THE MCGILL TRIBUNE
Volume 5, Number 20
Published by the Students' Society of McGill University
Tuesday 4 March, 1986
Daily Staffers May Be Impeached: Students To Vote by Pablo Policzer The Daily Publications Society (DPS) Judicial Committee has allowed a referendum to be held on a motion to dismiss the staff of the M cCill Daily. This decision overrules that of the Chief Returning Officer, John Parfitt, who had previously declared the referendum questions “ unconstitutional." The referendum, as it w ill be posed to students, calls for the immediate dismissal of the entire Daily staff and for a new interim staff to be appointed, who would relinquish their power as soon as ten new people became regular staff members. Jeffrey Edwards and Dean Rosier, the initiators of this referendum, called this a “ landmark decision, because it changes the present interpretation of the constitution. Now the students final ly have a recourse if the staf^ of the Daily in the future is ever as contemptuous as they have been. The staff is now fully accountable to students." The Daily's Editor-in-Chief Melinda W itts to c k , q u e s tio n e d th e ap-
propriateness of the methods used by Rosier and Edwards. "It bothers me. It would be appropriate to impeach the staff if they had acted unconstitutional ly, but that's not the case. We could lose advertising, and the new staff might not know how to use the equipment. We have thousands of dollars worth of machinery here that's in danger of be ing ruined. It's a drastic, heavy-handed measure and it's just not constructive." Rosier and EdwaiOs had proposed three different versions of their question to the DPS Judicial Committee. Their original question called for the new in terim staff to be appointed by the Students' Council. This was ruled inap propriate because " it would put into question the autonomy of the Daily from SSMU." The second question, to be considered if the first one was re jected, called for the same dismissal of the staff, but for the re-appointment to be done "b y the four (4) student representatives on the Board of Direc tors (BoD) of the Daily Publications Society."
The Daily argued that this provision was unconstitutional according to item 5.5 of the DPS Constitution which states that "five voting members of the Board of Directors shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of all business." In other words, without at least one of the now-present three Daily staff members on the BoD, there cannot be quorum. The Judicial Committee ruled that "ac cording to the wording of question II, it is merely the student representatives on the Board and not the Board itself who would make the decision, so that the quorum problem does not arise." Wittstock, though unhappy with the decision, remarked that she was prepared to stand by it. Her attack, rather, was directed against the nature of Rosier and Edwards' action itself. "Their lack of honesty bothers me. If they don't want an alternative media, I wish they'd have the courtesy to deal with that question upfront. How can they treat the whole staff as a single block, when we're so diverse? Even the moderate people on staff are mad about
Ad Revenue Low
Radio McGill Funds Frozen
by Marc Wills Students' Society has put a freeze on major expenditures by Radio McGill (CRFM) just as the station is to submit its application for a license to broadcast in FM to the Canadian Radio and
T e le co m m u n ica tio n s C om m ission (CRTQ. Poor advertising revenue is cited as the reason for the freeze. VP Finance Marie Davis explained that StudSoc "has to make sure that the revenue CFRM brings in is in line with
Redmen Take QU AA Crown B e rn ie Rosanelli triu m p h a n tly cuts d o w n th e net fo llo w in g th e Red v ic to ry o v e r C o n c o rd ia S u n d ay . See page 15 fo r th e d etails. P h oto - Lionel C h o w
its expenditures." Communicating the concern of the Joint Management Com mittee, Davis has asked CFRM station manager Martha-Marie Kleinhans to keep expenditures to a minimum until the year's end. CFRM is presenting its application for an FM license to the CRTC today in Ot tawa. Last term, McGill students ap proved by referendum vote a fee levy requested by the radio station. The $2.00 per term fee, applicable as of January 1 for three years, w ill give CFRM the financial autonomy required to make the jump from cable to FM. If the FM application is turned down, the fees collected and not expended w ill be turned over to the Students' Society. But as energies have been poured in to the FM application, advertising revenue since the fall has been meagre. However, Davis cautioned that the freeze put on CFRM is "com m on prac tice." Several other McGill clubs are be ing closely monitored to make sure ex penses don't swamp revenues. CFRM keeps two accounts with Stud Soc. One contains the FM fee levy funds which at present are only being tapped for the charges related to the FM ap plication. The second account, which is affected by the freeze, contains funds allocated to the station by StudSoc at the beginning of the year. The original CFRM budget projected $23,000 in advertising revenue, roughly half of which was to be raised through a program guide. But the program guide fell through and advertising revenue in the first term amounted to $166. At the outset of the year, StudSoc granted $9,000 to CFRM. As a result of the recent freeze, CFRM can only draw on this fund for its necessary day-to-day expenses. But Kleinhans says that CFRM is not "going to spend any more Students' Society m oney." Emphasizing ef fervescency that an FM license for CFRM is inevitable, Kleinhans argues that the fee levy has made CFRM legally autonomous. Meanwhile, advertising revenue since January has amounted to $700. In the event Radio McGill obtains its FM radio license (and it faces stiff com petition from Concordia), the book keeping and administration of CFRM's account w ill still be conducted by StudJ Soc. The CFRM Board of Directors w ill be made up of two delegates from Radio McGill, two elected student representatives and the Executive Director of StudSoc.
this. It seems so juvenile, so petty. I think this is an obvious case of political discrimination." Her sentiments were shared by News Editor Joe Heath, who pointed out that "liberal or conservative, the whole staff w ill be im p e a ch e d . I'm being discriminated against because I have black and blue hair and reasonably unorthodox political views."
