BUSAC Report - March 16, 2010

This is once again a fairly short (topically, anyway) BUSAC report. The CASA Lobby Conference takes up an entire week of time, during which it’s difficult to conduct other business via e-mail. That, and I’ve had only 2 in-office days since the last report.

OUSA/Food for Thought

Last week, OUSA launched our newest campaign, called “Food for Thought”. The OSAP system expects that students can live off of a food budget of $7.50 per day, so OUSA has set out to test this theory with 5 students who are looking to eat on this budget for three weeks, amidst their school and part-time jobs. They are blogging and vlogging their experiences at www.ousa.ca, and examining how this may differ from their normal lifestyle, how healthy they are eating, and other reactions.

Brock’s very own Rachel Crane has volunteered to help us out, and she has been amazing thus far! Her opening video and first week of blogs are amazing, and she has been featured in numerous media sources, including the radio, and the FRONT PAGE of the Toronto Star on the first campaign day! Congratulations Rach, and good luck the rest of the way!

There was also an OUSA Steering Committee meeting on March 3rd, which consisted mainly of preparation for this weekend’s upcoming General Assembly, and the Partners in Higher Education Dinner coming up at the end of this month.

I also spent some time doing the final mid-year update of the OUSA budget for presentation to General Assembly. My last work in that area will be wrapping up the year and preparing the preliminary budget for next year.

Federal Budget

On March 4th, the federal government introduced their budget. It was one of great restraint, with some spending cuts in many departments. Post-secondary education was untouched from the cuts, which is a positive, and did see a few small investments. However, it is my opinion that these are piecework and not incredibly useful additions, we could have used them in other areas instead, including financial aid or sector research.

The government gave the Tri-Council funding agencies $32 million for research, and another $8 million for the indirect costs of research. It is the latter which is important to us, as for every dollar invested in research, it’s estimated that an extra 40 cents is used for “indirect costs”, such as staffing, upgrading labs and equipment, and reporting. These are costs which are usually borne from university operating budgets when research funding is awarded, which takes away from other areas of funding. This new budget contributed 25% of the new research funding, putting further strains on operating budgets, and far less than the over $200 million that Canada needs just to get our indirect costs where they need to be.

$20 million was given to the Pathways in Education program, an early outreach initiative which began in Toronto’s Regent Park and has expanded to other locations. These homegrown projects are vital for these students, but a cookie-cutter program such as Pathways does not have the same success in its Kitchener location, for example, as it does in Toronto. This money could have been better directed into grants for existing programs.

$30 million was directed into a program which provides incentives for employers to hire recent post-secondary graduates (as opposed to older workers), but no relief was provided to current students. Finally, money was given to aboriginal education needs in the primary and secondary school levels, but nothing at the post-secondary level, contrary to CASA’s main ask for increased funding for the Post Secondary Student Support Program (PSSSP).

Transition

I have continued to write sections, and deliver them as fast as I write them, to Daud as part of his new transition into this job. Over 30 pages have been written thus far, and I next need to compile some more information as well as gather relevant documents, reports and work into an easy-to-find format.

CASA Lobby Conference

CASA took up a week of my time, as we held our Lobby Conference as well as the closing meetings of our year.

For the Lobby Conference portion of the week, we lobbied on six main topics:
- An independent, effective and accountable transfer to the provinces
- Reform of the Canada Student Loans program
- Lowering the interest rate on student loans
- Stronger support for First Nations education
- Redistribution of Graduate Scholarships
- Support for Learning Information

I had the opportunity to attend 10 meetings, plus our reception “Homecoming on the Hill”. Included in these meetings were the “Brock MPs” Rick Dykstra and Malcolm Allen, as well as the assistant to Rob Nicholson. I was in two meetings focusing on the topic of copyright reform, similar to our specialized focus last year. These meetings were with members on relevant committees and bureaucrats in the ministries of Industry, and Heritage. The message in these meetings focused on the prior topics of fair dealing, digital locks and format-shifting, and record-keeping and destruction, but also took on the new topics of Crown Copyright and storage levies. We also made a hard push for the elimination of parallel importation laws on textbooks, which is also in the domain of these two ministries.

