There's a pretty nasty e-mail submitted as evidence: Read the La Rotonde article here. According to our friends over at BOAVoice Ms. Seguin has sent out another e-mail apologizing for the rather rude and unnecessary insults she made in the first e-mail. Again, click the links if you want to read them, and I urge you to. That way when I cite information from the two pieces you will be able to follow.
The VP Communications is arguably the public face of our SFUO. If you are an outside body looking to contact the SFUO, the first step you would likely take is to contact the person in charge of communications. I would prefer if that person had a high level of integrity. (I used that word in two consecutive posts; I wonder how many in a row I will go)
So, you argue that the e-mail that Julie sent was private. I will say that nothing she does while working on OUR payroll, or working on her campaign that WE pay for is "private". In the Public Service, almost everything you do is available under the Access-to-Information legislation. We should have the same type of access to the people that we elect and pay to represent us. This was not an e-mail that Ms. Seguin sent to her mom, this was sent out to a number of people, each of whom had the right to release it if they wanted as well. The uOttawa secret police did not barge into Ms. Seguin's home and confiscate her computer, this e-mail was released by someone. If you send me an e-mail, do I not have the full rights to that e-mail? Of course there are times where confidentiality should apply, but as you read this e-mail from Ms. Seguin, I do not see any reasons why it should remain confidential (other than its release hurts her character).
She mentions in the e-mail that she has not opponent in the VP Comm campaign, and that she should have a stress-free campaign. She urges her volunteers to support other candidates, which she names (they happen to be Roxanne Dubois & Seamus Wolfe). That would have been bad enough, and qualify as a violation of our constitution. But Ms. Seguin did not stop there. She personally insulted the other candidates (Maureen Hasinoff, Renaud Garner, and Michele Lamarche). Is this the person you want as OUR VP Communications?
She should resign. Immediately.
Constitutional Crisis
With all this "slate" talk, I fear we are moving into an unneeded constitutional crisis.
Again, from the SFUO Constitution:
“No candidate for a position on the executive or the Board of Administration may form a slate with one or more other candidates running for positions on the executive or the Board of Administration. To that effect, no candidate may:
a. spend money together with one or more other candidates; or
b. participate in any way in the campaign of one or more other candidates.”
When our current SFUO President Dean Haldenby doesn't seem to care very much about the letter of the law, and whose opinion of the by-law is quite laissez-faire: “I don’t particularly know. Unfortunately there’s no dialogue as to why [it was put in place],” he said. “As with any part of our organization’s framework, it can always be reviewed, but this specifically hasn’t been reviewed or changed for a long period of time. It’s been in there since I’ve been here at the university.” (The Fulcrum) I would think that if the regulation were in the Constitution for an extended period of time there is no excuse for breaking it.
Some of the evidence is becoming public; you can find it by visiting La Rotonde's website, and a few other student blogs like Tristan Denommee's, so I won't post it here. If it is found to be completely legitimate then there will be no other option but to find the accused guilty of violating the clause in the SFUO Constitution. What there punishment will be I do not know. If all of the evidence against all of the accused is true, then I would call for their immediate disqualification and immediate termination from their current positions (for the individuals who are currently on our payroll). The accusation that Seamus Wolfe orchestrated the "team" to become the greatest executive ever from the beginning is very interesting, and as an individual who prides himself on human rights and campaigns, to himself violate our own constitution is egregious. Again, nothing has been proven yet, but if it is accurate, he needs to apologize to the student body for his behaviour.
So what about the criticism that RPG, Maureen Hasinoff, and Alex Chaput would not have won anyway? Then why was this slate formed? Why would these individuals have cheated if it didn't matter? In either case, if you break the rules, you need to suffer the consequences, whether or not it actually made a difference in the outcome.
In the middle of March the Arbitration Committee is expected to release its verdict. I look forward to what will happen, since it adds a lot more excitement to our political community. Maybe it will entice more people to get involved next year, or even this year in the imminent Student Association Elections.
If the accused are found to be in direct violation of the SFUO Constitution the punishment must be severe; it is not like they 'accidently' acted as a slate, this (according to the accusation) was an intentional act. The accusation is not an affront to democracy or the actions of a group of sore-losers. By ignoring the violation would be an affront to democracy, and I applaud those who are questioning the behaviour of the candidates that are accused.
As a side-note: the accusations are not questioning the results of the vote. No one is saying that Seamus did not receive the amount of votes he did, same with Roxanne, Jean, and Julie. The question is of integrity. And that is what should be investigated. While freedom and accessibility were the keywords of this year’s elections, perhaps we should change that to integrity.
More on this to come.
Again, from the SFUO Constitution:
“No candidate for a position on the executive or the Board of Administration may form a slate with one or more other candidates running for positions on the executive or the Board of Administration. To that effect, no candidate may:
a. spend money together with one or more other candidates; or
b. participate in any way in the campaign of one or more other candidates.”
When our current SFUO President Dean Haldenby doesn't seem to care very much about the letter of the law, and whose opinion of the by-law is quite laissez-faire: “I don’t particularly know. Unfortunately there’s no dialogue as to why [it was put in place],” he said. “As with any part of our organization’s framework, it can always be reviewed, but this specifically hasn’t been reviewed or changed for a long period of time. It’s been in there since I’ve been here at the university.” (The Fulcrum) I would think that if the regulation were in the Constitution for an extended period of time there is no excuse for breaking it.
Some of the evidence is becoming public; you can find it by visiting La Rotonde's website, and a few other student blogs like Tristan Denommee's, so I won't post it here. If it is found to be completely legitimate then there will be no other option but to find the accused guilty of violating the clause in the SFUO Constitution. What there punishment will be I do not know. If all of the evidence against all of the accused is true, then I would call for their immediate disqualification and immediate termination from their current positions (for the individuals who are currently on our payroll). The accusation that Seamus Wolfe orchestrated the "team" to become the greatest executive ever from the beginning is very interesting, and as an individual who prides himself on human rights and campaigns, to himself violate our own constitution is egregious. Again, nothing has been proven yet, but if it is accurate, he needs to apologize to the student body for his behaviour.
So what about the criticism that RPG, Maureen Hasinoff, and Alex Chaput would not have won anyway? Then why was this slate formed? Why would these individuals have cheated if it didn't matter? In either case, if you break the rules, you need to suffer the consequences, whether or not it actually made a difference in the outcome.
In the middle of March the Arbitration Committee is expected to release its verdict. I look forward to what will happen, since it adds a lot more excitement to our political community. Maybe it will entice more people to get involved next year, or even this year in the imminent Student Association Elections.
If the accused are found to be in direct violation of the SFUO Constitution the punishment must be severe; it is not like they 'accidently' acted as a slate, this (according to the accusation) was an intentional act. The accusation is not an affront to democracy or the actions of a group of sore-losers. By ignoring the violation would be an affront to democracy, and I applaud those who are questioning the behaviour of the candidates that are accused.
As a side-note: the accusations are not questioning the results of the vote. No one is saying that Seamus did not receive the amount of votes he did, same with Roxanne, Jean, and Julie. The question is of integrity. And that is what should be investigated. While freedom and accessibility were the keywords of this year’s elections, perhaps we should change that to integrity.
More on this to come.
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