The Student Union Society (SUS) said over email Thursday that it has suspended multiple points of its referendum policy due to COVID-19, despite no formal announcement.
On April 5, SUS will hold its annual general election, as well as a referendum on student fee increases. The proposed increases would go toward increasing funding for the campus shuttle service and UFV’s branch of the World University Services of Canada (WUSC) Student Refugee Program, which hopes to sponsor two students each year.
Due to the spread of COVID-19 and the cancellation of on-campus classes at UFV, many election- and referendum-related events have been cancelled, including planned Q&A sessions to be held by proponents of the referendum (SUS and WUSC). According to SUS’s referendum policy, referendum proponents must hold a minimum of three Q&A periods in the leadup to a referendum, and SUS must ensure a minimum of one polling station be available on UFV’s Abbotsford and Chilliwack campuses for four consecutive hours each day during the polling period.
Michelle Murray-Schlitt, co-chair of WUSC UFV, said via email that her organization was only able to hold one in-person Q&A prior to UFV’s move to remote learning, and instead hosted two “Virtual Q&A sessions” via Instagram’s “stories” feature.
Murray-Schlitt said that following the cancellation of on-campus classes, SUS told WUSC that they had temporarily suspended the policies requiring Q&As and on-campus polling stations.
When questioned about how SUS was handling these policies internally, Tania Smart, vice president internal, said via email, “[SUS] held an emergency board meeting via teleconference March 17 and voted to temporarily suspend certain aspects of the referendum policy.”
She added that the minutes of this meeting were intended to be brought before the board for approval on March 26, but were forgotten, and will now be included on the agenda for the April 9 ratification meeting.
According to Smart, the policies that have been suspended include points 2.4 and 5.2 through 5.6, which are the sections requiring Q&A periods and polling stations respectively. She added that with these suspensions, there was an expectation that all parties would still host online Q&A periods, which both SUS and WUSC have done via Instagram.
Smart added that during that meeting, SUS also voted to suspend Election Oversight Policy 8 and its sub-points, which outline a requirement for on-campus polling stations.
Smart said that she “[ensured] to emphasize in the phrasing [of the policy changes] that all suspensions are temporary, and a result of the extraordinary circumstances of COVID.”
“None of the suspensions will apply to future referendums,” Smart said.
