Last night, AMS Council voted against censuring AMS President Blake Frederick, with a narrow vote of 17 for censure and 21 against.

Councilor’s concerns were most strongly encapsulated in a five-minute speech made by Senate Vice-Chair Geoff Costeloe at Wednesday’s meeting.

“The actions displayed by the president, on behalf of this Council and students of UBC, are a continuation of an aggressive and antagonizing approach that our executive has adopted,” said Costeloe.

Discontent over Frederick’s professionalism as AMS President has grown for months with certain councilors. The final straw was last week, when Frederick issued a press release claiming that the proposed underground bus loop had been cancelled prior to the university’s own announcement.

Last week, TransLink announced that they could not fulfill their commitment to the project. The AMS press release made the assumption that the university was going to cancel the project, accused the university of wasting millions of dollars and demanded that the university disclose the total amount of money spent.

In response, UBC President Stephen Toope issued a letter to the AMS, voicing his displeasure with the press release and his concern with the rift in the relationship between UBC and the AMS. This is an unusual move, as typically Toope would contact Frederick or the executive.

“Statements in the AMS October 27 news release regarding the proposed campus below-grade bus terminal were not merely unfounded and intemperate; they have been injurious and destructive,” wrote Toope. “These grave allegations could have a corrosive impact on your university and its reputation.”

Councilors’ opinions varied at the two-hour debate; comments from alumni and students-at-large were presented. Current Board of Governors representative and former AMS President Michael Duncan was concerned that the move would affect relations between UBC and the AMS.

“These kinds of motions really affect our ability to negotiate with the university,” he said. “They know we have a divided council versus a divided executive.”

“I really don’t think I can communicate to you how upset [university] directors were with the AMS,” said VP Finance Tom Dvorak. My personal feelings are not of anger or of frustration…but of simple honest disappointment.”

However, it was clear that councilors were upset by the press release, some going so far as to call Frederick “unprofessional,” “arrogant,” and his actions “rude.”

Frederick acknowledged in a letter to Council that the tone of the press release “should have been less forceful,” and took “full responsibility for all comment” in it.

“I believe I have acted according to the policies and bylaws of the AMS and guidance that was provided to me,” said Frederick to Council, adding “to be quite frank, I think the university should be apologizing for going ahead with a project that this council does not support.”

Frederick eventually apologized—though not formally—for the harsh tone of the press release and agreed not to employ the same tone in the future.

“I think Council has made it clear that they felt that the tone of the press release…was inappropriate,” Frederick said, though he added “but ultimately Council did support my actions in sending out that press release. I think it’s particularly important that the AMS, as representatives of students, hold the university accountable.”

“I think people blow these kind of things out of proportion and that the university deals with these kind of things all the time,” said Duncan after the motion failed. “A lot of students oppose this bus loop and [Blake] is trying to represent the interest of the society and of students.”

Costeloe is skeptical whether things will change.

“This is a continuation of external policy that we basically have with every group outside of it, except for ones very favoured,” he said.

“The [university administration] prides themselves on being educators and they pride themselves on being there for students….So when I see letters from people like that, that they are disturbed by the way we are acting, that should be a real wake up call.

“That’s more than a symptom of a sickness here, that’s us flatlining. And I don’t think we did enough CPR.”

—with files from Justin McElroy

Censure is:

censure n.

1. Strong or vehement expression of disapproval
2. An official reprimand, as by a legislative body of one of its members

Censure has generally been used to condemn the actions of an elected individual even if they are acting legally and within their rights.

Comments from the university:

“[Toope] determined that he needed to take a very unusual step in writing directly to Council and asking this letter be passed on. That’s not been done before by a president I’ve served under here.”

“[The tone of] requests on SUB, the Olympics…they’re issued generally in a very curt fashion, they’re demands, they have time requirements on them that are hopelessly unrealistic.” —UBC VP Students Brian Sullivan

Past censures in UBC history:

November 3, 1977

The UBC board of governors publicly censured student board member Moe Sihota for charging certain members of the commerce faculty with racism without having supporting evidence.

