The CFS

It all started in the fall, when an undergraduate student wanted to ask his peers a single question. By the spring, the entire undergraduate population was involved, with over 40 per cent of the student population making it clear what they wanted.

The Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) is the Ontarion’s newsmaker of the year. Other than the CSA, no organization, group or person, was written about more extensively in the paper and spoken about more frequently in the Ontarion office. 

It was in September that a student by the name of Curtis Batuszkin started a petition drive that asked students whether they would like to vote on continued membership in the CFS, Canada’s largest student body. The CSA is a paying member of both the provincial and national components of the CFS, so two separate petitions requiring signatures from 10 per cent of undergraduates were circulated.

We knew it was a big story at the time; we certainly didn’t know how big it could get. Over the course of the fall semester, it was learned that the petitions to CFS-Ontario were sent by a process server, not by registered mail, a CFS-Ontario bylaw. Batuszkin sent the petition again, this time by registered mail, and the Federation recognized it over a week after the deadline (petitions had to be sent six months in advance of the proposed referendum on March 29, 30, 31). According to affidavits, the original petitions had made it to CFS-Ontario on time. In February CFS-Ontario made it public that they were denying Guelph a referendum.

The national petitions had been plagued by several problems. Despite the fact that, like the provincial petitions, the university’s registrar had verified that over 10 per cent of students signed the petitions, the national executive determined that many names were illegible. They said the CSA was not cooperating with helping them verify the signatures further.

The CSA had always made it clear that they would support any student intent to exercise their democratic rights. They requested a judge decide on the referendum’s fate.

Well, if you were on campus at anytime in the last two weeks, it was pretty evident what happened. At the end of March, a judge decided that a referendum would take place on the Guelph campus.

And after three days of voting last week, students voted in favour of discontinuing membership in the CFS. Of the 7330 ballots that were cast, 73.5 per cent of students voted ‘No’ on continued membership, while 1675 voted ‘Yes.’ 

The CSA’s request to leave the CFS still needs to be approved by the CFS, and will need support at the CFS’s annual general meeting.

 

Arts Newsmaker of the Year

Specialized art student

The progressive nature of our city and campus here in Guelph has given the Ontarion no shortage of artistic and cultural events to report on over the last year. For example, back in September  we saw a performance by John Kilduf at Ed Video where he simultaneously ran on a treadmill, blended up fruit cocktails, painted outer space and appeared live on the internet.

This year, a lot of good things happened that brought originality and creative thought to the Arts & Culture section. But no person or event continually influenced the section like the art students in the specialized studio practice class.

Made up of 16 of the most promising art students in the school, the specialized kids showed their work both individually and in a group, every time presenting viewers with something new.

Mad scientist Stefan Herda took us into the bush to forage for twigs and berries that he then reduced to ink and pigments that coloured his canvases; he asked questions about process and temporality. The impermanence of Herda’s work has generated discussion, as over time much of the work will decay, transforming his paintings from timeless to  ephemeral.

But when the entire class got together, that was when the real fun happened. In early December, all 16 students took part in Triple Gulp, a group show that was a favourite of the year. The show was insightful with Darryn Doull investigation of the Artist-Curator, while Patrick Krzyzanowski’s pain-staking and hilarious watercolour painting that depicts two baseball teams in a massive pile-up as the result of a tie game reiterated the fact that art can be funny too.

If you want to catch one final showing of the talent of these 16 students, their work will be at Ed Video from April 12-18 in their final show called Let’s Make this Special. The opening reception will be on Saturday April 17 from 2pm to 5pm, and there will be no shortage of talent and imagination.

 

News Newsmaker of the Year

Universal Bus Pass

One of the biggest stories for the news section this year, not to mention one of the most dramatic showings of student interest, was the universal transit pass.

The issue first came into play in December, when the announcement that the City of Guelph decided to reconsider the viability of the transit pass that university students had been enjoying for years, took the U of G community by surprise. This reconsideration came as part of a large budget evaluation process in which the City of Guelph sought to make up for a deficit.

Immediately upon hearing the news, students began mobilizing around the issue, working to make it clear that the universal bus pass was something they valued greatly in their Guelph experience. A Facebook group was established, letters were sent to city councilors expressing concerns about losing the universal transit pass, and finally, representatives from the Central Student Association (CSA), the Graduate Student Association (GSA) and the university administration attended a packed city council meeting to plead their cases, along with representatives from nearly one hundred other community groups facing cuts.

