Finally, the courtesy of open debate

Quyen Schroeder (they/she) writes Point of Inquiry, a column covering student politics and the AMS. They also serve as The Ubyssey's opinion editor. Her email is q.schroeder@ubyssey.ca.

A month after taking office, the latest crop of AMS executives held their first Council meeting. It was an embarrassing showing. The proposals they brought forward were challenged, amended and delayed at the behest of the non-executive councillors.

We’re still early into the terms of both this executive and this Council, but this portends a shift in AMS governance power.

In recent years, executives have commanded Council. Even when facing councillor opposition, executives have garnered the votes required for their priorities.

This spring, Council nearly fired former VP AUA Zarifa Nawar. This would have made her the second executive to be removed from office, following Drédyn Fontana’s removal the previous year. Councillors told The Ubyssey that Council had initially intended to remove Nawar for violating her fiduciary duty to the AMS. At least, they did until then-President Riley Huntley intervened, cautioning that the potential reputational harms risked jeopardizing the union’s three planned fee increase referenda. Council ultimately decided not to fire Nawar. (Regardless, she resigned before the end of her term, alleging racism and sexism within the AMS.)

Years earlier, in 2023, the AMS brought forward an amendment to increase the health and dental fee. The increase was initially designed to include coverage for gender-affirming health care and was developed in consultation with the Trans Coalition. At the last minute, the executive backtracked and separated the $8 that would fund gender-affirming health care into its own referendum. There were fears that a $60.50 combined fee increase might fail to pass; a $52.50 referendum — by their logic — would be more likely. The executives couldn’t bring themselves to risk the health care of “normal” students; they preferred alienating trans students and framing us as not normal. Many councillors vocally opposed this change, but after an in camera session — which lasted over an hour — ultimately fell in line with the executive.

The tide began to turn during the previous administration as the typical publicly-unified executive front fractured amid office infighting. Council took on a more active role. This February, food security groups like Sprouts pushed a referendum to give themselves a say in how UBC’s food security funding is distributed. It failed to gather enough signatures to be included on the March AMS ballot. Rather than accepting this, Councillor Bryan Buraga brought forward a motion to create the Food Security Initiatives Ad Hoc Committee anyways. The motion initially faced opposition (including from two executives — Nawar and VP Student Life Kevin Heieis) before being referred to committee.

Not to be deterred, during a break in the meeting, Buraga sprang into action. Directly in front of me, the terms of the committee were renegotiated. Concessions in the committee’s composition were made and once Council returned to session, the motion was reconsidered and passed unanimously.

(A number of councillors abstained, including Nawar. The dynamic duo of ex-VPs AUA Nawar and Fontana are now our representatives on the Board of Governors — the university body that grants the Food Security Initiative funding.)

Introducing a motion without going through a committee was a level of initiative I had not seen before in the AMS. Same with the legitimate negotiation and politics that were required to collect votes on the motion. Admittedly, some of this may have happened behind closed doors in years past, but this was a far cry from the passivity of Council during meetings I had grown used to.

The story of a more active Council willing and able to take on the executive continued in May’s AMS Council meeting.

On the campaign trail, AMS President Dylan Evans promised a governance review, aimed at addressing what he considers irresponsible and hasty code changes and governance practices. In his spring interview with The Ubyssey’s ad hoc editorial board, he told us about the breakneck pace of code changes. There were so many, according to Evans, that councillors were unable to “follow a lot of the changes.” To me, this is more a dereliction of duty from councillors than a fix-worthy governance failure.

However, he has a point: the AMS needs governance changes. These past years have been exceptionally bad for executive turnover and AMS culture. Evans champions the myopic view that this is entirely a structural issue — which I think ignores the persistent cultural problems of recent years. Yet, the AMS’s structures undeniably contribute, and to that end, I think this year’s executive team has begun to meaningfully address them.

This year, the executive team presented their goals to Council as a group — rather than as individual executives. This is a good step. I hope it keeps our executive focused, off each other’s toes and accountable for helping each other.

The proposed governance review, however, is closer to an executive power grab than meaningful change. I am not inherently opposed to a governance review. I agree with Evans that the structure of the AMS played a role in recent years’ turmoil (though we disagree on the extent).

