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Bier

 

 

The DSU election needs a little more substance

    
 

 

i Nikal cS The DSU
m Nikala 2 :
zanowski election feels
opinions editor a lot like

eating a bowl
of vanilla ice
cream. The
candidates
at the New West forum last Wednesday
were scooping out heaping spoonfuls
of bland soft serve all afternoon long—
leaving students to figure that there’s

 

got to be something more to it than that.

Consider the slates—the “parties”
that would-be student politicians align
themselves with in order to increase
their chances of getting elected.

You can vote for some or all of the
candidates from the reFresh slate; they
want to bring students the U-Pass,
renovate the DSU building and bring a
Tim Horton’s to New West—or you can
vote for some or all of the candidates
from the Vote for Change slate which
wants to bring students the U-Pass,
renovate the DSU... and bring a Tim
Horton’s to New West.

Hmm. What a gripping choice.

DSU candidates have been using
the same cookie-cutter platforms for

the past five years, the elected ones
then accomplish next to nothing, much
like the student government of this
past term. Then come election time
the promises that weren’t met are
regurgitated in the next election round.
This year both slates are going as far to
package their campaign as “Change.”
How stupid do they think we students
are? Fresh ideas at the DSU are non-
existent. Does the DSU even need to be
renovated?

The election is essentially a
personal affair anyway; the final
result will come down to which slate
has more friends. The slates know
this, too. Last year, the “Revitalize”
slate, which has former members on
both of this year’s slates, did minimal
campaigning and classroom speaking
and barely showed up to any of last
year’s all-candidates meetings, (which,
interestingly, led to a new rule for this
year that makes attendance to at least
one meeting mandatory). They nearly
swept the election, and all without
engaging a single “average student.”
It’s because they had plenty of friends
in the Sports Sciences department

behind them—the largest voting bloc in
the school.

To those average students who
don’t know the candidates, there is no
discernable difference between them.
So it’s either vote for whoever’s name
you like the best or don’t vote at all. It’s
pointless.

Maybe the problem with engaging
students is in the election process itself.
Candidates are apparently not allowed
to criticize each others platforms. Since
they’re identical maybe there isn’t
much to say. But it neuters the politics
and allows contenders to say what they
want without much scrutiny. Is it all
in the name of creating “better global
citizens?”

Who knows. What I do know is
that having two slates with identical
views, who won’t criticize each other,
running for the same position sounds
like something out of a backwards
banana republic.

The DSU works like this: elected
candidates have to put in X number of
hours in their DSU office each week
and attend X number of meetings.
There are no “real” prescribed tasks

that they absolutely have to do, so they
can put in their office hours mucking
around on Facebook or doing their
homework, all while each getting paid
hundreds of your dollars a month for it.
Granted a couple candidates did phone
it in last year by freshening up the DSU
boards with the bog standard Canadian
Federation of Students “awareness”
posters they get in the mail from CFS.
So at least it looked like they were
working hard.

Or they can do what last year’s
candidates did best—throw parties.

Some advice for the candidates: if
we’re to resign to your cut-and-paste
platform, the trick then is to explain
how you intend to accomplish it. Post
your blueprint for a new DSU floor
plan and give us cost and time-frame
estimates. That shows that you have at
least thought it through. If you’re just
going to say it, without a plan, then you
might as well promise root beer in the
drinking fountains, too.

Let’s go, people; students deserve
better.

 

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