UMSU council notes

Heated debates on Canadian Blood services

Chelse McKee, staff

The University of Manitoba Students’ Union (UMSU) holds open council meetings every second Thursday at 6 p.m. in 176 Helen Glass. The most recent meeting was held on Feb. 7, 2008.

Amongst the usual banter of new hiring and executive reports, the Bannatyne campus council room was full of heated debate as Daniel Draper, representative for the LGBTT, brought forth two motions that led to over 60 minutes of discussion and questions.

The meeting began with Stephanie Fera, the CRO for UMSU’s March 1-3 general election, announcing that she had finished hiring the deputy returning officers, Sasha Kondrashov and Ruby Lin.

Executive reports

Garry Sran, during his president’s report, spoke about the continued efforts of the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) to discuss the issues of university funding and Manitoba Student Aid with provincial political parties. He announced that the meeting with Jon Gerrard, provincial leader for the Liberal party, was successful and that he “would like to work with us.”

Rachel Heinrichs, vice-president (advocacy), announced that a project, the Student Legal Services Working Group, which was scheduled to open in 2007, is now expected to be fully operational by September 2008. The group is a collaboration between UMSU, Pro-Bono Students Canada, and the Manitoba Law Students’ Association.

The group will offer free legal assistance to students and inform them about their rights. There will also be weekly sessions with volunteers to offer advice and resources.

Mike Einarson, vice-president (internal), announced that the Tax Services Office would be opening up on Feb. 25, with Gurpreet Chahal returning as manager.

During the finance committee report, Einarson approved $3,100 for undergraduate travel grants. A quarter of the travel fund remained, he said, adding that they were “still in a very good position this year.”

He continued on to say that discussion regarding the 2008-09 budget will be taking place at the end of February.

Afterwards, Einarson brought forth his report for the policy and bylaw committee, in which he said, “Several policies will be researched,” but that, for the current meeting, they had two to discuss, which had originally been presented to council earlier this year by Draper.

The first motion regarded the inclusive language used in UMSU documents and forms. The motion states that the forms should indicate that providing gender is optional and that where gender is required by law, that the terms “male-identified” and “female-identified” be applicable. A person, Draper explained, may be biologically female but they may identify themselves as male.

Kaif Pardhan, the representative for the faculty of medicine, asked about the legality of using gender-identified terms and whether it could be considered lying to identify yourself as female if ultimately and biologically, you are male.

Amanda Johnson, vice-president (external), said that UMSU forms already do not ask for gender.

After much discussion, Travis Friesen, a representative from the Faculty of Engineering, moved to return the motion to the policy and bylaw committee to clarify the terminology.

The motion was voted in majority to be moved back to committee.

Canadian Blood Services screening process

The second motion regarded UMSU’s support of Canadian Blood Services (CBS). The motion asked that the UMSU policy #3002, originally enacted in 2001, be changed to read that UMSU acknowledges that CBC’s screening process for donors is “homophobic, gender exclusive, and discriminatory.”

The motion included mention of the current CBS policy, which states that a man who has had sex with a man is barred from the potential donor from donating blood or organs.

Sran said that the motion would leave UMSU “doing what we do now, which is nothing.” He explained that currently UMSU puts up posters for CBS donation clinics on campus but, further than that, they have no connection.

He then said to council that UMSU “would never block them from coming to campus” but that the motion regarded a matter of support.

Pardhan questioned Draper asking whether it was necessary to call CBS homophobic, to which Draper replied that it “describes it best.”

Gregory Schmidt, a representative for St. Paul’s College, became a regular contributor for the debate, bringing forth several facts regarding the heightened chances of homosexual males versus heterosexual persons for contracting STIs and that the “statistics are overwhelming in favour [of CBS’s decision].”

Draper was surprised at Schmidt’s contribution of facts.

“I find it appalling that this is being considered,” Draper retorted. “High-risk sexual practices are not the issues. It’s all groups, not just [homosexual men].”

During one of Schmidt’s comments, Heinrichs intervened with personal privilege, saying that certain comments and questions were “a little offensive” to murmurs of agreement from certain council members.

After it had been noted that council had gone over their reserved 20-minute time period, they motioned to extend the question period. Draper added that he “[needed] a moment to calm down” and asked for a five-minute recess.

When council returned, Kelly Martin, a representative for the Faculty of Education, moved to send the motion back to the committee, claiming that it would be easier to understand the new motion if council could see the differences in the policies.

A majority voted to table Draper’s original motion and send it back to the policy and bylaws committee.

Committee reports

As the meeting progressed, the campaign and government relations committee said that they were looking into altering the bus hours for the shuttle bus that runs between the Bannatyne campus and the Fort Garry campus.

During the health and dental plan committee’s report, Einarson announced that instead of offering opt-out checks to students who wished the leave the UMSU offered insurance plan, refunds were now being applied directly back to the student’s account on the Aurora system. He said that if the system works this semester, the process will continue into the next school year.

The meeting finished quickly afterwards, with promises to return to the motions in the future.