If you’d like information about any of these lobbying activities, please be sure to ask.

Oh, right, I almost forgot. I was in a meeting with the Prime Minister. And it was extended a little longer upon his request to hold our lobby document during the photo. CASA continues to receive meetings with all party leaders, and over the past two years, Brock representatives have met with both Mr. Harper, and Mr. Ignatieff, the leader of the Opposition. No big deal.

For the business-portion of the conference, CASA welcomed new members from Mount Allison University, and passed the following policies:
- Part time student access
- Accessible quality child care
- National Teaching Award
- International Student Visas
- International Branch Campuses **written by me
- Post Secondary Student Support Program
- Tri-Agency Student Representation
- And the beginnings of a continued Pan-Canadian Accord
Along with procedures for our policy renewal process

At closing plenary, I learned a valuable lesson. No BUSAC meeting can ever compare to the marathon 17.5 hour plenary session we experienced last Thursday. With the final approximately 5 hours in-camera, it was a session very heavy on some incredibly serious discussions.

What I can divulge from the ex-camera sessions, is the appointment of auditors and approval of the CASA budget. We ratified the conference structure of transition conferences continuing to be held in May. In response to an “open letter” published on the internet by unsigned authors (but some indication of where it originated), CASA adopted motions to work towards a new structure of federalism within the student movement, and to enter into discussions with various provincial groups about a structure where provincial organizations would be the members of CASA, instead of individual student unions.

CASA also ratified a brand new constitution, bylaws and operating procedures, and we are 95% of the way to ending some of the turmoil of being unsure as to which constitution and procedures are the valid ones. The remaining 5% is to have all of our councils ratify the constitution as well, as required by our old (prior to 2007) constitution. You see this attached in today’s agenda.

A few other motions were also passed, and if you’re curious as to the full account of the 17 hour meeting, please come visit so I can explain to you in excruciating detail.

News from Across the Country

It’s been a relatively quiet few weeks in student news, and I haven’t had the time to dig for any major stories or scandals. Many schools are in the midst of their election process (including UBC still dealing with online voting fraud), which typically prevents any outrageous actions from student leaders outside of the campaign trail.

Funding for First Nations University has been cut. McGill MBA tuition is jumping nearly 1000%. Alberta has decided to send the university requests for higher tuition limits back because their original proposals were too high. Just your average week in PSE land. Perhaps this section will feature some new juicy stories at the next meeting.

VPUA Job Tip of the Week

Tip #12 – 90% of the work happens outside of the meeting

You may have heard this tip before in different circumstances. It’s as applicable to student politics as it is to politics politics, as it is to the business world. When strong opinions are colliding in meetings, such as BUSAC, CASA, OUSA or other areas, it’s crucial to swing support your way to make sure you have at least some idea of where your ideas stand before you even hit the meeting room. There are few, if ever, times where you want to head into a meeting with an idea that you haven’t battle-tested on others for weaknesses or flaws.

In very contentious situations, you may need a little old fashioned negotiation and compromise with issues that are coming from directly opposing viewpoints. You need to understand the issues, ideas and principles, and where people lie on those, not just the motions themselves.

What does that mean? As Daud and Sohail found out this week, going on conference means I’m always on duty 24/7. Every dinner, every tour, every hot tub session, every casual walk are all relevant and important. If you’re not working, someone else is probably working you. Even your naps and bedtimes must be carefully managed, to ensure that you’re not missing out on something that you should be at. Remember, you’re not the only one who knows this tip. Everyone else is playing the game too.

Closing Lyric of the BUSAC

“If I had $1,000,000
We wouldn’t have to eat Kraft Dinner
But we still would eat Kraft Dinner
Of course we would, we’d just eat more”

- Barenaked Ladies