more than their weak grasp of financial management. They demonstrate an unparalleled sell-out of students by opening their unions, and potentially their news outlets, to administration supervision. Unfortunately, this is not the first time elected student leaders have double crossed those they purport to represent. There have been opportunists among us for years. Here we look at three culprits who have climbed high in their careers thanks to their self-serving efforts as sell-out student leaders.

Leslie Church
Looking back at Leslie Church’s ascension from student leader to inner-circle federal Liberal is like reading a careerist’s playbook. Church started out with the admittedly difficult existence of being a Liberal in Alberta and got her start in student politics as the president of University of Alberta Student Union. Soon after that she was hired as Executive Director of Ontario University Student Alliance (OUSA), where she lobbied to increase student debt through OSAP, until she left in 2003. From there she was installed as a member of Bob Rae’s Ontario postsecondary education review advisory panel (2004-2005), which concluded that the Liberal government of Ontario should deregulate tuition fees (see, for example, pg 21 of the final report). She also served with Claude Lajeunesse, (former Ryerson University president and recently fired Concordia University president) as a board member of the Liberals’ beleaguered Millennium Scholarship Foundation. After finishing her Law degree at the University of Toronto, Church worked with war advocate and torture apologist Michael Ignatieff to help install him as Liberal leader. With years of dedicated Liberal party loyalty Ms. Church has recently been awarded the plum position as Communications Coordinator for the new Liberal leader.

Church has used student issues to deal herself a formidable hand and is now positioned to be the right hand of a future Prime-Minister. We can hear the young party members salivating.

Justin Falconer
Justin got his start in student politics when he served under Jon Olinski as vice-president of the Conestoga Students Inc. (CSI) in 2002-03 and then as CSI president until 2005-06. As president, Falconer helped usher in hefty ancillary fees for capital projects on campus, some of which were contested by students who proposed a class-action lawsuit. For a brief time, during his presidency, he served as president for the College Student Alliance (CSA), a proven cheerleader for the Ontario government. His tenure there was short, just long enough to play a supportive role in the Rae Review. Evidently his work supporting government initiatives was enough to earn Falconer an appointment within the Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities itself, where he now serves as Special Assistant, Outreach and Operations to the Minister.

Falconer’s short track to the big leagues shows that even regular Joes can get places if they are willing to use their time as student representatives to advance the government’s agenda.

Alex Usher
Alex Usher first jumped on the student scene in a big way as the first National Director for the Canadian Alliance of Student Association (CASA), a breakaway group from the Canadian Federation of Students in 1995. This at a time when the federal government was cutting social funding and the student movement was in high gear fighting off the downloading of costs to students. Unsurprisingly, the federal Liberals were credited with propping up CASA during these tumultuous times as documented by insider Edward Greenspon. The new organization CASA hit some bumps early on. Usher was reported to have called for a stop to an investigation of fraud within CASA. To this day, CASA stays true to the initial vision of Alex Usher and the Federal Liberals. Usher then went on to work for the federal Liberal’s Canadian Millennium Scholarship Foundation. There he co-authored research documents with a specialty of downplaying concerns about rising tuition fees by focusing on other costs students face (Price of Knowledge 2002 and Price of Knowledge 2004). After that, Usher moved to the Education Policy Institute (EPI), a think-tank that is especially versed in selling the virtues of higher tuition fees and higher student debt. His work on spinning tuition fee reductions as “regressive” was both heavily recited by Bob Rae during his review on post-secondary education in Ontario, and attacked by economist Hugh Mackenzie.

Usher has enjoyed a long history of undermining students’ calls for a less financially burdensome system of education. He also demonstrates that if you say it enough times and there are enough people in high places who regurgitate it, you end up being taken seriously. This lesson seems not to have been lost on some RSU election candidates who have made wild accusations.

So as we turn our attention back to RSU elections at Ryerson, we implore voters to remember the past while they consider their choices. Do not give another careerist the chance to use Ryerson students as a ladder rung to step on.

Election Aspirations Opens RSU to Admin Oversight

The Ryersonian and The Eyeopener went to press last night and both covered the Ryerson Students’ Union audit fiasco. The RFP doesn’t go to press for another two weeks, so you’ll have to wait for our story. But the motion passed warrants some publicity as the precedent it sets is something that all dues-funded organisations at Ryerson should be worried about.

