I shall be forced to discuss Council matters in this blog post. I know, I know...look away if you are not interested by the intricacies of internal reform or the committee system and its faults. (and you hacks will find this colloquial rant frustrating, I'm sure....)
I have some thoughts and can't comment on POI, so I chose to come here, although Webboard would most likely be a better place, but nobody has started a thread there on this topic. Whatever, it's my blog, and this is on my mind.
First off there is a CRAP meeting on Monday at 4 p.m. and I would encourage all councilors to show the fuck up. If nobody goes to committee meetings it sort of defeats the purpose of committees altogether now doesn't it? (although this will only serve as a reminder because those who read this blog are most likely all probably going to CRAP, you diligent councilors you...)
Committees, I found out, are where all the 'action' is in our governance system. I did not understand that when I first became a councilor and it was James Knull who encouraged me to get on as many committees as I could. I sat on six committees last year and enjoyed it immensely. So thanks James for that heads up.
Mustafa has done an excellent job of reviewing the committee system as it stands and has given his educated opinion on how to best "fix" the system itself so that it can be more effective. I am grateful for this review and would like to thank Mustafa for taking the time to write up his recommendations. Thank you, Mustafa.
I shall digress here for a second....This type of council issue highlights one of the reasons I did not pursue a council seat in March. I feel that council spends far too much of it's time focused on internal review and not enough time doing what *I* thought was more important work. I came to realize that what *I* deemed important is actually outside the purview of council, so I just shut my cake hole and focused on internal review. This can be very frustrating for Councilors though, and I hear ya! Who the hell cares if our committee system has a few glitches!? Isn't this a waste of time!? Does it really need to change?
Yes. For the love of Moses, YES!
So back to Mustafa and his recommendations.
I like how the paper addresses the role of Student's at large. I enjoyed reading the circular argument that S.A.L.'s are not "ordinary." It seems that if you care about student politics, which would lead you to get, even remotely, involved you go from "ordinary" to somehow become extraordinary and no longer a voice of the masses. It is like a catch 22...the only way to be remain an ordinary student is to stay out of student government, but to be an SAL you have to engage thereby ending your desirability as an ordinary student. Wha? Huh? Yeah...it is very confusing. By that argument all those who get involved in student government are extraordinary...just myopic and out of touch with regular students. That's good stuff.
I agree that Councilors are best suited for the job and on most committees I think that S.A.L.'s can be replaced by a councilor; an elected person, who is most likely better prepared to speak on behalf of their representatives. I never used to think that, in fact when I first heard that they wanted to get rid of SAL's I was against it, shouting "but what about accountability and accessibility?" After some experience I understand the difficulty of the question and the reasons why, on *certain* committees, they should be eliminated. Can't 'ordinary' students attend any meeting if they'd like?
I personally would say "Buh-by" to S.A.L.'s on policy committees because of the nature of the committee itself. But what is wrong with having S.A.L.'s on The Eugene Brody Committee? Some student's want to engage in the process but do not like the political nature of some committees so they apply for others. We can have a balance there. I think that is reasonable.
I agree that the Committees should be less Exec centric. We should have standing committees for Budget issues, Legislative drafting, Auditing, and Political Policy creation. But the major Policy Boards tend to become "Kitchen-sink" committees and their mandates are to broad to actually fulfill. I see the importance of removing Exec as chairs too. Mustafa argues that point very well and all of the irrationalities behind it. I agree with everything he so eloquently said.
There is one place that Mustafa and I disagree.
"Just as every bylaw is passed through the Internal Review Board for drafting and making coherent with the rest of the Students' Union's body of legislation, so too should all but the most trivial motions and emergency motions pass through some committee for thorough vetting, analysis, and improvement. Only then will Council be exploiting the benefits of committees to their fullest.
By integrating committees into the handling of Council's business, a true committee system will arise, a system against which Council can lean for improved handling of Council business."
I don't think that motions should come up through the committee system first, and I think this would reflect the same flawed system GFC has, no? I think they should come as motions to council and then be referred.
