After three days of voting, the UTSU 2010 Election results are in. “Stronger Together” won five out of the five executive positions with “Change UofT” winning 7 BOD spots. Approximately 16.4% of the 44,000 undergrads who attend the University of Toronto voted (which is a lower turnout than the 2006 municipal election in my home town of Whitby Ontario). President-elect Adam Awad received 58.24% of the votes cast for President which means only 9.3% of U of T students voted for him.

With this in mind, let me be the first person to arrogantly prescribe a complete overhaul of the political system here at U of T. Here, in no particular order, is what I would change:

Scrap 90% of the EPC:

If the University of Toronto consistently gets one thing right, it’s treating us like adults. The UTSU Elections Procedures Code does the exact opposite. The EPC assumes that voters at the best University in the country won’t be able to recognize false information on a poster or punish candidates who have annoying literature. It lets Adam Awad and Steve Masse run on their records but denies either campaign the ability to question their opponent’s past performance. Before the next election, the UTSU should remove the prohibition of pre-campaigning, allow for negative campaigning and unfetter the candidates. The institution of the University is built on a philosophy of intelligent and honest debate. The EPC’s definition of “fair play” is so narrow that candidates are prevented from really interacting with each other,  segregating their ideas and stopping them from entering the political sphere.

The UTSU can keep the rules that facilitate the actual casting of votes but should remove all of the rules that get in the way of what. While this doesn’t require a completely libertarian UTSU electoral process, new rules can and must be brought in as the status-quo is rigid and counter-democratic.

Formalize official UTSU Political Parties:

If you want to engage students in the political process, make it openly partisan. In the 2010 election various clubs picked sides and both sides engaged in behind-the-scenes negative campaigning. If pre-campaigning was no longer prohibited opposition groups would actually have a chance at winning (there has been a 100% incumbency rate over the last five years) and it would make the UTSU visible all year, not just during the elections. The EPC has very strict spending rules, which are intended to level the playing field. If political parties were formalized (they already sort-of exist but only in the shadows) and students fund raised (limited to donations from U of T students only) it would further increase interest in the political process. Members of the UTSU executive are visible and get to campaign-without-really-campaigning in office. If political parties existed (with rules prohibiting affiliation with any outside political party) every candidate would be incentivized to have a full-fleshed out platform with a website that exists all year (I’d like to clarify that I am not anti-point form but ST/Change could have done a lot better) instead of creating a website in a rush, from scratch with low site-traffic.

Political parties will level the playing field, engage more students all-year-round and  raise the level of debate to one appropriate for the University of Toronto.

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During UTSU elections it is always a good idea to step back from all the Orwellian0-sounded Solidarity and Unspecified Change and look at the election process itself. Like any municipal election, byelection or election in an authoritarian state, the University of Toronto Students’ Union elections tend to have a low voter turn out.

In the UTSU Elections the rules determine the outcome as much as any other factor yet electoral-reform doesn’t seem to be on the radar as an issue this year. The Varsity writes:

Gabe de Roche asked both candidates about the Elections Procedures Code. “Currently the incumbency rate over the past seven years at the UTSU is one hundred per cent. I’ve never heard of another democracy where that’s the incumbency rate,” he said.

“So to clarify what that means to the audience, candidates who are running as incumbents are winning every time?” asked Meslin [the moderator.]

“Yes, they’re incapable of losing,” said de Roche, drawing laughter from the audience.

Amendosun did not respond to the question. Maher said reform of the EPC is a top priority, and that he found the rules “restrictive” and “draconian.

The Elections Procedure Code (EPC) for the University of Toronto Students’ Union defines “Campaign Material” as “any item, design, sound, symbol or mark that is created or copied in any form in order to and / or likely to influence at least one voter to cast a ballot in favour or in opposition of a candidate” and “Campaigning” as “any attempt by an individual or organization to encourage a student to cast a ballot in favour or in opposition of a candidate. This may occur with or without campaign material.” These definitions are so broad that almost anything a candidate does during the campaign falls into the category of campaigning and therefore must be approved by the CRO (Article IV Section 1, F.)
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Things I learnt in skule

Greetings!

I’m Danny Hui, a recent grad of Computer Engineering at UofT.  You may remember me from such post as Engineer Identification, and Evil TA’s.  Alex Ku and I run a web comic called TOBlender.com, and we are here to give you a slice of technology, life, and Toronto, every Sunday.  We are always looking for new ideas so drop us some comments below.

Danny

This is a guest blog by JP, blogUT founder and former editor, who has gone on to do bigger and better things, like uh… open an online store to sell condoms.

So, by now, I’m sure you’ve all heard about the general uproar over the pope’s comments regarding condoms during his visit to Africa. Here’s a recap of what he said, according to The Times Online:

In his first public comments on condom use, the pontiff told reporters en route to Cameroon that Aids “is a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, and that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems”

As it turns out, the issue is always more complicated than it appears at surface level. What if I were to tell you that: the pope didn’t exactly say what you thought he said; condoms aren’t exactly “safe”; and I’m writing about all this as a subject matter expert on condoms after having done a whole bunch of research in the process of opening an online condoms store?

Well, I’m about to tell you exactly that. So please read on. (more…)

Alumni Guest Blogs is a new series of blogs written by various awesome U of T alumni. We give them a rough outline of things they could write about but the rest is completely up to them.

Who is this guy?

Shawn Huynh graduated from Civil Engineering in 2004. He is involved in all sorts of competitive sports activities. We met about 8 years ago when I was a student at Kumon and he was working at the same centre that I attended. He’s probably the most laid-back person I know, including myself (and I’m quite laid-back).

Why should I read his blog?

Shawn often shares with me valuable advice. Now you get to take in a bit of his alumni wisdom about the real world, find out what U of T was like for him 4-8 years ago and discover what he’s up to these days. Enjoy!

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Yuan is a recent U of T graduate currently working at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. She is involved in the Blue Sky Project, a project examining depression in young adults. Creating awareness of Blue Sky Project is a challenging task, but she is hoping to reach out to post-secondary students who may be experiencing symptoms of depression.

Rates of depression among university students are rising, and are now higher than in the general public. A recent survey conducted by the American College Health Association found that a staggering 45% of university students reported clinical levels of depression symptoms. Suicide is now the second leading cause of death among university students.

It is therefore important to intervene as early as possible. Young people with depression have an increased risk of academic difficulties, school drop-out, disrupted relationships with family and friends, and medical problems that persist into later adulthood. An early intervention may help prevent what can be a lifelong pattern of illness.

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While surfing the net, getting an x-ray, or driving to school, have you ever wondered: “What have all these technologies got to do with my rights and responsibilities as a Canadian?” Probably not, eh?

However, Darin Barney, who recently spoke at the 2007 Hart House Lecture, argues that we should be asking ourselves this question. If we believe that as Canadians we should have some say about new technologies, then we are exercising citizenship in our rapidly developing technology state. If we don’t care, he says, Canada and other nations will still have to address the unintended consequences caused by the speed and unregulated growth of technology.

To read the full article on Darin Beany and the technological state,
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