Alex Wagstaff
Managing Editor
@alexwagstaff
It’s so hard to choose! Do I pick the blatantly advantaged incumbents or the woefully underprepared challengers?
On one hand, we have the incumbent slate, York United, the reigning victors of last year’s non-elections when all executive roles were appointed. Three of their ranks are running for the same job as last year, and with gusto.
Everywhere I look at York, their many lavish posters beseech me. Their faces are familiar—the same ones plastered all over campus, flaunting everything they’ve done for us, on microwaves and next to toilets.
The home-team advantage is pretty strong. While their competitors were presumably busy with class, the three incumbent executives—Vanessa Hunt, Robert Cerjanec, and Alastair Woods—were actually barred from taking more than three credits per semester by YFS bylaws. Instead, they worked 40 hours a week for the student union, immersing themselves in student politics in exchange for a $25,000 salary.
I don’t resent them for getting paid; not one bit. What I’m getting at is this: is it any wonder that Hunt and company seem better prepared? This is their job, and it got handed to them on a platter just a year ago. It’s probably a good thing they have competition this year, lest students start asking why their leaders haven’t truly been elected in over two years. Given that we pay $1.55 per credit in YFS fees, it has certainly been a case of taxation without representation.
And then there are the challengers. No, I didn’t forget about them, but I might just be the only one on campus who didn’t. The first few days of the campaign period were awash in York United ads, but where was Free York? No posters, no handbills, and no canvassing until well after the campaign had already begun.
We’re currently in the midst of the voting period. York United acolytes are everywhere, flanking students and flogging the vote, as close to the booths as election bylaws allow. Free York advocates, on the other hand, are nowhere to be seen.
I’m sorry, guys. Honestly, I’ve been batting for you in the little word-tussles I have with my friends and the other editors here at the paper. But #letsbringDRAKEtoYORK? That’s your motto? Drake’s a pretty popular guy, but take a look at the people you’re running against. They’re not even speaking the same language.
York United, for all their faults, know what the issues are. It’s another question entirely whether their dreams of tuition cuts and improving safety are actually within the grasp of student union leaders. They aren’t. But damn if they don’t know how to run a campaign.
Don’t get me wrong. I certainly don’t endorse York United. If only for new blood, if only to forget the corrupt past, if only to pick the alternative; pick Free York, or an independent.
And so it is, York students elect their leaders for the first time in years. When we’ll have a fair election is anybody’s guess.
Podcast: http://www.excal.on.ca/?p=17195