At that time, it was decided that the transit discussion would take place outside of a budget discussion and the CSA, GSA and Brenda Whiteside, the Associate Vice President, Student Affairs, went into negotiations with Guelph Transit to come to an agreement that was mutually beneficial for both parties. In negotiations, Guelph Transit requested more money for the universal pass, citing the increased or improved transit services that students were receiving for an unfair price. Eventually, the negotiations produced what both parties considered to be a fair price for students to pay per semester for transit: $82.15, as opposed to the $61.63 that students had been paying before.

But, after all those negotiations, it was still up to the students to decide if the increase was fair, and if faced with a nearly $20 increase, they were willing to spend more money.

Students voted, and while the results were held back until the graduate elections were over, when they were eventually released, they reflected a resounding approval of both the increase in price and continuation of the pass, with a 90 per cent approval in undergraduate voting and an 81 per cent approval in graduate voting.

 

Sports Newsmaker of the Year

Matt Brunsting, Kyle Boorsma, Allan Brett

You’ve read about them on nearly a weekly basis, and now, once more.

They run faster and further than anyone else, and then they do it all over again. For the 2009-10 season, the Ontarion sports newsmakers of the year are runners Matt Brunsting, Kyle Boorsma and Allan Brett. The Gryphon running program is undoubtedly the best in the country with the men winning the OUA and CIS team titles in cross-country and track.

The three national class athletes combined for OUA and CIS gold medals in both cross-country and track and field, with each star runner landing atop the podium at some point during the season.

Brunsting started his string of success early in the season, winning the season-opening Guelph Open in the Arboretum and following that up with silver at OUAs, gold at CIs and a bronze medal finish in the AGSI Canadian cross-country championships in November. It was the second consecutive year that Brunsting won the national title, cementing his status as one of the top cross-country runners in Canadian university history.

Injuries hampered Brunsting’s track and field season, however, he did manage to secure two critical points at the CIS championships and finished 25th at last weekend’s FISU world university cross-country championships, capping off a brilliant five years as a Gryphon.

Not to be outdone, Boorsma ran the most complete season of any runner, taking silver in both the OUA and CIS cross-country championships, along with three gold medals at the OUA and CIS track and field championships. Boorsma also competed in the FISU races, finishing his season in fine form with a 15th-place finish, tying the best all-time finish by a Canadian male. Boorsma was honoured on Thursday night as the university’s male athlete of the year for the second consecutive year.

The third, and largely unheralded, member of the trio is Brett, a third-year athlete and the OUA cross-country champion. Brett was a force throughout the entire season in both cross-country and track and field, medaling in both sports and adding a 21st-place finish at FISUs.

Little more can be said about these three men, but they are truly elite athletes and deserving sports newsmakers of the year.

 

Top stories of the year for The Ontarion

The pissoirs downtown

The Ontarion’s first big centre story in September was on the odd change to Guelph’s downtown landscape that popped up over the summer: outdoor urinals. As a pilot project to cut down on Guelph’s downtown public urination problem, the city installed two public urinals to encourage those to choose a urinal over an alley when nature called. The project was met with mixed reviews and eventually the urinals disappeared.

Fair trade on campus

After getting wind that the CSA may have purchased their official gear from a clothing producer that wasn’t in line with their ethical purchasing policy, students made public displays of their disapproval. It was discovered that that the clothing producer the CSA chose, Gildan, was in fact not in violation of the purchasing policy. They did, however, decide to explore other, more ethical apparel choices for future needs.

INSITE Arts Conference

At an event put on by the CSA’s Human Rights Office aimed to promote “Resistance Through Art,” a drawn picture that depicted a person wearing a strap-on dildo and penetrating the eye socket of what appeared to be a Catholic priest was distributed around the UC. The piece of art upset some in the U of G community and it was requested that it be removed from the event. INISTE organizers defended the presence of the picture on campus, saying that it made a commentary on the oppression that queers have historically felt from the church.

The Human Library

For the second year in a row, the main floor of the library was transformed for an event seeking to dispel myths and stereotypes about marginalized groups through one-on-one conversation. People who face misconceptions or stereotypes in their lives volunteered to be ‘human books’ that others could take out for a half hour of productive conversation.

Hanlon Creek Business Park

After a summer that saw protesters taking up residence on the Hanlon Creek Business Park construction site, construction was delayed until the following spring. While protesters maintain that the area should be environmentally protected and from that, a small victory was achieved, some protestors have been sued by the City of Guelph for damages to the site and delays in construction.

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