Opinions Laura Kelsey drsexysex@yahoo.ca The Athletics Fee Increase: A Good Idea By Garth McLennan Tuition fees are going up ten-fold? That's money well spent man! Hut Hut Hut! A: the recent Douglas Student Union annual general meeting, a new plan was unveiled to increase the athletic fees for every student attending Douglas College. The new fee augmentation will raise the cost for students from $5.50 to $30 per semester. Oddly, the auditorium where the meeting was being held was jam- packed with students; however, virtually all of them were students participating in courses offered by the College’s athletics department. This was quite surprising for me, as student government meetings, especially ones such as this one— where the majority of the discussions would be devoted to the DSU’s multiple audits and receivership situation—aren’t exactly the most popular events for students. It didn’t exactly promise to be the most action- packed event in the world. Now here’s the thing. I don’t disagree with the fee increase at all. In fact, I think it’s a great idea. It will help provide increased funding for recreation programs aimed to enhance the lives of students here at the college. It could even bring back intramural sports, although that may still be a ways away as the gyms are booked solid for the foreseeable future. The student athletic fee hasn’t been increased for 13 years. Douglas College has been kind enough to cover the increasing cost of living differentials by making up the difference without charging the students of the college more money. However, Douglas doesn’t want to do that anymore. No problem, if fact, it’s probably time that the students started paying more anyways. The only problem I have with the whole fee increase thing is that the all of the kids that voted it through were mandated to be there. The reason is because the athletics department didn’t want to see the college lose any recreational programs that the establishment wouldn’t cover the excess cost of any more. So they told their students, who, as athletes, would have the most to gain by voting for the fee increase, that they had to be at the meeting to vote. Needless to say, the vote was a landslide in favor of increasing the fees. While technically they didn’t break any official rules, what they did wasn’t right. They manipulated the student voting process. No other set of students was mandated to be there. Plus, lots and lots of the students clearly didn’t want to be there. I saw over ten students asleep, with almost as many playing handheld video games. The girls sitting beside me against the wall kept muttering about why they had to be there and how they looked forward to leaving. The crowd voted through every motion that was passed and groaned loudly whenever someone rose to ask a question. I can see why the athletics department did what they did. However, the fact that they didn’t want to see any programs lost doesn’t give them the right to influence the student body’s democratic process the way they did. If that many students did in fact want to be there, then no problem, but these ones didn’. They were forced to be there. The decision was stacked since only the students that were the most likely to vote through the Achieved the Wrong Way proposed fee increase were mandated to attend the meeting. Fortunately for the students who don’t want to pay the increased fee, there is an opt-out option available to all of them, where they can withdraw from having to pay extra money, but then face the drawback of becoming ineligible for any of the college’s athletic programs. What the athletics department should have done was what Shaw cable did a few years ago. A while back, Shaw imposed a three dollar fee on everyone, but anyone who didn’t want to pay it could call in and become exempt from it. Almost everyone called in and the fee was eventually cancelled. That is what should have happened here. Instead of an opt-out for students, the college should have made an opt-in. Students who want to participate in the school’s sports programs could pay the additional money, while students who don’t want to wouldn’t have to. This way, students who didn’t hear about the fee increase wouldn’t have anything to worry about. It is a tough position for me because I support the idea, and I'll certainly pay extra. What I don’t support or condone was how it was carried out. I have tremendous respect and a high regard for all of the athletics teachers at Douglas College. I just don’t agree with what they did here. March for a Cause, nota Claus Laura Kelsey _ opinions editor Prvtic events can unify residents of a community, which may give them a deeper respect for their neighbours, and creating fun events for children is 10 always very important. But in an age of acute environmental awareness, needless parades seem archaic. The waste and greenhouse gases created give parades a dinosaur-sized carbon footprint. Christmas parades, in particular, are the epitome of Western civilization’s gluttonous lifestyle, and it is time people rethought their expectations of entertainment. Parades laugh in the face of nature and poverty. Granted, food was collected at the recent Santa Claus Parade, but that seemed an afterthought to the real priority —advertisement. Organize a parade for a hero, or a cause—not floats with Dora the Explorer. Parades are just another chance for corporations to promote their products. Christmas is the biggest consumer scam of all time, and events that promote it just exemplify greed. While 300,000 people came out for the Rogers Christmas Parade on November 20, only a small fraction of that showed to the Vancouver Remembrance Day ceremonies on the llth. Entertainment is the only thing worth rallying for in Canada, it seems. Hundreds of Buddhist monks marched down Burma streets in September, risking their lives in a reach for democracy. In contrast, the west only unify when it’s time to see Santa on his greenhouse gas-spewing float. Parades are either the ultimate show-off or the ultimate embarrassment to the western countries. Roads are blocked, cars are detoured through longer routes, and huge amounts of garbage are created, not for a cause—but for Santa Claus.