Photo by Stacey Goyan
Grad says application process was incomplete and not timely
Stacey Goyan
News Editor
This spring, Lakehead University students will not get their chance to challenge their membership with the Canadian Federation of Students.
While it was announced that students would be able to vote on Lakehead’s membership with the CFS this February, president Dave Grad said the application process was not properly completed and would result in an invalid election.
Last year’s LUSU president, Richard Longtin, circulated a petition that collected 815 student signatures, more than the 10% required to hold the referendum.
Grad stated that the previous executive did not complete the necessary steps outlined in the CFS process within the timeframe, thus voiding the petition.
The LUSU president felt that running an invalid referendum would be a waste of student money.
“The cost of the referendum is over $1000 to the student body. I don’t feel it is an appropriate use of money to run an invalid referendum question.”
Grad stated that, because the timeline expired on last year’s petition, the question would have to be asked twice, once asking students to run the question, and another on whether they would like to continue membership with the CFS. He claimed this would cost students $2000 in total.
When contacted for comment, former president Richard Longtin said he felt Grad was avoiding the issue.
“Whether you like a person’s decision or not, you are bound by it,” said Longtin.
Grad responded to these claims by stating that the petition was filed with the CFS in December of 2008, which should have resulted in the question being asked in the February executive election last year.
Longtin, whose term ended early in mid-January, stated in an interview last year that the two remaining executives, Anna Wease and Matt Granville, would continue to rally behind the CFS referendum.
When the question returned come September, Grad said it was already too late.
“[T]hey sent the forms in, they had 90 days after they sent it back to him to run that. So it should have been run during my election in February last year.”
At the November 26th Board of Directors meeting, it was announced that LUSU would run the question on whether or not students would like to have a referendum on their membership with the CFS.
During an interview on Friday, vice president finance Josh Kolic admitted to making the decision to post the question but said it wasn’t done maliciously.
According to Kolic, there was a period of time after the Christmas break during which he served as acting president. Kolic said he was uncertain as to the status of the petition and decided to post the question.
“If Dave came back and had more information about the situation and decided to take it down, at least then we erred on the side of caution.”
Grad stated that he received contact from the CFS national office stating that the referendum would be invalid. Thus he chose to pull the question.
Kolic felt that this was “another instance of the situation we’ve inherited from the previous administration.”
The VP Finance did admit that he felt students should have had a voice.
“I think given that there was a petition, the question should have been asked. The fact that it wasn’t last year is really unfortunate.”
President Grad says he’s not opposed to the idea of a referendum, but wants to avoid the consequences of an invalid election.
“If a student wants to go through this, they can get the bylaws from me and contact the CRO [at the CFS] and begin the process and run it properly.”
“Otherwise we’re going to waste our money and our time. We’re going to cause a lot of conflict and probably get into legal issues.”