The Ryerson Free Press is funded by student money, like the RSU. Like some student papers, we are funded directly by the part-time students’ union at Ryerson, CESAR. This motion was passed at the last RSU board meeting by a vote of 13-11, breaking down with team lines; Ryevolution in favour and Renew RSU opposed:

Whereas several executives of the RSU have consistently ignored directions of the board of directors,
Whereas cash reserves within the RSU have been allegedly mismanaged and misappropriated,
Whereas the RSU has been accused of a lack of transparency and flawed governance structure,
Whereas low staff morale and high staff turnover and medical leave rates have slowed the efficiency and functioning of the RSU,
Whereas there have been several allegations of election fraud and unwanted third party intrusions in RSU business,

Be it resolved that the board of directors of the Ryerson Students’ Union request the Ryerson University Administration to conduct a review of the RSU which would include an audit of staff relations, election procedures, services, finances and overall functioning.

Be it further resolved that the executives, staff and board members of the RSU provide any assistance or records required by the university administration during this review.

Be it further resolved that the board of directors elect four directors to sit on the review committee to assist with the review.

Be it further resolved that the Ryerson administration report back to the board of directors with the results of the review and recommendations by February 5th, 2009.
Moved: Dana Houssein Seconded: Osman Hamid

Somehow, political maneuvering has resulted in grave consequences for the RSU, and potential problems for the RFP, CESAR and The Eyeopener. It sets a dangerous precedent of administrative interference in the affairs of an autonomous body and for what? Dana Houssein couldn’t quite explain what they were looking for the night of the board meeting, but Abdul Snobar has alleged that there is some amount of missing money without actually explaining to what he is referring.

According to The Eyeopener, its $400,000. According to the Ryersonian, its $300,000. Neither paper makes an attempt to see what Snobar is referring to, if anything at all. Instead, it paints the current executive as culpable for this missing money and incapable of handling it. There is also no significant mention of the RSU’s last audit which was not qualified and indicated no misspending or misappropriation of funds.

In 2004, the RSU switched health and dental plan providers from Green Shield to Gallivan and Associates. At the time of this switch, the RSU had saved up hundreds of thousands of dollars in the health and dental plan reserve. Because they had to increase health and dental premiums when they switched to Gallivan, then-president Dave Maclean and his executive decided to apply the health and dental reserve to every students’ premium, thereby offsetting the amount the health and dental plan was going to cost per student. In doing so every student paid an artificially low premium at a very high cost. This move, while tactfully questionable, was not illegal and wiped out nearly $400,000 from the health and dental reserve in only one year.

Could this be the source these claims? A mistake made in 2004 when most RSU members were still in high school?

Of course, outlandish claims at the time of RSU elections are nothing new. But when these claims set dangerous precedent for other autonomous student-fee-based organisations on campus, it becomes a major problem.

False or misleading allegations that help buoy one side or another during an election are annoying and do not serve students in any way. When the outcome of these allegations leads to broader implications threatening other autonomous bodies, especially the student press, allegations of this kind are completely inappropriate. Would we bow to a motion to allow the administration to audit our operations? If the board of the Eye was to pass such a motion, would the Editor-In-Chief or other editors allow university auditors through the door? Most likely not.

If Sheldon Levy wants to remain in the public eye as a student-centred president, he’ll know better than to interfere with the affairs of the RSU. We’ll be sure to report on how this unfolds over the next week so watch back here or the RFP website.

Q & A Jewish woman stands with Gaza

The beginning of 2009 saw Gaza re-invaded, which would ultimately result in 1,300 Palestinians being killed. On Jan. 16, Ryerson’s Students’ Union hosted a panel discussion about the events in Gaza and how to become involved with the solidarity movement. One of the speakers Jenny Peto, 27, and a group of other Jewish-Canadian women had participated in a sit-in at the Israel consulate in Toronto on Jan 7. Peto spoke with the Ryerson Free Press about what it’s like to be Jewish person doing Palestinian solidarity work.

Ryerson Free Press: At the Palestine solidarity event at Ryerson, you said the situation in Israel isn’t Jew versus Muslim. That it’s about oppressor versus oppressed. How did you come up with this conclusion?

Jenny Peto: Well I mean it’s pretty prominent in discussions around Israel and Palestine

. I think what happens is very strategic from the Zionists. They want to pretend this is a 200 year old problem that it’s based on religion and it can not be solved. So when you say this is just based on religion and it’s been going on forever, then you don’t have to make steps to prove that. So you find a lot of people who don’t know a lot about Israeli apartheid or what’s going on in Palestine are often saying well this has been going on for ever.

