March 20, 2023
THE VARSITY The University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880
UTMSU slates clash over private recording Lexey Burns Deputy News Editor
On March 13, 2023, It’s Time UTM — a candidates’ slate running in the University of Toronto Mississauga Students’ Union’s (UTMSU) upcoming elections, headed by presidential candidate Sam Aboul Hosn and campaign manager Adam Aboul Hosn — released a statement on Instagram with two other election slates, UTM United and Elevate UTM. A few days later, they took down the Instagram post. The statement alleged that, on March 7, a student collaborating with the Thrive UTM team — another slate in the upcoming elections managed by current UTMSU president Maëlis Barre — “illegally recorded” Niguel Walker, a candidate for vice-president external and part of the It’s Time UTM slate. The statement claimed that the person recording influenced Walker “to talk in a way that would yield him demerit points.” Thrive UTM denied a connection to the student. Barre alleged that she received the recording “randomly” from a student and sub-
mitted the recording to the Chief Returning Officer (CRO) Elias Ancer as evidence that Walker violated the Election Procedure Code (EPC) by trash talking Thrive UTM. After the slates published the statement, Thrive UTM received 25 demerit points per slate member for “Failure to comply with the spirit of elections,” according to the UTMSU elections’ CRO. After Thrive UTM appealed the decision, the CRO lowered demerit points to 10 each for the incident, as of the time of publication. All of the slates, excluding Thrive, received 10 demerit points per candidate for “Unapproved material.” Voting in the UTMSU elections took place on March 14 to March 16, from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, daily. The recording In an interview with The Varsity, Walker claimed that, during a conversation with another student on March 7, he discussed personal and private information including where he lived, who he lived with, and his family situation. The other student took an audio recording of the conversation without notifying Walker. In a message to The Varsity, Ancer wrote that “there is no personal information from Niguel in that recording that I believe would violate any laws.” The Varsity has not been able to confirm the contents of the voice recording. In an interview with The Varsity, a third-year student, who wishes to remain anonymous due to fear of repercussions, admitted to having created and shared the recording. They said that they felt uncomfortable during their conversation with Walker, during which Walker discussed Thrive UTM and its campaign with a passive-aggressive tone. The student began recording the conversation and said that they sat with Walker for close to an hour. The next
Vol. CXLIII, No. 22
day, the student realized that the recording might be more serious than they first believed and when passing the Thrive UTM campaign table in William G. Davis Building, the student airdropped the recording to Barre and deleted it off their phone. The student told The Varsity that they did not realize the repercussions that the recording would have for them or for Walker and affirmed that they did not mean to cause Walker or anyone else harm. They began to fear for their own safety after seeing hateful and negative comments on Instagram about them and their actions. Barre, who is on leave from her UTMSU presidency while she manages the Thrive UTM campaign, decided to send the recording to the CRO. Both Gulfara (Gulfy) Bekbolatova, who is the presidential candidate from Thrive UTM, and Barre told The Varsity that there is no relationship between Thrive UTM and the student who recorded Walker. Sam told The Varsity that the recording “defies what the UTMSU fights for.” He noted that one of the UTMSU’s main campaigns is Consent Is Mandatory. Both Sam and Walker have reported experiencing mental distress related to the recording. The statement the three slates published reads, “Niguel has been subjected to great mental stress, making him highly hypersensitive and paranoid when engaging in conversations out of fear of being recorded, again, without his consent.”