After a semester of meetings on the future of Choose Life – the controversial pro-life group whose club status was suspended last semester – the Students’ Society Council officially reinstated the group’s club status last Thursday.

Choose Life’s club status was suspended last year on November 12 in light of the conflicts surrounding the club’s “Echoes of the Holocaust” event. This was intended to be a temporary measure, however, until the Student Equity Committee could generate an appendix to the group’s constitution. As a condition of its reinstatement, Choose Life has agreed to adopt an appendix that would specifically govern how the club operates under the SSMU Equity Policy.

Since both Choose Life and the Equity Committee had agreed on this document prior to the meeting, there was little debate before Council passed the motion.

SSMU Vice-President Clubs and Services Sarah Olle expressed confidence that this document has cleared up some of the confusion stemming from Choose Life’s understanding of the SSMU Equity Policy.

“A lot of their complaints revolved around the ambiguity of our equity policy, or ambiguity of their actual violations of the equity policy,” Olle said. “It’s good that we have come to some sort of agreement on a black and white document.”

In particular, the document stipulates that “Choose Life will not advocate or lobby for the criminalization of abortion through the use of SSMU resources.”

“It’s really important that resources from student fees are allocated in a way that reflects our policies, constitution, and ethical practices,” said VP University Affairs Rebecca Dooley. “However, if a group wants to take a position, we cannot prevent them from taking that position as long as they are not using our resources to do so.”

Although Choose Life VP Internal Paul Cernek said that the negotiations had facilitated constructive dialogue, he felt that the clause restricting Choose Life from using graphic imagery in their events singled out the club unfairly.

“At some level this is a double standard,” Cernek said. “Other groups on campus use displays of graphic images in open, public spaces to further their points. Not even that anyone [from Choose Life] had an overwhelming desire at this moment to mount one of these displays. We just thought that we should have the right to.”

Olle, however, emphasized that in this situation the Equity Committee was acting as a regulator.

“We are not in the same position as Choose Life because we were in a position where we were enforcing something on a group that had committed a violation of our equity policy,” she said. “Of course, there was an effort put toward getting cooperation from Choose Life and explaining why we would implement certain regulations but at the same time they were being regulated.”

Cernek said he is hopeful that this appendix will help strengthen relations between SSMU and Choose Life next year.

“This should help things go more smoothly,” he said. “Things have been pretty rocky at times. The whole process we went through with the Equity Committee, working with them in close contact, really helped both parties come to an understanding with each other. They want us to keep being able to be a club; shutting down a point of view is not at all their goal.”

When Ivan Neilson was elected last year, the Tribune was confident that he would be a competent president. We thought his pragmatic nature would allow him to work effectively with the vice-presidents and build a good relationship with McGill’s administration. He has, for the most part, lived up to our expectations.

Neilson has done a good job balancing the two sides of the presidential portfolio. The president has responsibilities for both internal and external issues: he manages the executive while simultaneously representing SSMU at Senate and the Board of Governors, and, from time to time, in the media. Previous SSMU presidents have excelled at one half of the job while underperforming in the other. Neilson has, in contrast, struck a good balance.

However, we feel that Neilson could have worked to be a more visible public face of the organization. Previous presidents, such as Jake Itzkowitz and Adam Conter, have been more active in engaging with students at various campus events – something we feel Neilson would have been wise to attempt.

SSMU has had a fairly successful year overall, and while this year’s executive, as a whole, has been very strong, some of this success can be attributed to Neilson’s leadership. Despite clashing views on all sorts of topics, this year’s executive has functioned well as a team (at least publicly), and Neilson has done a commendable job leading a group of strong-willed VPs.

Many of Neilson’s biggest achievements were on relatively unglamorous issues that will benefit SSMU in the long run. For example, his efforts to reform committee structures and hold councillors responsible for attending Council meetings were significant accomplishments, and will have substantive, beneficial effects on the way the SSMU operates.

Finally, Neilson has been an excellent representative for students at Senate and on the Board of Governors. His personable nature has allowed him to work well with the administration while not backing down on important issues, such as tuition increases.

This year’s executive, led by Neilson, made substantive progress across the board. Hopefully, the incoming executive will be able to build on their accomplishments.

