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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Ah, the last day of the 2010 U.T.S.U election! It’s been quite an exciting time at U of T these past few days as our campus has been filled with orange, green, pamphlets, solicitors, music, and why yes, even scandal! At around the same time last year, I wrote a blog post that described my pretty shameful lack of knowledge about the election, campaign slates, and the U.T.S.U in general and so I promised myself that this year, I’d get myself a little more involved…actually take the to learn about each side’s platform, and why yes, even chat with a few of the candidates and campaigners that we try so hard to avoid on our way to Sid Smith (I know, right?)! And this wasn’t one of those things that I said I would do but wouldn’t actually…I’ve actually been pretty involved this election campaign. I know what each slate stands for, watched the debates, actually knew the people I voted for (and didn’t just use the innie, minnie, mynie, moe trick), and omg even read The Varsity for the first time in a very, very long time.

This is not actually me.

But here’s the thing. I’m a student and I’m a commuter. And though I’ve educated myself about both Change and Stronger Together‘s campaign platform, I still feel there’s this sort of disconnect between myself and U.T.S.U. I’ve spoken to many commuters about this same issue and almost 100% of them share the same sentiments. True, this wasn’t a scientific poll and I really only talked to maybe 20 student commuters out of the thousands at U of T, but something tells me that this is a pretty general feeling. I honestly don’t see how some of these things affect me in any direct or tangible sense. The closest thing that might is probably the discount on TTC metropasses (amazing feat btw). But I don’t even buy a TTC metropass. It still comes out to be more expensive for me personally than to just buy tokens. And okay fine, fighting to reduce fees is incredibly important but I’m graduating in a year (fingers crossed) and this probably won’t happen anytime soon so once again, irrelevant and not applicable to me…

Don’t get me wrong, I care about this school and I’m incredibly proud to be a part of it but I can’t help shake the feeling that there is and might always be this unbridgeable discord between us. And with all these candidates constantly talking my ear off about how I matter…how they’re going to make student life better…and how this is our U of T and that they can and will make a difference…I find myself questioning all these broad, sweeping, and optimistic claims.

Anyway, just thought I’d give my thoughts and hopefully a different perspective. Here’s hoping that the slate I voted for will bridge that gap for my last and final year at U of T and really, make a change

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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Sorry to all the political junkies out there about the absence of any new posts. So much has been happening both online and in meatspace, and I hope I get a chance to blog about some of it before the news cycle leaves me in the dust.

Exciting news! As of Sunday, the Change website and posters have gotten a redesign. I was looking forward to some content addition under the triangle arrows pointing to “campus life,” “social justice,” “advocacy,” and “save your money.”. (Have they always done the blinky rotation?? I’ve only just noticed it writing this post) The Stronger Together website seems considerably more information-rich in contrast (even if it’s just better layout and copy-writing), I would have thought one of the more pressing priorities would be a presenting their campaign platform in another way than a straight page of text.

Another design element that I really question is the placement of candidate videos. The clips are placed vertically in a row, one after another, requiring the user to scroll down through the page to access each video. Someone who has studied the psychology of graphic design could probably speak better to this than I could but there is a clear sense that the candidates are being ranked in some hierarchy – whether it’s importance, level of responsibility, involvement in the campaign, or some other metric. Steve Masse for President at the top. This unfortunate formatting is compounded by the lack of website space for the individual candidates. Nowhere are any of their names even mentioned on the website other than as the title of the youtube videos. What is up with that?!

As expected, the effect of the video layout can be seen in the number of views each videos get. As of posting time, Steve Masse on the Change slate has 1105 views, far surpassing any other members of the Change team. Adam Awad’s video, on the other hand, has only about 100 more views than three other members of the Stronger Together Slate, all of whose videos are within ten views of each other.

Hey internet, I was having some serious insomnia so I decided to hammer out another post. To save your eyes from a vomit-wall of text, I’ve decided to break it up into chunks. Internet, you have /no idea/ how close a call that was, because I eat politics for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and you’d be here reading for a looooong time. (and so would I! Please, whoever sees me tomorrow, please feed me coffee and veggie pastries anyway. I’m going to need it.)

On to the websites! (My previous blogUT posts are here and here.)

