The Manoeuvring of a Lame-Duck Executive

The term lame-duck comes mainly from US politics. The President is elected in November but does not take office until the following January, during which period they are referred to as the "President-Elect". Generally the period in between the two administrations is a quiet one, where the current President attempts to cement their legacy. ie: no major changes.

We do not have this situation in Canada, since in the parliamentary system, the current Parliament is dissolved during the elections, and opens again after the elections (and our campaign is 6-7 weeks long instead of 18 months+). On our campus, the SFUO represents the former idea. Our new administration is elected in February, but takes over in May. I can't speak to the history of BOA actions during the lame-duck period, but I will speak of current BOA actions.

At the last BOA meeting there was a constitutional amendment proposed in a first reading (the second reading is at the next meeting). The timing of this amendment is very suspicious and soon you will know why. The amendment is proposing a change to the way Student Arbitration Committee (SAC) decisions can be overturned by the BOA, by making it easier to do so. I ask you, why is this change happening now? We are about to enter into a SAC session that could very well disqualify 4 members of our incoming executive, 3 of which are current members and sit on the BOA. Currently in order for the appeal to the SAC decision to even be heard by the BOA there needs to be a vote of 4/5. Then if the appeal is heard, it takes a 2/3 vote to reverse it. The proposal is to lower the amount for it to be heard to 2/3.

According to the BOA list I found (although it is poorly maintained) there are 31 seats on the BOA. 4/5 of the votes would be 25 while 2/3 is 21. That means that it would take 4 less votes to successfully reverse a SAC decision. Now you might be saying: I don't see a major problem there; it still takes 2/3 of the BOA to change it. But remember that the current exec holds 6 seats of that 21, 3 of whom are implicated in the decision (I hope that all three would recuse themselves for the entire period of the arbitration though). Thus it would now only take 15 BOA votes to overturn an SAC decision. To compound matters, section 8.8.3 states that the BOA decision is final and unchallengeable. So the SAC could find total guilt in the 4 accused candidates, then the BOA could simply overturn that decision, and we would be stuck with the guilty people.

But my biggest concern is that these changes are being made now. First off because they are a lame-duck Board, but mostly because of the more than coincidental timing here. We have an extremely important SAC about to happen, and the executive is moving to make it easier for them to overturn an SAC decision. The motion pretty easily passed the first reading last Sunday, but my hope is that our duly elected Board members will see this for what at best is simply an improperly timed action that should be rejected, or more cynically is a clear attempt to subvert our processes to hold onto power by any means necessary.