MOTION BOD-10-27-08:016
Liu/Belkine
Move to ratify Shen

• Brockman: any reason not to ratify him?
• Belkine: Andrew doesn’t like him
• Fergusson: that’s accurate
• Paling motivated in favour of Shen.
• Belkine motivated in favour of Shen.
• Fergusson: Shen was trying to bribe people to drop out of the elections last March, it should be taken into consideration before ratifying.
• Brockman: there’s always impeachment if people get ridiculously out of hand.

FAILS
Abstention: Hendy; In Favour: Brockman

Fergusson allegated that I was bribing contestants to drop out of the elections last March in the Simon Fraser Student Society Board of Directors 2008 General Election. I believe that this is a form of personal attack. The truth was that I did not bribe anyone. I simply told them to run for another position by simply asking “can you run for another position instead of university relations officer?”. There were no exchange of goods or money involved.

The Simon Fraser Student Society 2008 General Election was the most important election in all of SFSS history. The reason being is that it included a referendum question that asked whether the SFSS should maintain membership with the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS). The people that were in my race were (ordered from highest to lowest):

• Ali Godson (859 votes) - for membership
• Andy Shen (584 votes) - strongly against maintaining membership
• Ryan Daw (558 votes) - strongly against membership
• Clinton Hallahan (392 votes) - against maintaining membership
• Christopher Mulvena (285 votes) - against maintaining membership
• William Shen * (225 votes) - against maintaining membership

* Please note that I am not in any way related to the William Shen that ran in the election.

Of the said names, I only sent the message to Clinton Hallahan, Christopher Mulvena, and William Shen.

The first reason behind this action was that I did not want all the non-CFS votes to be spread out. If the majority of the SFSS Board of Directors were pro-CFS, they can easily request that there be another referendum concerning joining the Canadian Federation of Students.

The second reason is that there are too many talents compressed in one race. I believed that these candidates should run for another position so that all the talents would be on the SFSS Board of Directors, as opposed to having only one of us get on.

Although Ali Godson is a well-qualified person who display good traits of being an elected official, I do not believe that she should win in this type of situation.

Telling another candidate to run for another position is not against any of the Independent Electoral Commision regulations. The Chief Electoral Officer, J.J. McCullough, during that time confirmed this. I beleive that the reason why people, like Andrew Furgusson, keeps on attacking me is because of personal issues.

Resources: http://www.the-peak.ca/article/2700

SFU students and faculty say they’ve joined together for the first time in more than two decades to protest government funding.

“The current financial crisis demanded that we formally approach government and make a coordinated pitch for funding to fix the problems at the University,” Natalie Bocking of the SFU Student Society said in a release.

SFU Student Society representatives met Advanced Education Minister Murray Coell in Victoria on Monday while SFU faculty association members met another senior ministry official. They pressed the government to take a second look at SFU funding for 2009.

“The current funding crisis stems from an ill-considered government decision in March of this year to cut 2.6% from the money promised to all public universities and colleges,” faculty association president Robert Hackett said. “This cut hit SFU harder than the other universities because funding was already tight as the result of previous initiatives to better meet the needs of the Lower Mainland and the province.”

The students and professors asked government to restore the 2.6% and index future funding to the rate of inflation.

Expanded service comes as TransLink buys a steady stream of new buses – it has taken possession of more than 100 standard, articulated or community shuttle buses so far this year.

Much of the latest round of service expansion is being focused on the South of Fraser area, where three new routes are being launched:

#364 Langley Centre/Scottsdale will provide east-west service via 64 Avenue.
#388 Walnut Grove/22nd St. Station will run on 88 Avenue from Port Kells to Annacis Island, at peak times only initially.
#609 Tsawwassen First Nation/South Delta exchange.

Burnaby will also get a new route (#126 Patterson Station/BCIT) on a trial basis starting Jan. 5 to serve the Willingdon corridor and relieve congestion at Metrotown’s bus loop.

Vancouver’s new #33 from 29th Avenue Station to UBC will expand to run on weekends and #3 Main Street buses will once again run all the way to downtown Vancouver.

Increased service is also planned for #145 buses serving Simon Fraser University.

TransLink’s Frequent Transit Network, which guarantees service at least every 15 minutes, 15 hours a day, all week, will extend to include the #169 route from Coquitlam Station to Braid Station, #403 Richmond Centre/Number 3 Road and #123 New Westminster Station/Brentwood Station.

Enhanced service is also promised on the North Shore, where Capilano University students are joining the U-Pass system.

The changes take effect Dec. 29.

Overall, bus service this year has increased 4.7 per cent.

For more on service changes see www.translink.bc.ca.

jnagel@surreyleader.com

Some of the original measures included canceling $27 million in tax payer subsidies to political parties ($1.95 per vote, every election, for parties with over 5% of the vote), limiting M.P. salary increases, freezing civil servant salaries, and temporarily ending the right to strike for our civil servants (to ensure stability in the civil service during the worst economic downturn during the Great Depression).

The opposition parties claim a lack of economic stimulus as for their reasoning for a coalition government agreement. Canadians know better than that, and see through their games. We know the only reason the opposition got a backbone was the thought of losing their tax payer subsidies.