February 22, 1979

The student representative assembly voted to censure the actions of the RCMP in the recent cancellation of a planned punk rock concert.

An excerpt from the motion:

“… this type of interference is unwarranted, and as
such should not be tolerated…”

January 4, 2005

Council voted to censure the AMS Executive following the Executive’s decision to fire then-General Manager Bernie Peets. President Amina Rai was also asked to resign.

Different Opinions:

Tom Dvorak, AMS VP Finance:

“One point I don’t think is crystal clear is just how brutal this press release makes our relationship with the university…my first exposure to this was just over a week ago. It wasn’t through reading the press release, or watching the news, it wasn’t an executive meeting, it wasn’t in our offices. I got off the plane, and I got two emails. the first from a senior UBC executive, the second from a member of the alumni association board of directors.

“I don’t think I can effectively communicate to any of you how upset and disappointed they were with the actions of the AMS. My personal feelings towards this are not of anger or frustration around our external relations, but a simple honest sadness. What I’m seeing is in the last weak, there’s been a meat cleaver taken to our relationship with the UBC Admin. I think speaking out against the bus loop and the project is a stance we’ve taken in the past and were right to take. But in this case, the delivery was terrible. The fact that my exposure came from where it did is painful. And the issue I’m talking about tonight is not the underground bus loop. It’s about professional conduct, and how we treat the people we deal with as an organization. I’ve stated repeatedly at exec [meetings] this year that when we deal with the university…we’re dealing with individuals, with people. And when we piss off those individual people, they’re not going to help us. When we do this shit, those individual people are not going to bend over for us, they’re not going to do anything for us.

“What happened here is not an isolated incident…of us treating the university officials like absolute shit. Blake, some of your actions earlier this year, have resulted in as individuals like Michelle Aucoin completely refusing to deal with you as an individual. Her saying publicly she’s refused to deal with you…I’ve heard accounts that you stormed out of Board of Governors meetings in a fit of rage…this stuff is absolute murder on the working relationships that we strive to have with the university. And it takes this from them not liking our policies, to not liking us personally.

“What you’ve done, Blake, is you’ve made this personal. And what we need to do as a Council is show the university by approving this motion that we do not want to make this personal, and we want to work with them with a professional conduct and a professional manner, and for that reason, I am forced to support this motion.”

Michael Duncan, Board of Governors representative and former AMS President:

“We frequently piss of the university—but I’d say that’s probably important. If we aren’t pissing off the university now and again, we aren’t doing our job as a student union. Personally, I don’t agree with the press release, and I told Blake that day. It shouldn’t have gone out. I thought the timing was wrong, and the wording was a little off. I also sent out a press release last year that got council pissed off at me, I got a warning, a shake on the hand, and make sure to do better next time. This kind of motion in council, to censure, I think it has purposes in that we can discuss and tell our executive when we’re having problems with them, and I think that’s important. But I also think these kinds of motions really affect our ability to negotiation with the university and affect how we look to the university.

“The university executives aren’t unintelligent, they’re very smart people, and they know if we have a divided council versus a divided executive, that we aren’t able to negotiate as strongly…if we’re spending all this time fighting ourselves. So I know why this motion came up, but I would like to caution against motions like these, and maybe we do them in other means. Like the Executive Oversight committee.

“I personally think censuring is too much. If we look at the history of censuring, they’re usually done for big problems, like firing someone without reason, or going against the will of Council. If you look at censure history in Canada and the United States, it’s for things like fraud, and sexual allegations. A strongly worded press release that is line with our policies, maybe not worded as responsibly as we could…is not a censuring motion.

“You can be pissed off at Blake; I encourage you to talk to the Executive Oversight committee about these concerns, but I would seriously caution against a censure because I don’t think that helps our society and helps our negotiations going forward.”