Composition of SSMU Council: Yes

The most significant change in the composition of the SSMU council proposes the removal of the Architecture Councillor seat. This reform represents a fairer representation process as the Architecture Students’ Association is already represented by the Engineering Undergraduate Society. The Architecture Students’ Association has also agreed to this change. The Tribune is therefore voting ‘Yes.’

Addition of interfaculty arts & science rep: Yes

Interfaculty arts and science students are underrepresented on council. Many of the faculty’s major and minor programs are distinct from the individual arts and science faculties, and thus they require their own representative. In addition, 98.11 per cent of students  in a recent BASiC (Bachelor of Arts & Science Integrative Council) referendum voted in favour of this change. The Tribune believes this to be an overwhelming advocation of the change.

Reform of Judicial Board to comply with Quebec law: Yes

The Tribune supports the rule of Quebec law, which states that the final authority of a corporation has to be the Board of Directors. As the current structure states that the Judicial Board (J-Board) has the final authority, the current structure of J-Board needs to be reformed to fall into compliance with Quebec law. The Tribune encourages voting in favour of this reform, which simply includes changing the terms of the SSMU constitution so that the Board of Directors is the final authority in determining whether the rulings of the J-Board are valid.

J-Board procedural accountability: Yes

Currently the J-Board’s internal rules of practice are not easily accessible to students. There are no stated specifications on how the J-Board’s rules are changed, or even what notice needs to be given to SSMU members. The Tribune supports voting ‘Yes’ because it will make the J-Board’s procedures subject to ratification by the SSMU legislative council, and will make J-Board more transparent to the rest of the SSMU community by ensuring that the board makes public its rules of practice.

SSMU health and dental plan: Yes

The price of the SSMU health and dental plan has not gone up since 2005. The costs of running the plan have risen due to inflation and an increase in claims being made. The proposed fee increase of $35 is therefore acceptable in order to maintain the quality of the service. The total of $220 is still a very reasonable price to pay for a year’s worth of dental insurance, and the plan is optional. The Tribune therefore has no qualms with voting Yes.

CKUT opt-out: Yes

The Tribune strongly encourages students to vote ‘Yes’ to make CKUT’s fees non-opt-outable. Radio CKUT is McGill’s only student radio station and is a worthy compensation for the fact that McGill does not have a formal journalism program. CKUT provides excellent training for those interested in radio as well as being a valuable broadcasting service to the McGill community. A non-opt-outable funding system is desirable to ensure CKUT’s financial viability, giving CKUT a more dependable income flow. This financial independence is also an important bulwark to defend CKUT’s editorial independence from interest groups. 

Composition of J-Board: No 

The Tribune finds this proposal to change the composition of the J-Board to be a flawed one. It is hard to see any reason why the J-board should make allowances for undergraduates to sit on the J-Board. Without any legal education, we do not believe that undergraduate members would have sufficient knowledge of the law to contribute much of value to the J-Board’s rulings. Participation on the J-board should therefore remain the preserve of law students who know a lot more about the legal process than undergraduates. A member of J-Board who was not acquainted with legal procedures would simply serve to undermine the credibility of the board’s rulings. The Tribune therefore votes ‘No.’

This week, students will decide whether an important fee will be raised, in the words of those who support this increase, to “maintain the current level” of service. The fee increase I refer to, of course, is the SSMU dental plan. 

Not really. But my point is that, like this year’s tempestuous tuition hikes debate, the real issue with  dental fees is how much service we will get for our dollars. For those who don’t know, the tuition increase would be $325 annually over five years, to a total increase of $1,625.   

From an economic standpoint, not raising tuition is folly because of inflation. Quebec’s tuition in real dollars is substantially less than it was in 1968. With inflation, the costs of running a university are significantly higher than in the past. 

Interestingly, many of those who are protesting these hikes would decry any proposal to freeze the wages of workers on campus, such as those of a certain union with a popular line of buttons. Yet in the same way that freezing workers’ wages would leave them ill-equipped to handle the annually increasing costs of living, freezing tuition would hamper a university’s ability to handle education costs. 

