The Silhouette

Page 1

SEX AND THE STEEL CITY 28-page special issue inside www.thesil.ca

McMASTER UNIVERSITY'S STUDENT NEWSPAPER / THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2010

VOLUME 80, NO. 20

Est. 1930

Election results under scrutiny

Mary Koziol gets the vote

JEFF GREEN

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Mary Koziol’s election win has been surrounded with questions of foul play, including substantial evidence that would indicate that current MSU President Vishal Tiwari was involved Koziol’s campaign beyond the role of supporter. “It is correct that the [Elections Committee] received several complaints that Mr. Tiwari played a potential role in Ms. Koziol’s campaign,” commented Chief Returning Officer Jonathan Scheiding. “For these actions to constitute formal campaign representation, it must be clear that the ‘supporter’ had involved themselves extensively in election-related debates (online for example). In short, any isolated comments are appropriate, but someone who displays an active and vested interest in defending or critiquing a candidate through a protracted debate, would move into the realm of a campaign representative,” Scheiding clarified. Tiwari defended his position in a response in which he stated, “This isn’t a violation, [be]cause I simply was not on the team.” Board of Governors member Norman Kearney submitted a complaint to the MSU Elections committee outlining Koziol a campaign meeting on Nov. 25, 2009 in which Tiwari was present. The former MSU speaker suggested that this would be a violation of Election Committee (EC) rules. “Given that full-time employees must request a leave of absence through the Board of Directors (4.E.i), which includes the President, in order to participate in campaigning for a candidate, the President, therefore, cannot provide support for a candidate, publically or privately, without creating a con• PLEASE SEE TIWARI, A5

WILL VAN ENGEN/ PHOTO EDITOR

Mary Koziol, the new president-elect, will begin her term as MSU president for the 2010-2011 academic year in May 2010. LILY PANAMSKY

ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

Mary Koziol was declared president-elect for the 2010-2011 academic year on Friday Feb. 5, following a two-week campaign and a twoday polling period. Koziol won after the fourth round of counting in a preferential voting system with 51.8 per cent of the total vote. This year’s voter turnout was 22.1 per cent, an increase from last’s years 12.5 per cent. Preferential voting is an electoral system where voters rank the candidates in order of preference. The ballots are counted in several rounds; in the first round, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated. The eliminated candidate’s votes are then redistributed based on the second choice. The process carries on until there is a winner. The Silhouette sat down for a question

McGuinty comes to Mac

and answer period with Koziol to explore key issues regarding students and services and her plans for the future. Q: What issues do you expect to address right away? Mary: I think that one of the largest problems with being the MSU president is that you only have one year, so I think it’s really important to front-load your presidency, so to start off with issues that students are most concerned about, so looking at stuff like the internal review and facilitating the transition in terms of making sure that the internal issues are looked at first. Q: What kind of internal issues? The stuff that is brought up with the internal review, so services, business, management. Everything within that domain needs to be well understood before you can look at additional features that you want to incorporate.

ability to students? ...What kinds of initiatives should students expect to see? Mary: I think informal accountability is important; I also think that formal accountability is important, but I think you have to understand that not every student is going to appreciate both types and you have to appeal to student based on what they prefer. In terms of informal accountability, I want to include open-air office hours, Twitter—so just being able to monitor what the pres is doing with their day is very important. I think perception is one of the biggest problems within this position. If a student only sees their president for only five minutes per day, how are they going to translate this into what the president is doing? So I think being able to track how the president spends their workweek. Another example—this is more formal—but including logs of time.

Q: What do you think of informal account-

• PLEASE SEE Q&A, A4

COCA-COLA REFERENDUM

Majority votes ‘no’ to exclusivity

NO

1966 - 55.4%

SUPPLIED PHOTO

SELMA AL-SAMARRAI SENIOR NEWS EDITOR

On the morning of Thursday, Feb. 4, Ontario’s Premier Dalton McGuinty paid McMaster University a visit. As arranged by Political Science Professor Henry J. Jacek, McGuinty attended the third year Political Communication class. McGuinty’s visit began with a discussion regarding his principles of political leadership, followed by a question and answer segment with an estimated 170 attendants, including the class’s students and some McMaster faculty. Jacek explained, “I bring quite a few speakers to my classes because I want to bring in people who are successful practitioners in the political life.” McGuinty’s visit to McMaster coincided with his recent announcement to prorogue the Ontario Legislature for a week in March prior to presenting a Speech from the Throne.

1584 - 44.6 %

YES 0

500

Abstain: 711 Spoiled: 61

1000

1500

2000

Total Valid Ballots: 3550 Total Ballots Cast: 4280

SELMA AL-SAMARRAI SENIOR NEWS EDITOR

McMaster University students have spoken. With a majority vote of 55.4 per cent, exactly 1,966 students voted no to the McMaster Student Union (MSU) participating in any future exclusive deals with Coca-Cola. The option of pursuing a Coca-Cola referendum was pre-

sented in March of 2009 by last year’s MSU Vice President Finance Ian Finlay, who felt that the previous Coca-Cola referendum of 2005 no longer represents the current student population. Since then, McMaster Campus Choice has registered as the official opposition to any future exclusive deals with CocaCola, arguing that Coca-Cola corporations engage in unethical business practices in countries such as India, Colombia and El Salvador. On the other side of the debate, when the MSU and the University participated in a 10-year exclusive deal with CocaCola starting in 1998 the participating members received a total of $10 million dollars in revenue. However, prior to the referendum, MSU President Vishal Tiwari explained that there is no guarantee that similar financial benefits will be provided if an exclusive deal were pursued now. Sidartha Murjani, a member of McMaster Campus Choice, expressed his opinion of the referendum results, “This is a very small step in the right direction towards having more ethical beverage choices on campus. Not allowing the MSU to negotiate an exclusive contract with Coca-Cola will hopefully bring in some other companies... What we are hoping for is that local and organic beverages will be allowed to sell their products.” Ian Finlay, the registered side that advocated for the MSU pursuing exclusive deals with Coca-Cola, explained, “My issue is I still do not see enough proof to rob students of the benefits which they would receive from a contract.” • PLEASE SEE REJECTION, A5


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