Board of Administration of the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa - Sunday July 25th 2010

Open publication - Free publishing - More meeting

Open publication - Free publishing - More structure

SFUO Services make a financial "contribution"

At the last Board of Administration meeting, that took place on Sunday June 20 2010, some interesting information was divulged during question period. Board members were made aware that 5 SFUO funded services, including the Pride Centre, Foot Patrol, the Student Appeal Centre, the Women's Resource Centre and one other service, pooled funds together to cover the cost of buses that transported student protesters from in and around the Ottawa area to Toronto to participate in the G20 protests.

Unfortunately, not all students who possibly would have wanted to attend the protests were made aware that such student-funded transportation was available to them. Why? Well, I sent this message to Amy Hammett, the SFUO Vice-President of Student Affairs and have yet to receive a response (but I will gladly add her response when she does reply):

Hello Amy,

First of all, I hope that you have settled in as the SFUO's new V.P. Student Affairs.

I am writing you concerning information that came to light at the last BOA meeting. Particularly, I am referring to student's money having been spent on buses that transported G20 protesters from Ottawa to Toronto. It has been said that this money came from student services: Foot Patrol, Pride Centre, Women's Resource Centre, Student Appeal Centre, and one other.

I would like for you to confirm that this is in fact true. Furthermore, if it is, I would like to know if this is a normal practice for student-funded SFUO services to donate money to such initiatives. I would also like to know how much money each specific service donated towards the cost of the buses and who would have had to approve such an expenditure I would also like to know if in fact these buses were publicized so that all students would have had the chance to take advantage of this transportation to Toronto. If not, why?


I am hoping that you will be able to answer these questions and clear up any discrepancies.

Looking forward to hearing back from you!

Cheers,

Brandon Clim

This message was sent on July 12th 2010 at approximately 9:05 am. It is now 9:16 am on July 21st 2010. I hope to be able to follow up soon on this issue.

UPDATE (July 23rd 2010): This article has been published in latest The Fulcrum.
Furthermore, this open letter to V.P. Student Affairs, Amy Hammett, also appeared in The Fulcrum.