WN DSU elections a success, whether candidates win or lose By Matthew Steinbach, News Editor couple of weeks back Douglas College saw As campaign for the 12 prized positions n the DSU’s board of directors, and last week, the votes were tallied and seats were awarded to the victors. But what is campaigning like from the perspective of the candidate? Priscilla Bartleman, Alessandro Iachelli, Christine Nieder, and Justin Stock from the reFresh slate along with Deep Singh from the Vote For Change slate discussed campaigning in this election with The Other Press. Everyone from both slates admitted that despite being students their schoolwork took a hit. Alessandro Iachelli, a candidate with reFresh, explained that he didn’t realize how many essays would be due around campaign time when he decided to run. However, despite falling behind in his studies, he explained that running was totally worth it. Deep Singh, a candidate with Vote For Change, echoed Iachelli’s statements because she found that this election went very well from her slate’s perspective. She explained that she was able to work with her group more as a team this year compared to previous DSU campaigns. She found that this allowed them to have a better presence on campus because of this teamwork. Priscilla Bartleman, a fellow candidate of Tachelli’s, explained that she enjoyed seeing students being engaged by this process. She found that despite the missed school time, this was a win just because of how much more students were interested in this process than in previous campaigns. Singh agreed with Bartleman’s thoughts, saying, “Students this time really wanted to listen.” The fact that students finally seemed to be more willing to take part in their students union was encouraging to both sides. Bartleman found the process to be a huge win whether or not her slate won the election. Vote For Change quashes reFresh in landslide victory f Brian Whin-Yates and Hnja Al Tayar operate the polls By Matthew Steinbach, News Editor Friday evening, the DSU’s electoral officer, Jessica Magalios, along with other staff members of the society, counted up the ballots from this year’s DSU election. What had been a contest between two similar slates, Vote For Change and reFresh, was finally over. In a surprising outcome, Vote For Change won by a landslide. The closest reFresh came to catching Vote For Change in any of the contested races was in the internal relations coordinator contest. Christine Nieder garnered 198 votes to Shaun Dhakar of Vote For Change’s 267. reFresh had been quite active during the campaign period and was expected to win at least one of the races. The only seats that reFresh won were college relations coordinator, external relations coordinator, disabled liaison, and pride liaison. However, the college and external relations races are still facing appeals by Jerin Mece and Deep Singh over their disqualifications. Pending the outcomes of those appeals, if they are successful, then the DSU electoral committee will also have to count those two races as well. Meaning Vote For Change could theoretically still win two more seats. While the liaison seats were uncontested and won by reFresh without controversy. Members of reFresh had been in the majority on the DSU board going into the election. One of the main criticisms this election has been regardless of who won the DSU would likely end up with an identical board of directors. 4 I: a dank room in the Douglas Students’ Union on Unofficial Election Results (winners in bold) College Relations Coordinator Tachelli, Alessandro (reFresh) Wins by default Mece, Jerin (Vote For Change) Disqualified External Relations Coordinator Bartleman, Priscilla (reFresh) Wins by default Singh, Deep (Vote For Change) Disqualified Internal Relations Coordinator Dhakar, Shaun (Vote For Change) 267 Nieder, Christine (reFresh) 198 Spoiled 57 Treasurer Gwardys, Sandra (reFresh) 186 Sehembey, Jessie (Vote For Change) 281 Spoiled 53 Members-at-Large Brown, Alex (reFresh) 140 Dahan, Chris (Vote For Change) 240 Johannesson, Brandon (Vote For Change) 263 Rose, Donna (reFresh) 151 Schachner, Anna (Vote For Change) 276 Taylor, Patrick (reFresh) 148 Spoiled 28 David Lam Campus Representative Bartels, Nolan (reFresh) 188 Sikinic, Djoric (Vote For Change) 259 Spoiled 74 Aboriginal Liaison Allard, Alyssa Yes 427 No 45 Spoiled 49 Disabled Liaison Berkowski, Robbie Yes 353 No 101 Spoiled 67 Pride Liaison Stock, Justin Yes 327 No 116 Spoiled 80 Women’s Liaison Hamilton, Kristen (Vote For Change) 322 Walker, Stephanie (reFresh) 143 Spoiled 46 News Shorts By Matthew Steinbach, News Editor More troops to Afghanistan Last week, President Barack Obama pledged to send more non-combat troops to Afghanistan according to CBC.ca. These troops will come to the relief of many thinly stretched armies in Afghanistan who currently are experiencing many setbacks and few successes in the war against the Taliban, who controlled the country and protected Osama Bin Laden when he targeted the USA on 9/11. EU to ban Canadian seal imports Canada will launch a World Trade Organization protest if the European Union bans Canadian seal imports in the coming weeks. According to a CBC.ca report, Stockwell Day claims that the practice is humane and sealers only actually kill a small handful of the seals in Canada. However, animal rights activists believe that clubbing a seal to death is not humane and that the practice should not be condoned. No spending limits on BC Election campaign spending Last week the BC Supreme Court refused to grant a stay to the BC Government’s campaigning limitations amendments to the BC Election Act, which limits the amount of spending third parties can spend on campaigning during the election. Currently there are limits on the federal elections; however, no such restrictions exist on the BC elections. The government will now fight this most recent decision but it will most likely be too late to have this act in effect for the current election.