The truth of the matter is Israel was established in 1948, 780,000 Palestinians were displaced. That’s the root of the problem. The problem is 60 years old and it’s not thousands of thousands years old. There were Arab Jews, Arab Muslims, Arab Christians living in Palestine harmoniously for generations and generations. It wasn’t until Europeans and Jews came in and colonized Palestine.

When they colonized Palestine and displaced over three quarters of a million people, that’s when it started.

RFP: What made you decide to participate in the action at the consulate?

JP: It was kind of an ad hoc thing. A group of people were meeting to discuss.

We were trying to figure out what to do because the situation in Gaza was getting worse and worse every day. Gaza had been under siege for 18 months before the bombs started falling. And then when the ground invasion happened we were all so furious we didn’t know what else to do.

It happened to be mostly Jewish people at the meeting and we decided the time had come for direct action. We had been doing the demonstrations and all those sorts of things but the media was fin

ding these ways of taking pictures of a literally 10,000 person demo and then find 10 to maybe 15 members of the Jewish Defence League. And take these pictures and present them as two demonstrations that were of equal size.

We were really concerned that dissent within the Jewish community wasn’t being heard at all.

The Jewish Defence League is outlawed in Israel and outlawed in the United States because they’re considered a hate group; they’ve committed murder. One of their members Barauch Goldstein killed 29 people in Hebron several years ago. He opened fire in a mosque and shot 29 people. So they are an outlawed group in most parts of the world except in Canada apparently.

So these guys were getting on TV and representing the Jewish community and w

e were really, really concerned that people weren’t hearing dissent within the Jewish community. And so we thought this would be a very public statement and a way to get that attention to make that voice heard.

Because in all of this, unfortunately, Zionists try to mix up Israel and Jews an

d call it a Jewish state and talk about how Israel is there to protect Jewish people. They often will have calls of anti-Semitism against us who do Palestinian solidarity work. We felt it’s really important for the non Jewish community to know there are Jews who oppose Israel and that opposing Israel is in no ways anti-Semitic. It’s actually anti-Semitic to assume all Jews support apartheid, that just by a virtue of birth we’re going to be on board with oppressing Palestinian people.

RFP: From what I do know, the consulate is pretty heavily secured. How did you get in?

JP: It was actually really easy because Israel is an apartheid state. If you’re Palestinian you have no freedom of movement. Palestinian people we know who try to get into that consulate get harassed, it’s really quite difficult. It’s the same as in Israel they have no freedom of movement.

But if you’re Jewish, and all of us were, it was easy. We all had legitimate business to do in the consulate and we just basically walked in and were treated quite well until they knew what we were doing. It’s actually the racism of Israel that allowed us into their consulate. This like massive hole in their thinking, they just weren’t expecting it.

RFP: So what happened when you sat down?

JP: Well basically, we had our spokes person announce we’re doing a sit in. We sat down on the floor and started chanting. At that point people looked confuse because it was the waiting area where people wait for service. They were confused then security came in, took everyone out except us…at one point they asked what we’re doing here.

I said something about them having bombed a UN school and killing 40 people because that had happened the day before. At that point the security guy grabbed me, tried to drag me out. One of the other women tried to take a video of it got hit in the face as he was trying to get rid of her camera. We were expecting some level of violence I think.

At that point the RCMP actually came in. they were doing a routine check of the consulate; it sounds weird but lucky for us they were doing that. They came in and removed the Israeli security and that was sort of the end of the physical violence.

So much of this is because of white privilege, class. If poor people, people of colour do these sorts of actions they’ll get roughed up by the police, by the RCMP and we were treated to so completely respectfully by the police we dealt with.

RFP: Was it strange acknowledging the privilege you have?

JP: It’s not strange acknowledging it; it was one of those moments that led to a lot of reflection. We were handcuffed but the police were joking around with us. [When] led down into a police paddy wagon they were constantly asking us if we were okay.

It was a moment of reflection for me sitting there handcuffed thinking about the 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. Some of them under administrative detention, they’ve never been charged but they never know when they’re getting out.

We did this because of our privilege. We knew it would work because of our privilege. But yeah…it was definitely a shocking moment you’re just that confronted by your privilege.

RFP: You weren’t charged?

JP: We weren’t charged. We were arrested but not charged.

RFP: There was a big media thing about the sit in, but at the Ryerson event you said you don’t really see the biggest deal in what you did. Could you explain that?

JP: We did have a group of amazing people doing outreach for the media and luckily the internet is amazing so word spread through the activist communities like wild fire.

