No words can describe my disgust

Having missed the SAC hearing on March 6th 2009, exactly one week ago, which turned out to be zoo anyways, I wasn't about to miss the chance to be present for today's special BOA meeting.

Although I'm happy that I was in attendance, I must say that I left the Senate chambers disgusted with this whole situation. I'm going to go from the start because, as I have just arrived from this meeting (that was still going as I exited the chambers), I am quite hot headed. But worry not; I refuse to start name calling but I WILL TELL YOU WHAT I THINK.

I'm first off disgusted with the fact that the SAC report WAS NOT presented to the SFUO's lawyer when he was supposedly reviewed documents pertaining to this case. It became quite obvious when Amy Kishek asked Dean Haldenby if he had indeed presented the SAC report, pertaining to the aftermath of last week's meeting, to the lawyer when he received legal opinion. The current president of the SFUO stuttered a few times said a few things but failed to answer her question. With the smile that was on Amy's face, it was clear that she had made her point known to the whole room and that Dean would be on record as having not answered the question.

Let me also voice my disgust with every single board member who decided to vote for the motion, whether it be for or against, when they damn well knew there was an obvious conflict of interest. SHAME ON YOU ALL. Instead of upholding the constitution, you all decided that your reputation was far more important.

I'd also like to congratulate the board members (the few honest souls left in the BOA) who declared on record that they abstained from voting because they recognized there was in fact a conflict of interest. You are the honest people that students entrusted to represent them.

Oh and I'm not done yet... I'm actually far from being done. Let me just inform whoever reads this blog that the motion that Dean Haldenby presented did pass with amendments.

I'd also like to congratulate Samuel Breault for having put forward an amendment (which unfortunately failed) that would have allowed the public to be in attendance during the appeal process hence eliminating the list of only a select few being allowed to attend (which was apart of the original motion). It was argued by Breault that it would be hypocritical for the BOA to decide to hold these proceedings behind closed doors when the BOA as a whole preaches transparency. Furthermore, many of those board members who have been highly critical of the U of O's Senate when that institution holds closed door meetings, voted against this Breault's motion.

Where is the evidence to show that the current SAC arbitrator is incapable of moving forward with this appeal process. Many board members asked repeatedly what these supposed "irregularities" were citing that they themselves were unaware of such information. Why has the SAC been put into question when, as an institution, it would be compared to the Supreme Court of Canada. Does this mean that every single decision rendered by this institution throughout the year is illegitimate and should be put into question?

Continuing with the original motion that suggests relieving the current SAC members from this case and appointing 5 new arbitrators, how will the process be viewed to be any more legitimate? What Dean proposed here is to try to find 5 qualified volunteers to seat on the SAC Committee, within the span of a week, to replace the current SAC members in rendering a final decision. Not only does this sounds unreasonable, it seems almost impossible. To make matters worst, it is a great lack of transparency. Not to mention that Dean himself admitted being apart of the committee who selects and appoints these arbitrators.

The current SAC members were appointed to their positions without prior knowledge of which cases they might be called upon to render a verdict on. That is to say that pretty much any student of this university who is "relatively informed" about what's going on around campus has some sort of knowledge about this specific case. How will it be determined that the chosen few who replace the current SAC members will be absolutely impartial when it comes to this case having (most likely) already known exactly which case they will be called upon to render a decision on (also not to mention the possibility that they might have already formed some sort of opinion on the matter).

I have one final thing that disgusted me far more than anything else during this meeting: Dean Haldenby calling the vote on this his own motion before anyone had the chance to request a role call vote. It was obvious that he made DAMN SURE THAT NOBODY WOULD EVEN HAVE THE CHANCE TO REQUEST IT.

Oh, and if you're wondering why the current SFUO president would make such a partisan move, look no further than Seamus Wolfe's Twitter comment made on March 11th 2009 at 8:30 pm: "ah. Dean Haldenby...my saviour....it's so great to have him on side....now, who do we appoint to the SAC....Federico? Is that allowed?8:30 PM Mar 11th from web" (in case Seamus may have tried to delete this from his comments you can look for yourself). (AND FYI just in case anyone didn't get my little sarcastic punch here at partisanship, this isn't Seamus' actual Twitter page).

In the end, with the number of abstentions, the Chair of the BOA, Federico Carvajal was called up to make the final decision. What wasn't exactly surprising is that he himself anticipated such an outcome and was ready; while he announced that the motion would pass, he was quick to pass around a letter that he had from the lawyer explaining why he was allowing the motion to pass ignoring the fact that many people abstained from the final vote.