In the weeks leading up to and following the October General Assembly (GA), my email inbox has been flooded, my phone has been ringing off the hook, and my days have consisted of back to back meetings. To be honest, while this has been incredibly overwhelming, this has also been pretty amazing.
Logistically, there were some issues at the GA – I saw them, and tried to react quickly with SSMU’s team of staff and volunteers to resolve them as they popped up. However, there were some things I could not fix. These include receiving motions two weeks before the GA, which the Steering Committee must review before they could be confirmed to be on the agenda. This was too last minute to book any large space on campus, such as Leacock 132. With the upsetting events in Ottawa happening just a few hours before the GA, people’s safety was my first priority. Unfortunately, this meant more limitations on the number of people that could easily attend the GA because of limited space and security agents. Interestingly, the GA usually struggles to reach and maintain its quorum of one-hundred undergraduates. In years past, motions like those discussed at last week’s GA brought out a few hundred people – around six-hundred. I was prepared for eight-hundred, but this was not enough.
In addition to the logistical issues I highlighted above, some students are unhappy with last month’s GA because of their personal values and beliefs. I’ve received complaints and feedback from students who believe the Israel-Palestine motion, sand others like it, should never be able to come to the GA. In contrast, I’ve also talked with students who believe the Israel-Palestine motion should not have been allowed to be postponed indefinitely.
To address this, I would like to highlight a few things:
- First, there are no articles in SSMU’s Constitution and By-laws limiting what motions can and cannot come to the GA. Because of this, my jurisdiction is limited (and that of the other SSMU Executives and Steering Committee).
- Second, the Israel-Palestine motion was brought to the SSMU by petition. This means that SSMU did not write it, but it instead came from fellow undergraduates.
- Third, the Israel-Palestine motion underwent intensive scrutiny by the Steering Committee, which is made up of seven students and two student staff. Changes were proposed by Steering Committee, which the Speaker reviewed in a meeting with the writers of the motion.
I think it’s SSMU’s responsibility to be a vehicle for discussion. I envision the GA to be a space for debate and voting to occur in as safe and fair a way as possible when the student body brings topics to us. What topics end up on the table are decisions for students to make.
Seeing such a great number of students engaged about something to me indicates that the students at McGill are engaged, and are not as apathetic as many claim. There are a diversity of opinions on our campus, last Wednesday’s GA exemplified that. I strongly believe that this diversity is beautiful.
