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VOLUME 107, ISSUE 69
Lesarge disqualified from KUCSC pres race Christine Bonk GAZETTE STAFF In an unprecedented decision, the King’s University College Students’ Council elections committee has disqualified presidential candidate Jonathan Lesarge from running. Lesarge, the current vice-president student issues for the KUCSC, was in the process of vying for the position of 2014-2015 KUCSC president when his campaigning efforts came under scrutiny. After failing to meet the deadline to declare presidential candidacy and surpassing the market value limit placed on campaigning material, Lesarge accumulated demerit points exceeding the 20-point limit, requiring his removal from the campaign. While an appeal and reevaluation by the committee conceded a lowering of Lesarge’s 24-point demerit penalty to 21, the original decision of disqualification was upheld. In a statement released by the KUCSC on their Facebook page, the council noted that Lesarge’s initial violation, a failure to declare his candidacy on time, should have been enough to prevent Lesarge from
running in this election. “[We] would like to note that without completed candidacy forms, usually a candidate would not even be allowed to run. Jon was given a grace period to hand in such forms and still failed to meet the requirements for candidacy.” While an exception was made that allowed Lesarge to run, he was disqualified after accepting donations from a friend for his campaign website and video that surpassed the $100 limit. The KUCSC fair market value policy states that donations or discounts received by the candidate will count toward their election budget in proportion to their standard value on the market. In a Facebook post, Lesarge stated that he believes this policy does not take into account the inherent nature of student elections. “The reality is that in student elections we rely on the efforts of our friends to help us make our campaigns manageable — candidates call upon friends who are skilled at graphic design to make posters and videographers to make YouTube ads,” Lesarge wrote.
“Student elections would not be possible without the support from friends with various skills.” Aside from Lesarge’s concerns, there have been complaints from students concerning the vagueness of the policy and its failure to account for the market value of the labour put into the campaign. While current KUCSC president Jen Carter admits the policy is unclear, she believes the spirit of the policy justified the committee’s decision. “At the end of the day it’s about making sure there is a level playing field for all candidates,” said Carter, who is running for USC vice-president external on Team Helfand. “In this case it means that if one person has resources at a free or discounted value, they should be expected to pay what the other candidate would have to pay at market value.” Lesarge’s disqualification follows his recent conflict with the KUCSC’s honorarium committee addressing alleged performance issues in his position as vice-president student >> see LESARGE pg.2
KING’S CRUSADE OVER. Jonathan Lesarge, one of two King’s University College Students’ College presidential candidates, was disqualified from the race this past weekend. He was handed 21 demerit points for inappropriate campaign spending.
Le Nguyen cleared of conflict of interest Iain Boekhoff NEWS EDITOR The University Students’ Council Governance Office has rejected a complaint about a potential conflict of interest involving Lisa Le Nguyen, current Social Science Students’ Council president, and her affiliation with the Bloomberg Institute. Le Nguyen was employed as a campus ambassador for Bloomberg last summer. Her job was to promote the Bloomberg Aptitude Test on campus and get students to take the test, which was free until December 31, 2013. To encourage students to take the test, Bloomberg offered to donate $2 per test taken to go towards the SSSC’s charity of choice, which was the London
Children’s Health Foundation. Le Nguyen was also paid by Bloomberg for her efforts in promoting its test. She made a combination of commission and a lump sum payout triggered at certain levels of test takers from Western. However, Le Nguyen, who is running for re-election, said all the money she would make personally as a result of her employment for Bloomberg was being donated to the SSSC to donate to charity as well. Concerns were raised about Le Nguyen’s use of Western’s mass e-mail system, Accting1, to e-mail all Social Science students about the charity initiative. In the e-mails, Le Nguyen identified herself only as president of the SSSC, and did not mention her affiliation with
Bloomberg. There had been some confusion about the nature of SSSC and Le Nguyen’s relationship with Bloomberg and what money was being donated, but in archived Facebook posts, Le Nguyen makes clear that she was receiving additional money from Bloomberg which she was donating to the SSSC to do with as they wished. “That paycheque is going straight into my council to donate to charity if they wish, or I gave the option for my council to do what they would like to see with that money,” Le Nguyen said in an interview. “My council raised so much money for charity, I wanted to raise even more so it’s going directly towards my council.”
In total, approximately $2,000 will be donated at the end of the year by Bloomberg to the SSSC, according to Le Nguyen. Kojo Hayward, the USC’s governance officer, said the matter was discussed within the Governance Office yesterday and Le Nguyen was found to not have a conflict of interest. Le Nguyen’s employment with Bloomberg did not impede her ability to do her job as president, nor did it appear to influence her decision making, and therefore did not violate the USC’s Conflict of Interest Policy, according to Hayward. While Hayward was not aware of the Accting1 e-mails during the Governance Office investigation into the matter, he said that the
wording made it seem as if it was from the SSSC as a whole and that this would not constitute a conflict of interest if the SSSC executive were aware of her employment with Bloomberg. Part of the reason for the finding was the fact that the complaint was made only now, in the middle of election season. “I figured out when [the complainant] figured out that she was potentially in a conflict of interest, and after I figured out it was November, so then after I wondered why was this not brought up in November?” Hayward said. “It seemed more than a coincidence that on the day voting initiates then that would be coming out.”