I would be worried that nothing meaningful would ever hit the floor of council. I would be concerned if no motion began *in council* because sometimes you need the impetus of council behind the motion. To use an example from my experience moving the Advocacy motion last year, I think the motion would have never made it through to council if I had submitted it directly to EAB or AAB or FAB. With that approach only one councilor is moving the motion and a small committee can too easily dismiss a motion. Council liked the motion and passed it because it could be referred to committee and then assigned a specific date for the committees to report back to council.
I think that process worked well and I think it would be terrible to limit councilors trying to move motions to the floor. Would Councilor Debenhams motion on sunset clauses even made it to council if had to go through committee first? I wonder? Would that approach limit new ideas?
So there are some of my thoughts...I put them here as a person who felt like sometimes the whole process could be taken over by "hacks". Sometimes I felt that the issues were so esoteric (**cough, *separation of Powers,* cough**) I wondered if I could ever add anything to the discussion. I felt like I couldn't get my head around it and it took a lot of work to figure that shit out.
Anyway...I look forward to seeing what council comes up with. And in the same breath, I am glad that I can just leisurely browse though this stuff, and add commentary from my experience, and not be in the middle of the fray. Being a good councilor really involves a shitload of work. It means you have to give a rat's ass even when you don't. I hope all my councilors will apply the same level of research that I did when I was in their position even if they don't want to.
Edit: There is a discussion on Webboard
9 comments:
In a strange turn of events (perhaps without precedent), I agree with everything you just mentioned. I expect it to start raining frogs any moment now.
No worries Roman nobody reads my blog anyway. The reason I encouraged councillors to go to CRAP is to get them to participate in the debate there. What is the point of having a meeting to hash it out when nobody goes and the whole debate is then rehashed in council? That is a huge waste of time, it happened many times last summer. (I found those Crap meetings very informative and helped me formulate an opinion after I has heard all the suggestions and ideas.)
And I agree with you...you sure don't want them packed in to an IRB meeting. Not enought forks (in the eye) to go around...
There needs to be a distinction between getting the principles of motions approved in committee before they're set out in Council and getting Council to agree on principles and then instruct a committee to hash out the details.
Presumably, then, policy motions would look something like this: "SMITH/JONES MOVED TO INSTRUCT the External Policy Development Committee to construct a political policy concerning the following issues: (here set out the issues)"
Note that this almost identical to bylaw motions. The argument and amendment would be on the actual principles, then debate would close off with a referral to the appropriate committee for development, but the committee would not be able to reject the principles out of hand.
"I agree that Councilors are best suited for the job and on most committees I think that S.A.L.'s can be replaced by a councilor; an elected person, who is most likely better prepared to speak on behalf of their representatives".
No councilor is better able to speak on behalf of their representatives until a councilor actively engages them. This has not happened, nor will it until some councilor puts forth a request to conduct a survey. Statistical significance lends credibility to council rhetoric. Nothing is more agravating then hearing some idiot open with, "I've spoken with some of my constituents", then believe it holds any weight.
" I never used to think that, in fact when I first heard that they wanted to get rid of SAL's I was against it, shouting "but what about accountability and accessibility?"
Do you believe that the Councilors from the Faculty of Arts are any more accountable to their constituents then one of the 'ordinary's' (this is a random choice and could mostly be applied to the other faculties)? In the last Arts Councilor election, I believe that 8 people ran for 8 seats -- how is that accountable, or lend any credibility as a voice of the people? What it adds up to are a group of self-indulgent know-it-alls deciding what is best for the rest.
Kail.
1. Glad you liked the document, Heather.
2. If you ever want to comment on POI, feel free to e-mail the author your comments. We'll usually post them and reply to them if the comments are intelligent and relevant.
