Referendum question on Studentcare fee levy contested to the CSU council.
Second-year undergraduate student and ex-CSU council member Dave Plant has submitted an appeal for the dismissal of the CSU Fall byelections referendum question about the Studentcare Legal Care Program. Plant claims the way the question was phrased was misleading, among other things.
The appeal, which Plant filed to the CSU’s Judicial Board on Dec. 2, will be revised by the board, which according to the CSU is an independent impartial branch.
The official contestation claimed that the CSU had violated many of its byelection policies to present the question. CSU Chief Electoral Officer Ekamjot Kaur quickly dismissed the contestation, greenlighting the legal service that will cost the student body a yearly fee of over $1 million, $30 per student.
The CSU and Studentcare signed a contract in June to provide legal services to students. General Coordinator Kareem Rahaman falsely presented the service as an insurance product and incorrectly claimed that immigration law services would be covered, a few weeks after it was signed.
The cost of the trial period of this service from Sept. 1 to Dec. 31 amounts to $10 per student. The CSU will use leftover funds paid by students for previous years’ insurance premiums to cover this trial fee.
The referendum question to go ahead with the Legal Care Program was part of the union’s byelection ballot sent out on Nov. 19. The question received a 58.2 per cent approval rate, and 11.2 per cent of CSU members voted in the byelection.
Plant sent a contestation to the council claiming that measures taken to present the referendum question had violated the CSU’s Policy on Elections and Referenda on 12 accounts.
According to Plant, the referendum question poorly explained that the Legal Essential Service was a product of Studentcare. He fears that students reading the question might have believed that the service was actually provided by the Legal Information Clinic (LIC) — a fear confirmed by some students.
“I [thought] that was the one [Legal Clinic] that was already existing,” said fourth year urban planning major and international student Lizzie Dresdner. “I felt that I voted in support of something that I did not support.”
Plant noticed that an email from Studentcare was sent out to all undergraduate students about the offered legal service on Nov. 20 during the polling phase. It is explicitly prohibited to advertise for a referendum question outside of the week-long campaigning phase ending on Nov. 18.
Chief Electoral Officer Ekamjot Kaur dismissed the contestation, retorting that the email was not considered campaigning.
“A warning letter would be issued in this case,” wrote Kaur about the emails in the dismissal letter, giving no further information about the letter.
Plant also pointed out that because Studentcare is a non-CSU organization, there are different approval procedures passed through the CSU’s Fee-Levy Review Committee. That includes submitting a petition with a minimum of 3,000 student signatures by September, as per the CSU’s Policy on Fee Levy Applications. Studentcare’s fee levy referendum question had to be approved by two-thirds of the Fee-Levy Review Committee as well. Neither of these requirements were met.
According to Kaur’s dismissal letter, Studentcare is a service under the Concordia Student Union, meaning they are exempt from such measures.
When Plant brought up the original concerns about Studentcare in a council meeting in September, councillors agreed to form a special committee to review the contract. The members were selected, but the committee had never materialized.
“Even though all these members were concerned, no special attention was given to this committee,” said Plant. “This seems to be a tactic that is common through the CSU, is to put issues off to a special committee and then make it disappear.”
The CSU declined to comment on the special committee.
