The race has officially started for the year-end CSU elections and six different slates are campaigning for your vote. Having these choices, students should have no reservations about voting, but unfortunately many do.
All Concordia undergraduate students must vote in the upcoming CSU election and have their say on who should represent them. By not voting at all you are giving up your rights as a student. Besides it is your responsibility as a student to vote.
For those students who say they do not want to vote because they could not care less think again. These students do not realize that $1 million of their money is being spent on what critics of the CSU call “their own political agenda.” You should care deeply about this. Student money is also being used by the CSU to deal with the ongoing lawsuit with Hillel.
Another factor to consider is that the student union sets the tone for the upcoming year by holding events or stressing certain issues that it considers are important to students. In some cases this year these events have brought the international media into Concordia and has shed negative light on the university in general. If students do not care to vote in the elections, they are allowing these events to occur by keeping silent.
Those Concordia students who do not care about the elections don’t care because they are probably disgusted with the institution of the CSU or have given up trying to change it. Don’t just give up, do something about it by voting! Pick up the next issue of the Concordian and read about the different options you can vote for this election.
Moreover, especially after the chaos that reigned on campus on Sept. 9 it is particularly important to choose a CSU executive and members of the council of representatives (that is where most of the power lies within the CSU) that will help mend our tattered reputation.
Unfortunately, excessive student actions do lead to employers to thinking twice about recruiting from Concordia students. Take the example of CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) that came to recruit students two years ago at an arts and science job fair. A number of student activists unhappy with the presence of CSIS at the fair grabbed their pamphlets, threw them out onto the terrace of the Bonkif and overturned their table. As a result, CSIS no longer recruits at Concordia.
So on March 25 to 27 go out and vote. For those non-voters: take responsibility because if you do not, next year could once again be another year like the last four; one of confrontation and frustration.
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