By Jessica Wind (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: March 13, 2013
Although it gained less attention than the transit referendum, two Health and Dental referendums ran last week during the same period and failed.
The first of the two Health and Dental referendums asked students if they were in favour of setting the Health and Dental fee to $229.92, which would increase basic dental and prescription drug coverage. The second question asked if students were in favour of allowing SUS to adjust the Health and Dental fee by five per cent each year after 2014 to adapt to cost fluctuation and inflation.
Both of these referendum questions failed to pass.
Interim president Shane Potter responded to the failed referendum.
“I think this is the first time we tried putting all the referendum questions on the same day. It had some successes but it’s difficult to switch gears to Health and Dental after so much push behind the transit referendum,” he said.
The referendum question failed to offer a no opinion option, so students were forced to vote on all three questions that were being offered at the time. As well, Potter explained that misinformation contributed to the Health and Dental’s success.
“I think you’ll see the health and dental referendum run again, just because the numbers were so close and there were a few errors with communication,” he said.
Preliminary counts indicate that the referendum questions received roughly 50 per cent positive votes, but failed to meet the 60 per cent required to pass. More concrete numbers will be announced later this week, and the official results will be ratified at the March 15 board meeting at the Mission campus.
