YFS opposition ‘not worth putting together’: Kay

Jacqueline Perlin
Assistant News Editor
Like clockwork, the annual student elections are approaching here at York University. But according to York Federation of Students’ (YFS) director Gregory Kay, the electoral process still lacks transparency despite the bylaw changes.
“Students want people who care about the students, and that’s really not what’s happening right now,” said Schulich School of Business director Kay, adding  the current process fails to ensure that any candidates other than the incumbents can be elected.
“As long as there is a process that favours the incumbents, it’s not worth running [in elections] and it’s not worth putting together a slate,” he criticized.
Jeremy Salter, executive director of the YFS, insisted that the changes to the election bylaws have only served to strengthen the election process.
“I think that if Mr. Kay is assuming that people aren’t going to run in the elections, then that’s his prerogative,” said Salter, who confirmed that the running candidates would not be known until campaigning commences.
Kay steadfastly maintained that the changes made to allow more transparency to the election process fail to provide any legitimate change.
Though he acknowledged that the position of the chief returning officer (CRO) – whose job it is to neutrally oversee the electoral processes – is now elected by secret ballot, Kay says Salter essentially dictates the candidates the board may pick from.
“They bring forward people that are only favourable to them,” said Kay.
York v-p students Rob Tiffin says the admin are also concerned with the election bylaws and the selection of the CRO.
“We still have some areas of concern for potential conflict of interest to occur,” said Tiffin. “We are most concerned at this time about the bylaw which states that solicitation of York University administration to interfere in the elections process would result in immediate disqualification, and we find that somewhat harsh and not consistent with the ideas of freedom of expression,” he added.
Kay agrees that the new bylaws are more “draconian than before,” adding that the new bylaws have included more rules about the relationship between candidates and the administration.
“If you even speak to the administration, you’re automatically disqualified, which is just ridiculous,” said Kay.
Salter says this clause prevents “people from putting pressure on the administration, such as potentially attempting to withhold our voter’s list or withhold our fees,” and that individuals who are attempting to solicit the university to interfere in the autonomy of the student union are not to be tolerated.
Nevertheless, Kay predicts that the elections process will remain mired in controversy controversial until the administration intervene in the process.
“The administration hasn’t pushed hard enough to ensure that [the YFS] is actually having democratic elections,” he said.
Tiffin pointed out that it would be up to the student body to undertake any further changes with regards to both the university’s McCamus report and the student union’s Davis LLP report – the two documents drafted earlier this year with extensive lists of recommendations to make the student elections more impartial – he also said that the administration would not directly intervene in election bylaw changes, but that making further improvements would be recommended.
“If there are those that want to believe that they can come forward with a better position or a better way of representing students, then that rests with the student body,” he said. “We’ll see how things go with the election.”