Now that the SFUO elections have come to an end and a new executive has been chosen to lead the student body at the U of O into the future, I would like to share some final thoughts on the campaign in general and the final outcome. Also, I will venture into the future and predict the challenges that await the executive-elect.
Let me start by saying that, as many had predicted, this year's voter turnout took a nose-dive in comparison to last year's embarrassing 27,3% voter turnout. Only 21,88% of the eligible undergraduate student population casted their (online) ballots in this year's elections. This not only seems shows that students don't care how their money is spent, but it also demonstrates the continuation of a dangerous trend that has plagued campus elections: students have come to be disengaged with the SFUO. It is getting to the point that people are now wondering if future existence of the SFUO as a representative body of the student population. For now, let's get to last night's elections' results (according to
the Fulcrum's article):
Referendum results
English Debating Society: NO 69.8% (Yes 30.2%)
Green Campus: YES 54.2% (No 45.8%)
U-Pass: YES 64.3% (No 35.7%)
2010-11 BOA-elect
Faculty of Arts: Danika Brisson, Mel Large, Gillian Lessard, Logan Ouellette, Martin Schoots-McAlpine
Faculty of Law, Common Law section: Hannah Draper
Faculty of Law, Civil Law section: Emilie Lemieux-Guenard
Telfer School of Management: Eric Hampel, Andrei Huranchyk
Faculty of Science: Rosy Fournier, Chouaib Redouane
Faculty of Health Sciences: Julie Brezden, Adrian Herod, Hafsa Khan
Notice that the results for the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Faculty of Engineering are missing. After having announced the results to the crowd, the Chief Returning Officer Elizabeth Doneathy took the microphone and had
this announcement to make:
This afternoon, the Elections' Office noted certain irregularities in ballots casted in the Faculties of Social Sciences and Engineering. There was an insufficient number of irregular ballots to affect the outcome of the executive races, referendums or Senate. However, an investigation will have to be conducted before the results of the Social Sciences BOA and Engineering can be determined (Before repeating this announcement in French, she proceeded to roll her eyes at the rowdy crowd)
2010-11 University of Ottawa Senate-elects
Faculty of Arts: Martin Schoots-McAlpine
Faculty of Law: David Girard
Faculty of Engineering: Luc Lendrum
Telfer School of Management: Andrei Huranchyk
Faculty of Medicine: Andrew Boozary
Faculty of Science: Chouaib Redouane
Faculty of Health Sciences: Kyle Ryc
Faculty of Social Sciences: Sarah-Jayne King
2010-11 SFUO executive-elects (according to
La Rotonde's article)
President
Tyler Steeves 55,9%
Amalia Savva 28,3%
Bruno Gélinas-Faucher 10,5%
Sébastien St-Amour 5,2%
VP Finance
Sarah Jayne King 46,5%
Sydney Loko 30,3%
Maureen Hasinoff 23,2%
VP Communications
Paige Galette 63,6%
Denommée 36,4%
VP University Affairs
Ted Horton 45,9%
Osama Berrada 29,9%
Stephanie Marentette 24,3%
VP Student Affairs
Amy Hammett 55,8%
Nicole Tishler 44,2%
VP Social
Alexandre Chaput 86,7%
For those who didn't know, I will begin by saying that I'm in the Faculty of Social Sciences. I will also say that I volunteered for
Lynne Lessard, a candidate who ran for the lone Social Sciences' Senate seat. Lessard ran against Matika Lauzon, Sarah Jayne King and Maureen Hasinoff. King and Hasinoff also both ran for VP Finance with King having come out on top in that race. That's all fine dandy, but here's my problem: did anyone notice how none of King's (or Hasinoff's) posters said she was running for the Senate? If students weren't on the ball, (and obviously most weren't with a 21,3% voter turnout) they would have been led to think that the only candidate running for the Social Sciences' Senate seat was Lynne because she was the only candidate who had a posters pertaining to the Senate candidacy. Not taking away anything from any other of the candidate's campaigns, I for one know that Lynne spent all her time on campus during the campaign period doing class presentations from 8:30 am until 7:00 pm and meeting with students in between those class presentations. I realize that her opponents probably also had similar schedules for their campaigns, only Matika Lauzon's website mentions that he is also running for the Social Sciences' Senate seat. What is unfortunate is that King, being more preoccupied with her campaign to become SFUO's next VP Finance, only had a short, uninspired platform (compared to her lengthy platform for VP Finance) on the SFUO's Elections' website. She still somehow managed to get elected to the University of Ottawa's Senate seemingly with little to no effort.
Getting back to the SFUO executive-elects, I was pleased to learn that
Tyler Steeves came away with the win having received over 50% of the popular vote. I, myself and others weighed in on the elections' results via the La Rotonde's live blogging page where a lively crowd of participants exchanged their own thoughts. What immediately shocked me was the fact that
Amalia Savva placed a far off second in the presidential race. Furthermore, she DOUBLED the votes fetched by
Bruno Gélinas-Faucher. One participant, who went by the pseudonym
Frenchie, said: "
Wow Savva a plus de votes que Bruno il doit y avoir ereur". Another participant,
Josiane, had this to say: "
ah ouach, même Savva a dépassé Gélinas-Faucher?!??! J'arrive pas à le croire!!" And finally,
Anonyme said: "
Amalia en 2e place ??????? QUOI !!!!" Is this a case of bad publicity is better than no publicity? Well apparently 28,3% of the 21,88% thought so...
The VP Finance results weren't at all what I had expected them to be. Clearly, out of the 3 candidates,
Maureen Hasinoff was by far the most experienced out of them all. She had a clear vision for the SFUO's businesses and managed to communicate that students could count on her to be responsible with their money. Somehow, through her broken French (although I do give her credit for trying),
Sarah Jayne King was able to pull off what I consider to be
one of two upsets in these elections (I'll get to the other obvious one in a second). From what I witnessed during the elections' debate, King had very little experience, was very hesitant with plans to renovate 1848, and would rather see an additional Café Alt station opened at SITE. Keep that last point in mind for next year; with an already indebted Café Alt (which if I may add is ridiculously expensive), she claims that she will "save you money" by opening a Café Alt "satellite" station in SITE. Now that financial prudence!
The
second major upset, in my opinion, is the race for VP Student Affairs.
Amy Hammett won by the slimmest of margins with 55,8% over
Nicole Tishler. When Tishler replied to Hammett's claim that Chartwells throws out good, packaged food, I thought for sure Hammett's campaign was over. Tishler said she had spoken with one of the managers from Chartwells and that Hammett's claim was unfounded. Even if this was true, Chartwells would obviously be throwing out the food because it was NOT FIT TO EAT. So, Amy, why would you suggest that you would arrange for Chartwells to give their "
garbage" to hungry students?
Probably the surest race of them all (other than Chaput's, of course) was
Ted Horton's 49,9% victory over his opponents
Osama Berrada and
Stephanie Marentette. They just couldn't compete with Ted's experience and successes in the past year. I mean common, the guy was very influencial on the Fall Reading Week file which will come to be for the first time in the 2010-11 academic year! Not to mention the work he has put into the U-Pass project.
Alexandre Chaput's sailed to smooth victory with the overwhelming majority (86,7%) favouring a second mandate as VP Social which will be much longer than his current mandate. You may remember the by-election that took place back in October 2009 when Chaput was handed the reigns, replacing Jean Guillaume who resigned as VP Social amongst immense controversy.
Speaking of controversy, don't think that everything's over just yet. It's almost certain that some sort of result contesting will be brought forward, plus the Dubois-Savva saga will make for some interesting days and weeks to come.
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