I think with what we did, you have to have a certain degree of humility about it. And it’s been challenging because there’s been so much of an outpouring of support for what we did. A lot of people are thanking us for what we’ve done.

I guess my point in all of this is this was one act of resistance but there’s 60 years of Palestinian resistance. It’s really humbling to do such a public act in light of all the incredible resistance the Palestinian people have been doing for so long.

We got press at the time but by the six o’clock news it didn’t air. It never made it to air which seems strange but not if you really think about the political stuff that goes on in the media behind the scenes.

I do think for the Jewish community and anti-Zionist Jews people are thinking it was a pretty powerful statement.

Now that a ceasefire has been called what should Jewish people who are against Israel’s actions do to support and keep the ceasefire going?

It’s interesting because Israel’s already violated the ceasefire. They’ve launched ground and air attacks into Gaza.

I think that we need to remember also that the bombings for the most part has stopped but the siege on Gaza continues. They’ve been under siege for 18 months….it’s really hard for the international community to bring in any aid because they’re sealed in on all the borders.

I think what Jewish people and all people need to do is to plug into the existing resistance movements. There’s the boycott divestments and sanctions campaign which has been going on since 2005.

The resistance Jewish people can specifically engage in, and have been engaging in, is when Zionists claim to be representing the Jewish community, we always want to insert an anti-Zionist perspective. To call them out on it so they stop using anti-Semitism, the holocaust, all these sorts of things as excuses for apartheid and ethnic cleansing in Palestine.

But I do think for Jewish people we need to recognize this is a Palestinian lead movement. Our resistance and fight can not exist without the Palestinian people.

It’s important to have Jewish organizations that can function to disrupt the lies Zionists tell about Israel protecting Jews and all the sorts of stuff.

More generally speaking, students can join students against Israeli apartheid, SPHR (Students for Palestinian Human Rights) at Ryerson, they can back their student unions which are passing (Palestinian solidarity) resolutions. Everyone and Jews included need to stand up and take a stand for Palestine.

I think Jews are located in ways that are particularly useful. Because often you’ll here (things) like, “we can’t endorse this it’s not balanced we need to hear both sides” and it’s important to talk about (how) you can’t treat both sides as equal.

There are two sides. There’s literally walls and fences and (one side) there’s people with resources and money and water and the fourth largest military in the world. And on the other side, there’s people living under military occupation and apartheid.

We need to (question) when people want balance. And Jewish people can do that…Jewish people can stand up and say Jews have become mostly white people, Israel is a western state very closely connected to Europe, Canada, and the US. We don’t need to hear their side, we hear their side all the time - they’re the side of the oppressors. It’s easier for us to do that I think than non Jewish people.

Audit threatens RSU autonomy

Ronak Ghorbani

Editorial Assistant

A motion passed by Ryerson’s Students’ Union (RSU) has the university taking on the costly tab of a 20 year-audit of the union’s affairs and questions the functioning and autonomy of the RSU.

The auditors are Deloitte and Touche and the Ryersonian reports a one-year audit by the accounting firm costs $10,000 and a 20 year audit could cost more than $200,000. The money paying for the audit is coming from the university’s operating budget.

The motion, passed at a board of directors meeting on Jan. 15, alleges mismanagement of money, low staff morale, lack of transparency, election fraud and a flawed governance structure.

At the meeting, motivators Dana Houssein, a community service faculty director, and Osman Hamid, student groups director, repeatedly ducked out of giving examples or proof for the accusations.

Houssein and Hamid are running for executive positions in the upcoming RSU election. This has left other directors questioning their motives.

“It’s an election tactic,” said Toby Whitfield, vice-president of finance and services. “Just the fact that they want this audit to come out before polling confuses me.”

The motion said the audit would look at finances, election procedures and staff relations and should be done by Feb. 5, four days before voting starts.

Whitfield said that the RSU conducts its own annual audits and there’s no reasonable explanation to have the university pay for it.

Every year at the semi annual general meeting (SAGM) an auditor makes a presentation to the RSU membership and they vote on which auditor to use.

This, Whitfield said, gives decision power to the membership. A presentation was not made this year because the meeting was adjourned after an online-voting motion failed.

Houssein claims the RSU is not transparent enough and feels silenced and ignored by RSU executives. She and Hamid went to Ryerson president Sheldon Levy a few weeks before the meeting asking for advice.

“We wanted it before elections to have a sense of confidence that we would have a chance of fair elections,” she said.