But the proposed committee’s structure would allow the executive to seize control over a full revision to the society’s code and policies. Evans’ proposed committee would include two executives, the president, two councillors and a single student at large, for a total of six voting members.

Evans insisted that the president would only vote in the case of a tie — which is to say, the president would get to vote every time their vote would actually make a difference — giving the executive team an effective three votes on the committee. The executive would outnumber councillors on the committee and would have a crucial 3–2 majority when appointing the student-at-large.

The executive would have further measures to ensure dominance of the review. Most notably, guests would not be allowed at the meeting, except at the sole discretion of the president, potentially veiling proceedings from the press (hello!) and students-at-large.

This was not an appropriate procedure for this review. Intentional or not, it’s a clear play for executive power.

Council rejected these terms. Councillor Josh Bradbury — who served as speaker of council last year — pushed a motion to amend the committee’s terms, replacing one of the executive seats with a councillor. Multiple members of the executive — including Evans, VP Administration William Sparks and VP External Alex Zheng — opposed this motion. Evans’ justification? “Executives are very interested in being a part of this.”

Regardless, when the matter went to a vote, only eight voted against it (presumably, the five executives and three other councillors). For being one of the main goals of the executive team, it garnered exceptionally little support from the rest of Council.

I chalk this up to two main reasons.

The first is that the executives provided exceptionally poor justification for the composition of the committee. Though during and after the meeting Evans praised the quality of the discussion, I didn’t think the executives’ arguments were the source of that quality. Repeating that the president can only vote in a tie is not persuasive. Neither is saying that other executives are “very interested” in sitting on the committee and “having a voice.” Even the seemingly cogent points — executives bringing relevant on-the-job experience and wanting a nimble committee — fall flat when considering that two of the six members of the Bradbury-proposed committee would still be executives.

Our executives should be able to coherently justify their decisions. When I write Point of Inquiry, I don’t trip and accidentally produce opinion journalism. I make intentional editorial decisions and am accountable for justifying them if asked by you, dear reader. Our representatives should be held to the same standard: they must be able to justify their decisions. They weren’t able to this time; they should next time.

The second reason is that not all of Council is content with passivity — Bradbury’s intervention showed that.

I hope this year will be marked by substantive council discussion. Council should not just be a bygone approval of the executives’ agenda. Certainly, an unnecessarily obstinate Council is also bad; I don’t believe an aggressive and adversarial Council – executive relationship serves anyone. But Council should host substantive discussion when considering important matters. Yes, between councillors and executives but also among councillors.

This requires that councillors engage in parliamentary procedure. Not everyone needs to be neck-deep in Robert’s Rules of Order. However, a base level of competency is required to fulfil the duties of office.

Councillors cannot be afraid to speak against an executive’s motion or to question an update. Likewise, they must have the competencies to — when necessary — oppose the executive with an appropriate amendment or counter-motion.

Crucially, this must expand beyond Graduate Student Society representatives like Bradbury and Buraga. We are still early in this Council’s term — it’s no surprise that new councillors are still developing these competencies. However, every councillor must strive for this level of engagement. It’s that commitment that produces the deliberation that makes Council a valuable institution and allows councillors to serve their constituents.

If our representatives can lock in at Council, the rest of us have to contribute too. Last year in Point of Inquiry’s inaugural essay, I wrote “we are responsible for pushing our union where we want it to go, and our union should be receptive.” Over the past year we’ve seen the start of that healthy reception; this year, we must nurture that seedling of healthy governance culture. This year’s executives don’t seem like ones to rock the boat — at least on their own. Conveniently, executives are accountable to Council; conveniently, Council is on its way to being comfortable challenging our executives.

For us, that means we need to tell our councillors what is important to us — and not just when told to by an incendiary Instagram infographic. While it’s clear that students in the School of Music are justifiably concerned about reduced access to rehearsals in the Chan Centre, it’s less clear what, say, dentistry students want from the AMS.

AMS executives have told us for decades that what we want is an exam database. Are we satisfied being told what we want? Is our highest aspiration truly … a list of PDFs? I don’t think so. We can dream bigger. And our councillors can help make it happen.