At the same poll, the Daily is putting forward ten constitutional amendments of their own as well as a fee hike ques tion. These w ill include proposals to: allow McDonald College and Continu ing Education students to join the DPS; to allow Additional Session students to pay only half of the full DPS fees; to change the referendum quorum from continued on page 7
Partial SIR Unsatisfactory
Charter Squeaks By by Brian Todd Last minute opposition by a group of five student councillors almost held-up the approval of the newly-revised Stud Soc constitution. Council approval of the constitution is necessary in order for it to go to referendum next week. The group of five were dismayed that the constitution did not include provi sions for SIR amendments to the con stitution. Such provisions would pro vide a means by which students could directly amend the constitution. The constitution was finally approved after a six-hour m eeting w h ich culminated in an announced vote which failed to meet the three-quarter majority necessary for constitutional amendments. Said James Green, "These infantile actions (of the oppos ing five) are preventing these things from going through." Corinne Smyth expressed the sen timents of the dissenters. "I feel we have voted students out of power." Luc Joli-Coeur conveyed the feelings of the majority. "I'd like to point out that Students' Society is like the Daily. You have to be involved to a certain level in order to change things." A motion to reconsider brought the
constitution to the floor again, after it was suggested that a more complete SIR clause could be brought to referendum in November. Said Maria Lang, Arts Representative to Council, " I w ill change my vote but I have doubts about Council's openness to SIR later." The second vote saw fifteen coun cillors in favour while three remained opposed. Neil Wright, one of the dissenters expressed little hope that this Council would consider a complete SIR for referendum in November. " I don't think it would get anywhere with this Council," he said. W right did not expect the opposition to turn into a formal "N o " Committee opposed to the new constitution. "This is still a better constitution than the last one. I still recommend it. It's unfor tunate that there are no substantial changes but I would be surprised if a " N o " committee was set-up by the other councillors." The new constitution which is published in this week's Tribune in cludes a section on faculty autonomy, the SIR section and a section creating the Policy Manual which w ill collect all Students' Society policy in one location.
The RaceForThe Top by Sophie Wilson and Michael Smart From amongst a field with disappoin tingly little experience in McGill student politics, one candidate apparently ap proached to run by outgoing president James Green might well walk away with next week's presidential elections. Indeed, Film Society Treasurer Paul Pickersgill, who is reportedly Green's choice for the presidency, is the only
NEWS ANALYSIS candidate actively involved in a Stud Soc club or activity. No candidate, even Pickersgill himself, has substantial ex perience at Students' Council or any other level of McGill student govern ment. Although Pickersgill faces four other pretenders to the Green throne, at the outset of the campaign he seems to be the front-runner. His opposition com prises two first-year students with ex perience in Varsity athletics, an editor of the M cCill Daily who proposes dissolving the McGill administration and a candidate who last year was renowned for but unelected in what he now admits was a flippant campaign. Compounding the problem of Pickersgill's relative inexperience with Stud Soc operations is the fact that he seems to have few well-defined objectives or priorities for his administration. Indeed, he admitted in an interview with the Tribune last week, he had no plans to seek the presidency until he was per suaded to do so by some "members of the present Executive." Apparently, he had originally planned only to run for the position of Vice-President (Finance)
of StudSoc. Green acknowledged yesterday that he might have influenced Pickersgill's decision to stand for the presidency. However, he said he has not endorsed Pickersgill's candidacy, although he and two members of his executive acted as nominators for Pickersgill. He said he d id jio t think it would be "appropriate" for an incumbent president to take sides in the election. Pickersgill says his work as treasurer of the Film Society has familiarized him with StudSoc budgeting procedures and takes credit for helping to eliminate the Film S o cie ty's $10,000 d e fic it. (However, the Tribune has learned that roughly $5000 of last year's shortfall is accounted for by extraordinary charges that did not appear in this year's budget.) Pickersgill harbours a vision of A Bet ter McGill which, like a new-born pup py, is warm and rather fuzzy. "Personal ly, I have a great dream of McGill as a place where everybody wants to be — where education is a positive ex perience," he intones. If there is a theme to Pickersgill's cam paign, it is that Students' Council should take its lead from the students themselves, rather than in itia tin g substantial changes of its own. For ex ample, Pickersgill said his administra tion would not intervene in the dispute over constitutional reform at the McGill Daily, as this year's Executive has done. "A ll we can do is encourage students to get directly involved with the Daily," to change the content of the paper, he said. Similarly, Pickersgill was reluctant to take a stand on the proposal that McGill joing the Rassemblement des associa tions étudiantes universitaires (RAEU), a continued on page 2