Houssein and the rest of her slate, RyeChange, feel that last year’s election procedures were biased and corrupt. Running under last year’s slate as Ryevolution, they felt the chief returning officer (CRO) was lenient toward Renew, the slate which executives Whitfield, vice president of education Rebecca Rose and president Muhammad Ali Jabbar were part of.

“It’s a little shady when you get the majority of executives from one team and the majority of directors form another team,” Houssein said.

However, Rose points out that the student membership has several ways to evaluate the union. Besides the semi and annual general meetings where students vote for by-law changes, including election procedures, students vote in a new board of directors and executive they feel best represents them every year.

“To go to ma and pa up in Jorgenson hall and ask them to come in and do a review, I think that’s insulting to the intelligence of our members who are all adults,” she said.

With only a few days to go before audit results are supposed to be announced, priorities need to be made, Houssein said.

Sitting on an audit review committee, created at the Jan. 15 RSU board meeting, alongside Hamid, business faculty director Chandan Sharma and Abdullah Snobar, who is running for RSU presidency, they have decided the most urgent results are a review of election procedures and the health and dental plan.

Snobar has told campus press the RSU owes students up to $400,000.

“When they gave me the budget and the numbers didn’t add up,” he said. “I did some thorough investigation and the numbers weren’t adding up.”

The problem with this is that the RSU has a history of changing membership costs for the health and dental plan, Whitfield said.

According to Whitfield, in 2004 the RSU executive subsidized the member’s health and dental plan, which cost the union approximately $190,000 to do. In 2005, the executive decided to subsidize again by about $50,000.

And then in 2006 the RSU merged several bank accounts into one at the recommendations of their auditors.

That year they also gave $600,000 to the construction of the Student Centre and a $250,000 loan to the Student Centre board which is in the final stages of being paid back.

“Everything does balance and add up,” Whitfield said. “The same group of people who want to audit the RSU for 20 years because they have a concern about the health and dental plan are the same people who agreed to support and renew the health and dental plan.”

At the November SAGM, RSU membership voted to start a tender process to find a new insurance broker. Snobar wanted to extend the RSU’s contract with current insurance broker Gallivan and Associates by one year.

Concerned about the insurance negotiation process on Jan. 9, Snobar attempted to look at the request for proposal (RFP) by the brokers.

A box holding RFPs was in executive director of operations and services, Mike Verticchio’s office. Since Snobar is only a board member he doesn’t have the authority to see the RFPs. Security was called to remove him from the offices.

“I don’t really understand how you do that to a board member,” Whitfield said. “If a student had come in and talked to me (about it) I would talk to them.”

Whitfield said he is currently in the process of putting together proposal packages from the insurance brokers to present to the board of directors, who decides which broker to go with.

Among these accusations the purpose of the students’ union is being forgotten, which is to serve the students, and by involving the university the union can not do its job completely, says Rose.

“We have to always stay autonomous and separated from the administration or that would effectively stop us from doing our job,” she said.

Rose said that the RSU advocates for things not in the best interest of the administration like demanding lower tuition fees or defending students against university decisions.

“It’s not possible to guarantee the administration won’t meddle in the student’s union (actions),” she said. “They’re already eroding our autonomy by agreeing to this review.”

In a Feb. 3 press release, president of the Continuing Education Students’ Association of Ryerson Gail Alivio questioned the administration’s funding priorities in light of their refusal to fund childcare for students taking night classes.

“Somehow the President of the University has found $100,000 for what has been termed a ‘Magical Mystery Audit’ by the campus press, an audit that is ridiculous in its scope (20 year period, everything from finances to elections) and audacious in its attack on the autonomy of students’ unions from the university administration.”

When Houssein and Osman met with president Levy, he said he did not want to get involved with their politics.

“We made it very, very clear that the university has got to respect the (RSU’s) independence and it was up to them through their board to take action, not the administration,” Levy said.

“I spoke to Ali about it I said in a very, very nice way, ‘it’s your problem.’”

For Levy, paying for the audit is just like giving money to any other campus group or event.

“People are part of our community and when our community asks for help from the administration what other reason are we here for?” he said.

To make sure the RSU understands the administration recognizes the RSU’s autonomy, a legally binding letter was sent to Jabbar indicating the administration will pay for the audit but does not want to see the results and has no vested interest in them.

Although this letter does secure the independence of the RSU it doesn’t for other universities across the province. The University of Toronto’s Student Union (UTSU) sent a letter to the RSU board requesting the union veto the audit motion. In the letter they outline how on every U of T campus, the unions have been fighting against administration from meddling in their business.