At this time last year, the Tribune voiced concerns with Students’ Society Vice-President University Affairs Rebecca Dooley’s lack of experience. Before her tenure as VP UA, she’d been Queer McGill’s political action coordinator, which, the Tribune believed, was insufficient training for the portfolio. We were wrong. Since the beginning of her tenure, Dooley has demonstrated a firm understanding of the university’s inner workings, and thanks to her hard work, she has succeeded in most areas of her portfolio.

In the first semester, Dooley worked closely with Jonathan Glencross to promote a new $7.50 student fee for the Sustainability Projects Fund. She also formed an undergraduate student taskforce, “The McGill We Want,” which will ultimately draft a report suggesting ways to improve the undergraduate experience.

At SSMU Council meetings, Dooley spoke frequently, defending her opinions while forging compromise between disparate factions of councillors. At University Senate meetings, though, Dooley appeared timid, and sometimes outmatched by other senators. Behind closed doors, however, Dooley was a strong student advocate. In committees, she fostered strong relationships with professors and administrators, tackling issues such as McGill’s problematic research policy draft.

This past semester, Dooley led a series of meetings between the Equity Committee and Choose Life, the embattled pro-life club, retooling the group’s constitution. Though the meetings were hostile, in the end, Choose Life and the Equity Committee compromised, coming to terms on a document. This was a major victory, and Dooley deserves a large portion of the credit.

Dooley is affable and approachable, and she thoroughly understands the role of the VP UA. We can only hope that next year’s VP UA, Joshua Abaki, emulates Dooley’s work ethic, amiable demeanour, and willingness to compromise with both the administration and other students.

Although her portfolio has quieted down in the second semester, Sarah Olle has had an extremely successful term as vice-president clubs and services. The Tribune had high expectations for Olle, who came into the position after serving as interest group coordinator last year. She has proven herself to be more than capable.

Olle’s biggest strength is her ability to handle the day-to-day issues that arise with various clubs and services. Olle is thorough, organized, and knowledgeable about countless facets of the Students’ Society. She has made herself readily accessible to both clubs and student journalists, keeping regular office hours and always answering emails promptly.

This year, Olle was able to accomplish many things that previous VPs have long discussed, including putting room bookings online and changing activities night to a two-day event. Olle has also taken on significant new projects. The Ambassador Fee, which fills the void in funding for clubs like the Debating Union that attend off-campus events, was largely her initiative. She helped to coordinate a long-term plan for proposed renovations in the Shatner Building.

In addition, she was calm, rational, and fair when dealing with the Choose Life controversy throughout the year. She is a strong, vocal presence at Council, contributing to discussions on a wide variety of issues.

The nature of the clubs and services portfolio means that most of the work occurs during the first semester. However, this year, Olle played an important role in securing independence for the Tribune during the second semester, helping to craft budgets and negotiate various other aspects of the transition. We acknowledge our bias – Olle was the executive we worked most intimately with – but if the dedication she showed to Tribune independence was typical of her work with other clubs and services, then Olle fully deserves an “A.”

In fact, there is only one thing the Tribune can fault Olle for this year: closing down Motion to Blog.

SSMU’s Legislative Council has had, by many accounts, a disappointing year. Although it’s difficult to evaluate the performance of a body of this type, the Tribune feels that this year’s Council deserves a below-average grade. Although there were some councillors who were proactive, well-informed, and contributed in a constructive manner to debates, there were too many councillors who seemed to revel in making mountains out of molehills, and speaking mainly to hear the sound of their own voices.

One of Council’s most important functions is to act as a check on the executive. However, councillors must adequately inform themselves about issues, instead of simply arguing with executives for the sake of it, as councillors sometimes did. For example, there was no valid reason to block the bylaw changes proposed by President Neilson, which were eventually passed in a student-initiated referendum.

Yet another important function of Council is to put forward meaningful motions, and to contribute to the running of the Society .. However, Council this year spent too little time debating important issues, and too much time discussing trivial ones.

On the bright side, attendance at Council was excellent this year, and good work was done in many of the committees. Motions to eliminate styrofoam in the Shatner building, explore vegan food options, and to advocate for paid practicum for education students, were among the worthwhile Council initiatives.

It’s unclear whether Council’s disappointing performance this year is due to its composition, or whether this points to a need to reform the body. But either way, Council didn’t do its job as well as it should have – something that SSMU will have to consider going into next year.