3. Remember you can trackback on POI. It's useful for making sure we, and other POI readers, read your replies here.
4. I'll be replying to your comments on Sam's blog very soon. Sorry this has taken a while, but I've been really busy.
5. I have no opposition to SALs on bodies like the Awards Committee--those don't require student representation; they're administrative. Eugene Brody is a borderline case IMHO; arguably you might want a representative body to be deciding which charities students most support.
6. I don't think that policy boards are too broad in mandate. True, there is a lot for them to do, but they will exist for several years and be writing policies for several years; we can't make their mandates so narrow that they finish their jobs in one year and have nothing to do in future years except read over what they previously drafted and maybe occasionally recommend updates.
The reason policy boards get nothing done is because they have a dual responsibility: drafting policy and advising the Exec. And since they are chaired by Exec, the latter wins every time. Execs have no use for policy. Indeed, the purpose of policy is for Council to tie the hands of Exec so that Exec does what the student body wants as interpreted by Council. Execs have political leanings and ambitions. They tend not to want to tie their hands, preventing them from acting on their personal priorities. All humans are like that.
But since Exec doesn't see any benefit from policy (and, in fact, sees a decrease in their power), they never put policy on the agenda of AAB, EAB, or SLB until they are asked to do so by Council or Councillors. Instead, they use the board for what Execs find useful: advice. And so AAB, EAB, and SLB are dominated by their advisory role and rarely deal with policy.
If we had committees focused on policy development and chaired by a Councillor who cares about policy, I think policy committees would make a meaningful contribution each year.
7. Motion through committees v. referral to committees. Personally, I don't agree that GFC's problem is that motions come through the committees. Does every little change to the Calendar need to be presented at full GFC, then referred to committee? Or everytime a policy is updated, does that need to go through GFC? If so, GFC would need to meet at least twice a month and GFC wouldn't really be contributing anything. Doing that would be a huge waste of time. And that's exactly what we need to solve with Council--too many motions that Council does not need to deal with.
The problem with GFC is twofold: first, GFC doesn't have a good reporting mechanism. If we had a proper reporting mechanism, we'd see that virtually everything dealt with in committee is completely routine and doesn't need GFC's attention. But because we're in the dark, we worry that we're being kept out of the loop. From my experience on committees, we are not.
Second, GFC has delegated too much to committee. Specifically, I think budgetary matters should not be delegated. These are the most controversial issues in the University and it makes sense that controversial issues should be put to the highest standard of approval; that is by full GFC.
If we fixed those two problems, we would not have a problem on GFC.
The lessons to take from GFC when reforming Council committees are not that we shouldn't delegate to committee, but rather that we should delegate only routine matters. Everything that isn't routine should flow back up to Council. I envision a system where few motions are actually approved or disapproved in committee; I want most motions to come all the way to Council. But only after being refined by Committee. The idea is to focus Council's attention on the principles of the motion and whether it reflects what Council wants to do; refinement, details, and in depth consideration should occur in committee to let Council focus on the big question: do students want this or not?
The other lesson to learn from GFC is that we need a good reporting mechanism. This is why I suggested that all minutes be funnelled through Council. That way Council is always on top of things.
I should also note that I included a provision that a Councillor [i]can[/i] take a motion directly to Council. And this is precisely to deal with situations where a committee shoots down a motion that Council does want. So in the case of rejection of your advocacy motion in committee, you [i]would[/i] have had the option of taking it to Council and forcing the committee system to look at it and send it back to Council later. I agree that committees won't represent Council accurately 100% of the time. And that's why I included this safeguard. However, most of the time I think it would be better to let Council stay focused on big questions rather than getting a whole slew of motions that it then refers. Doing that, Council adds nothing to the debate and just uses its time: that is very inefficient.
- Mustafa
Kail,
While I agree that currently Councillors are not acting in a representative manner, it is nonetheless possible for the student body to hold them to account via elections and recall. That they do not is an indication that the student body does not feel their conduct is wholly unacceptable as of yet (possibly because Councillors are still fairly irrelevant). It is in the electorate's discretion to allow such behaviour by Councillors. At present they are allowing it.