Our current Government was planning to take the responsible path of delivering an economic stimulus package in the federal budget in January. This was to wait after hearing the provincial needs in a First Ministers conference, and waiting to see which direction the Obama administration would take (in regards to the auto industry) when Mr. Obama takes office in January.

The opposition is demanding reckless action of throwing money around, without first consulting the provinces first.

Prime Minister Harper, realizing Canadians would not want an election over this issue, removed contentious portions of the economic update including canceling party subsidies, and civil servant’s right to strike. He also pushed ahead the budget date to early January.

The opposition parties are power hungry, and will stop at nothing to take hold of power.

In the October 14th election, they never told Canadians they had intentions of forming a coalition government. In fact, Dion, denied this during the election. Centrist, moderate Canadians who voted Liberal didn’t necessarily vote for them with the intention they were going to form a coalition with the socialists (NDP) and separatists with full out socialist economics.

The Canadian people have not lost confidence in the Conservative Government. Only the opposition parties have, in their desperate blind grab at power.

Fight for better. Join us in demanding democracy be upheld. The vast majority of Canadians do not want a coalition government with a Prime Minister Dion (rejected by 74% of Canadians), with the socialist NDP, propped up by the separatists who want to destroy this country.

The TSX dropped 9% on Monday. Our country needs stability, and these three stooges antics are adding to the economic turmoil our markets are reeling from.

Shame on the Liberals. Shame on the NDP. Demand better. Demand democracy.

Parties listed first are the predicted winners for the specific riding. Second are the runner-ups.

Abbotsford
Conservative Party of Canada (Ed Fast) with at least 60% votes
New Democrat Party with less than 15% votes
Liberal Party of Canada with less than 15% votes

Burnaby-Douglas
New Democrat Party (Bill Siksay)
Conservative Party of Canada (Ronald Leung) within 20%

Burnaby-New Westminster
New Democrat Party (Peter Julian)
Conservative Party of Canada (Sam Rakhra) within 10% votes
Liberal Party of Canada (Gerry Lenoski) within 15% votes

Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon
Conservative Party of Canada (Chuck Strahl) with at least 60% votes
New Democrat Party (Helen Kormendy) with less than 20% votes
Liberal Party of Canada (Myra Sweeney) with less than 15% votes

Delta-Richmond East
Conservative Party of Canada with at least 50%
Liberal Party of Canada

Fleetwood-Port Kells
Conservative Party of Canada (Nina Grewal) with at least 30% votes
Liberal Party of Canada (Brenda Locke) within 5% of CPC
New Democrat Party (Nao Fernando) within 5% of CPC

Langley
Conservative Party of Canada (Mark Warawa) with at least 50% votes
Liberal Party of Canada (Jake Gray) with at least 20% votes
New Democrat Party (Andrew Claxton) with at least 10% votes
Christian Heritage (Ron Gray) with less than 5% votes
Amazing Fact: Ron Gray and Jake Gray have the same last name

New Westminster-Coquitlam
New Democrat Party (Dawn Black) win
Conservative (Yonah Martin) within 10%

Newton-North Delta
Conservative Party (Sandeep Pandher) with at least 30% votes
Liberal Party of Canada (Sukh Dhaliwal) within 10% of CPC - is current MP
New Democrat (Teresa Townsley) within 10% of CPC

North Vancouver
Liberal Party (Don Bell) with at least 40% votes
Conservative Party (Andrew Saxton)
New Democrat Party (Michael Charrois) with less than 10%

Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge-Mission
Conservative Party of Canada (Randy Kamp) with at least 50%
New Democrat Party (Mike Bocking) with at least 20%
Liberal Party (Keith Henry) with at least 15%

Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam
Conservative Party of Canada (James Moore) with at least 40% votes
New Democrat Party (Zoe Royer) within 30% but not within 20%

Richmond
Conservative Party of Canada (Alice Wong) with at least 40%
Liberal Party of Canada (Raymond Chan) with at least 30% - current MP

South Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale
Conservative Party of Canada (Russ Hiebert) with at least 50% votes
Liberal Party of Canada (Judy Higginbotham) with at least 20% votes
New Democrat Party (Peter Prontzos) with at least 20% votes

Surrey North
Conservative Party of Canada (Dona Cadman) with at least 30% votes
New Democrat Party (Racid Arab) with at least 15% votes

Vancouver Centre
Liberal Party of Canada (Hedy Fry)
Conservative Party of Canada (Lorne Mayencourt) within 20%

Vancouver East
New Democrat Party (Libby Davies) with at least 50% votes
Liberal Party of Canada (Ken Low) with at least 20% votes

Vancouver Kingsway
Liberal Party of Canada (Wendy Yuan) with at least 40% votes
New Democrat Party (Don Davies) with at least 20% votes
Conservative Party of Canada (Kanman wong) with at least 20% votes

Vancouver Quadra
Conservative Party of Canada (Deborah Meredith)
Liberal Party of Canada (Joyce Murray) within 5% - current MP

Vancouver South
Liberal Party (Ujjal Dosanjh) with at least 50% (currently 48%)
Conservative Party of Canada with at least 25%

West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country
Conservative Party of Canada (Ian Sutherland) with at least 40% (currently 36%)
Liberal Party of Canada with at least 35% (currently 38% - current MP)