“When you give over that much of your autonomy to the administration the problem is that often times we’re working in direct opposition the administration,” said Sandy Hudson UTSU president.

“We are a union for students, we advocate on behalf for our students. Sometimes the administration has a vested interest in the outcomes of our affairs.”

Hudson said now that the motion has passed, it sets a new precedent for U of T. “Our administration can look to Ryerson and say, ‘this isn’t that weird this is something that’s happening on other campuses. Clearly students think it’s necessary.’ It doesn’t’ help us at all in any way.”

Besides UTSU, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) is concerned what this audit will mean for their members; since the motion says staff relations will be audited. Jim Morrison, CUPE national representative said staff issues should be taken up with CUPE.

He also wrote a letter to the RSU saying that if any actions are taken against their members, CUPE will file grievances.

“I wanted to put them on notice that we’ll be watching if they proceed with this motion and carry out implementation,” he said.

Canada fails to condemn slaughter of Palestinians

 

Nora Loreto

News Editor

As thousands of Israeli troops marched into Gaza on Jan. 3, tens of thousands of people around the world demonstrated against Israel’s offensive.

In Toronto alone, close to 10,000 people marched from Dundas Square up to the Israeli consulate at Avenue and Bloor Sts. and down to the American Embassy on University Avenue.

They marched to show support for the people of Gaza facing the onslaught of the Israeli Defense Forces. The ground mission is a response to rockets that have been fired into southern Israel from Gaza.

“Only two governments in the world have supported what Israel is doing in Gaza,” shouted Peter Liebowicz, a representative from the United Steelworkers. “The United States, and Canada. It’s time that out government understands that Canadians, Muslims, Christians and Jews stand together and say to Israel: end the massacre… end the siege,” he said.

“There is a growing worldwide movement of Jews who are saying that the killing of Palestinians must stop now,” said Allen Lehrner from Not In Our Name-Jewish Voices Against the Occupation. “We have learned that if some of us aren’t free that no one is free… what we’re seeing in Israel in so many ways is the same aggression used against us in Europe, we’re now replicating the oppression.”

“[Israel is] breaking international law and Canadian law,” said Khaled Moummar, national president of the Canadian Arab Federation. “We are really angry about government and mainstream media who are complicit in this. They are reporting inaccurately and treat people from the third world as if they don’t count,” he said.

From when Israel started its incursions on Dec. 27 to Jan. 3. at least 460 Palestinians in Gaza had been killed. The attack by Israel has bombed several mosques, schools, media outlets and other civilian buildings.

The high density of people in Gaza, and a ground war of soldiers will likely lead to a high number of civilian deaths.  In the same amount of time, four Israelis have died as a result of rockets launched from Gaza into southern Israel.

The protest in Toronto was one of dozens across the world. In Canada, rallies were also held in Montreal, Ottawa and Winnipeg. The largest protests were held in London, England and in Sakhnin, Northern Israel.

“This is the biggest demonstration against Israel’s treatment of Palestine [in Toronto],” said Judy Rebick, a professor of politics and holder of the Sam Guindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy at Ryerson.  “Every person of good conscience has to stand up against a massacre, and that’s what’s happening [in Gaza].”  

[People in Gaza] should have the right and they do have the right to defend themselves.” 

Since this piece was written, the death-toll has risen to 1,300 Palestinians. It is estimated that almost 300 of the dead are children. 13 Israelis have also died.

Ryerson students fast, form human chain as Tamil death-toll mounts

 

Nora Loreto

News Editor

The largest population of Tamils outside their native Sri Lanka (or Tamil Eelam) is in Toronto. And, as a culture who believes strongly in the right to education, it’s no surprise that Ryerson is the school of choice for many Tamils in the Greater Toronto Area.  The Ryerson Tamil Association (RyeTSA) has been working hard this semester to bring attention to the human rights abuses.

In conjunction with CanadianHART (Canadian Humanitarian Appeal for Relief of Tamils), RyeTSA held a 30 hour famine to bring attention to the genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka. For 30 hours from Jan. 26-27, they fasted in the student centre and talked to students walking by about the suffering of Tamils ‘back home’ and the need for the Canadian government to intervene with relief money and aid.

On Friday, Jan. 30, almost 50,000 people formed a human chain that stretched from Front St. up past Ryerson’s doorstep at Gould St.  People wore signs calling for aid to be sent to the suffering Tamil population and for the Canadian government to intervene.

Here are some of the pictures from the two events.

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