First impressions matter. Unfortunately for my policy-bonk brain, my immediate thought upon reviewing most of the web content from the two campaigns was “I hope they’ve got copyright clearance for their music.” No one wants a repeat of the infamous Stockwell-Day-U2 fiasco of 2000. Up for grabs for all you up-and-coming IP lawyers is a Phoenix track used on the Change slate YouTube videos, a BSS Foo Fighters web intro at the Stronger Together website, and Daft Punk (or is that the Kanye remix?) over the Stronger Together video credits.

The Stronger Together website went up first, and boy is it pretty. Flashy colours, a musical intro, and plenty of web content to keep me occupied while I waited on tether-hooks for two days until the Change website finally went up Wednesday morning. I’m going to be covering the platform content in more details over the next few posts, but let me say first that both websites left me a bit cold.

Make no mistake, everyone sounds really good, and that’s half the problem. Both slates have definitely mastered the language and cadences of what campaign websites ought to look and sound like, but unfortunately that’s all they are: campaign websites. (more…)

Image from x3nomic in the blogUT Flickr pool

Take our nose out of your textbook for a minute to find out what’s going on outside of the exam craze.

It seems that everyone is pissed off at the UTSU. A lot went down at their Annual General Meeting on November 19th. For one, the college councils have a few issues, which you can read the details of here. Furthermore, the meeting started 45 minutes late and ended 3 hours late, because students from UTM were delayed by traffic, meaning that people who planned to leave on time were left out. The Varsity has the rest of the details along with a giant list of comments.

The French Club (EFUT) is disappointed that they won’t find out whether or not they will receive funding from the UTSU until January because they didn’t submit a list of their members with their funding application. This list need to include the names, students numbers, and enrolment statuses of each member, which the EFUT says violates the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The executives have already spent $1,000 paying for events out of their own pockets. Sounds similar to something that happened to us at blogUT >_>

Some interdisciplinary programs may be on the chopping block unless colleges provide sufficiently convincing reviews to the Faculty of Arts and Science.

The Admissions and Awards building has moved to 172 St. George Street, a building U of T bought in 2008.

To end on a happy note (unless you are graduating this year, in which case this does not apply to you), the TTC has extended the Metropass discount to all post-secondary students. This means that you can buy the pass for $99, which is $12 less than it would be.

Just three weeks before the end of the fall semester, I have come to the realization that I haven’t done any productive work outside of school since the start of classes.

As a first-year student, I naturally had many plans to do extra-curricular activities over the summer. French Club. The Varsity newspaper. Engineering Toastmasters. Engineers Without Borders. The Blue & Gold Committee (a spirit group for engineers). The Engineering Society, Academic Committee. The Engineering LEGO Club.

Tons of plans, but they’ve fallen through due to:

1. Time commitments. Toastmasters ends at 10pm on Thursdays, when I am often staying up late completing PHY180 lab write-ups. I also have limited time to begin with because the commute eats up 3 hours each day. LEGO Club… well, meetings are also on Thursdays, and I guess doing error analysis calculations is more feasible than constructing a house made of LEGO bricks.
2. Lack of response from group executives. I’m serious – I signed up for a gazillion clubs during the UTSU and Engineering Clubs’ Fairs, but have only been e-mailed by a handful. And some have only e-mailed once, and never again. The only French Club meeting I’ve been to was their introductory brunch, which, incidentally, was delicious.
3. Laziness. I signed up for blogUT, knew I was going to blog the second I had something to say, and… kind of forgot about it.
4. In my defence, it was partly also due to shyness and decision-making. I was trying to come up with something interesting to talk about. Whatever was remotely related to engineering, I stuck the blog entry into the Online Design Journal I’m required to keep in preparation for one of my final exams.

Considering that all of my friends here at U of T are first-years in engineering, I haven’t been doing non-scientifically-related writing for a while now, and I am slowly losing my French skills, my inactivity is clearly something I should deal with.

Fortunately, I kept the last e-mail I got from blogUT, in my Inbox where I could easily see it. And I discovered that not only was the founder a former EngSci graduate, but there were posts, personal ones (i.e. not just artsy reviews or school events!) that could resemble what I’d write in any blog.

I decided not to write for the Arts section of the Varsity when I realized that they didn’t publish book reviews (plus my  reviews are generally outdated – a few months after the book’s release), and didn’t write for the Science section because they seem to expect up-to-date news from research conducted right at the U of T. The Cannon, the engineering newspaper, has never e-mailed me since I wrote my contact information on the sign-up sheet.

So much for trying to be connected to student life. I guess that’s how blogUT started, because it sure feels good to be blogging and just… doing something aside from problem sets and whatnot.