Council serves the electorate. If the electorate will allow poor Councillors (as interpreted by the two of us), that is their right.
- Mustafa
Mustafa wrote: "that is very inefficient"
Mmmhmmm. Isn't inefficient kind of a synonym for council?
6.) Wouldn't having the Vice-President decide what kind of committee she wanted be the way to go instead of these catch-all committees? I think I would prefer task oriented committees like TUPAC, But I know that frustrated Smith because it had such a flimsy mandate.
I look forward to reading your post on Sammers' Blog soon. Thanks for getting back to me.
Holy crap Kail reads my blog!! That was just really cool...
And Kail I have a really old fashioned, call it unrealistic, view of council because when I was on council I tried, sometimes desperately, to interact with students. I did a lot of consultation because I thought I was supposed to. It was a big joke most times but I felt it was important. Somtimes what is supposed to be an obvious facet of a councillors job is unrealistic when you boil it down. For the most part students don't care and chalk it up to "a group of self-indulgent know-it-alls deciding what is best for the rest"
Too bad we can't change that mentality.
Heather,
A VP could choose a committee that best suited her. And, she does have this power currently. However, as I explained, a VP will likely not make a policy committee because a VP has no use for policy; if anything, they dislike policy because the purpose of policy is to tie the VPs hands. If we want good policy, we need committees of Council that are controlled by Council, not the Exec. For Executive advisory purposes, the Executive is free to strike whatever committees they feel are appropriate.
On the topic of having many task-focused committees versus a single committee with a broader theme, I would stay away from TUPAC. TUPAC had an unclear mandate that overlapped with other committees which made it a confusing mess to begin with; its problems had, IMHO, nothing to do with a focus on one task. If anything, it had a mandate that was broader than one task (it was supposed to deal with multi-year tuition, come up with a new tuition policy, plan a tuition campaign, etc.--it had several tasks).
The problem that I see with task-oriented committees is that they are focused on a single task in great detail without considering the larger context that issue exist within. For example, a committee dealing with issues around our external tuition advocacy, in order to properly deal with tuiton, would need to know about student loan issues, government funding issues, government scholarship and bursary program issues, etc. Very few issues are isolated islands; most are pieces within a larger puzzle. A task-oriented committee would not have the context to properly deal with an issue.
Unless, of course, that committee endeavoured to learn the context of that issue. Then it would. But then, we'd have a tuition committee, and loan committee, a government funding committee, and a government scholarship and bursary committee, etc. all learning the same context. So everyone would be learning the same issues, but in the end each committee would come up with a single policy on a vary narrow part of what that committee actually dealt with. That's incredibly inefficient and would result in lots of wasted Councillor-time. Instead of having 5 committees dealing with five related issues and learning the same context, why not have one committee learn that context and then deal with all five of those issues? That way the research part of the committees' job is done only once, not five times. That's much more efficient.
Now, we aren't going to get 100% efficiency any time soon. Obviously tuition has an on campus facet to it as well. So an external policy committee will need to coordinate with the academic policy committee so that a policy encompasses both contexts. And there will be overlap in that the academic policy committee would need to learn a little about the tuition-related issues of the external policy committee and vice-versa. Ideally we would have one committee for both academic and external policies. However, I think that would be too much work for a single committee.
We want to have committees with broad issues so that we don't have several committees doing the same work learning context; we want to be efficient. However, we also need committees to have a light enough workload so that they can deal with the work they are entrusted in sufficient detail.
A task-oriented committee would tend to have too much overlap with other task-oriented commitees and would not have enough work to sustain the committee all year. There may be exceptions to this occasionally and that is when an Ad Hoc committee is useful. But most of the time task-oriented committees will be inefficient and will not have enough to do.
Likewise, an overly broad committee will have too much work to do and won't deal in sufficient depth with anything.
That's why I don't generally support task-oriented commitees and proposed larger theme oriented committees (auditing, council administration, budgeting and appropriating, academic policy, and external policy).
- Mustafa
Post a Comment