Others argue that raising tuition is simply a cover for a nefarious right-wing scheme to reduce government support for higher education. This view is completely unsupported by the facts. The Finances Quebec budget report reveals that along with the tuition hikes, “From 2002-2003 to 2016-2017, annual operating grants from the Québec government to universities will increase from $1.9 billion to $3.3 billion.” Furthermore, the government estimates that of the $850 million of extra revenue universities will have after the hikes are fully in effect; 50.6 per cent of that fee will also come from additional government contributions. Over 60 per cent of university income in 2016-17 will be comprised of government funds, with students only paying 16.9 per cent and donations comprising a paltry 3.4 per cent. 

 Then there’s the idea that much of the increase in funding will go to fattening the salaries of university administrators. Again, the actual budget disabuses us of that notion; 65 to 85 per cent of the additional revenue is scheduled to go to “Quality of teaching and research,” with only 10 to 15 per cent slated to go to “improvement of administration and management.”

Now to “accessibility”: increased tuition, some argue, will freeze out lower-class students from the educational system. A study by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy undermines this notion by looking at the university participation rates of low income students across the provinces. The results show that participation rates of students from lower income families were not significantly higher in lower tuition provinces overall. Even taking into account that CEGEPs have some programs that are counted as “university” programs in other provinces, the wider sweep of the data shows that lower tuition is not correlated with higher rates of low-income university participation. Furthermore, the government has set aside 35 per cent of the sums resulting from the hike towards the bursary program, and this does not include additional tax credits given for pursuing a university education. The anti-hikes faction counters by pointing out that remaining 83 per cent of students will have to cover the full price. This assertion, however, does not even explain what portion of that 83 per cent actually would be unable to support paying the additional amount. 

To protest against the tuition hikes, therefore, is to protest against the facts.

Any self-respecting columnist writing on Canada cannot let this year saunter by without spending at least one—I pitched ten, but my editor emphasized one—column on the Winnipeg Jets. This story of prairie power should be trumpeted from the rooftops, but given the country’s current milieu of potential election fraud and economic perturbation, it’s tough to get in a word for a hockey team. And so, here’s a personal trip down memory lane for all those readers aching for some honest scribbling on the return of the Jets.

I swept into Winnipeg, Manitoba on the threshold of teenagerdom, staring stupefied at the flat land that stretched forever into the horizon. It was a far cry from the mountainous South African countryside of my childhood, and if I had not just finished a 32 hour plane journey, I might have hopped on the next flight back. But Manitoba was home now. Greasy John Deere baseball caps bobbing inside combines during summer, and kids who couldn’t yet walk, somehow skating through winter, would become part of everyday life. 

Although the process of understanding and appreciating a new culture was a steady one, there are two things I learned after roughly 24 hours in Manitoba: it is very, very cold, and the Jets are coming back. If the elderly gents in the diners weren’t talking about how low temperatures would plummet come November, they would be chatting about how inevitable it was that the Jets—cruelly relocated to Phoenix in ’96—would come back. Like a mourning but ever-hopeful father awaiting the prodigal son, Manitoba was in perpetual preparation for the return of the Jets. 

And so when it came to pass, in 2011, everyone was ready. Rumors had made their way through the fields, across the lakes, past the polar bears, and into the urban heart of Winnipeg since 2009, but now everyone knew for certain. And such a celebration ensued, the likes of which had not been seen since homegrown rock band The Guess Who were making international waves. Crowds gathered at the famed Forks, policemen smiled misty-eyed, and ‘tobans stuck in other parts of Canada stared longingly at the TV screens broadcasting the welcome tidings. 

The second half of this story is just as invigorating. Everyone expected that tickets to Jet games would fly off the shelves at twice the speed of limited edition Tim Hortons’ role-up-the-rim cups, but nobody was certain how the Atlanta team would perform in its new home. Commentators and columnists took one look at the team on paper and became stock market analysts. There seemed to be no way that the product could live up to its hype. Like the Blackberry playbook of the sports world, the Jets could turn out to be all glistening cover, but few stellar parts below the surface. 

But oh, how the naysayers weep now! There is a lot of hockey to be played, to be sure, but the Jets have excelled in their new home. As the Leafs and Habs saw their earlier successes nosedive into a whirlwind of coach replacements and disillusioned fans, the Jets have delivered strong performances that exhibit a good-looking whole, even if it is greater than the sum of its parts. It’s official: the Jets are back.