VOTE OR . . . squander $10 million

Tessa Vanderhart, staff

The day this paper hits stands will be the first day of voting in the UMSU general election for president, four vice-presidents, and three student community representatives (two other positions have no candidates). I know there’s no P. Diddy to tell you to get out and vote, but this much should be perfectly clear: the UMSU executive receives $36.38 from you for each semester you’re enrolled in, and controls an annual budget of $10,620,000. It’s a big fucking deal.

If you’re not bored yet, I will herein offer you a rundown on what UMSU is — something not to be taken for granted.

Health and dental plan

Not included in the above “UMSU fees” is the $226 you pay, per semester, to the UMSU Health and Dental Plan. Because insurance costs have been rising over the past few years and this number has gone up very little, services have been reduced since the plan’s inception in 2002. Further cuts were made in 2005, when UMSU switched to a cheaper, Canadian Federation of Students-backed plan to pay off the $3-million debt the health plan racked up in its first three years. Some councillors want glasses and full dental work (most is only covered up to 50 per cent) included in the plan — but that could cost you lots of money.

The businesses

One of the best ideas I’ve heard so far in this election is Clean Slate presidential candidate Troy Unrau’s claim that he would set the businesses up at arm’s-length to UMSU. I’m in favour of this because the businesses accrue half of UMSU’s total budget, but it’s very difficult for UMSU executives, never mind the council, to familiarize themselves with the specific necessities of each business. The University of Manitoba Food Services — formerly known as food services provider Aramark — has been working hard to provide more “premium” food on campus, in hipness and in price; but, with a more open food services contract, it’s up to UMSU to provide more cheap options for students. Archives is ugly and inefficient and; the line for bus passes at Answers is ridiculous. These problems have easy solutions, and will result in a much more satisfied student population.

Council

Council is the main way that students can participate in UMSU, either by being elected to council, or just showing up. Until a few years ago, students weren’t allowed to speak in council — now the problem is that no one goes, even elected representatives (OK, most of them go, but a significant number do not). Council is an important UMSU service because when it works at other universities — notably the University of Alberta — great debates happen, university-life-altering ones, and the impetus can be found for great change, such as barring Pepsi from campus or preventing tuition from increasing by $2,000 the year after the freeze is lifted.

Events

UMSU spends a lot of time and money planning events. Until this year, they hired a director of programming to do this; now these duties are split among council and the various part-time staff members of UMSU that never seem to have a real “position.” Nonetheless, events like Celebration Week and Orientation are too important to give up. Unfortunately, Celebration Week this year cost about $XXX and Orientation $XXX. This is simply unacceptable, and costs must be cut.

Miscellaneous stuff

UMSU makes a lot of things possible — the student groups, for one, as well as a minivan that drives around campus (really, and it’s great), grocery-store runs for residence students, and much more. UMSU also helps to make students feel at home on campus — it’s easy to walk in and be accepted. Heck, if they’d responded to my offer of volunteer services before the Manitoban, I’d probably be UMSU president and not Manitoban editor-in-chief right now. Self-aggrandizement aside, this is the most important function of UMSU — and best of all, it costs nothing. Students United’s (half-baked, but remarkably well-intentioned) plan of closed-circuit TVs showing UMSU-vision (possibly like Wonka-vision?) illustrates perfectly the potential, if only UMSU could see it through.

The election

Unfortunately, for students who vote in UMSU elections and those who don’t alike, this year lacks an election issue — something to get on one side of. Really, there hasn’t been an issue-based election since 2004, when Amanda Aziz was elected for the first time, bringing environmental issues and the CFS to the forefront of UMSU’s agenda. Of course, Regressive Conservative candidate Pierce Cairns thinks that he should be an election issue, but let’s face it — if you can’t even bother to come up with a serious plan for dismantling UMSU, which would be incredibly easy and fun to do, you are clearly an unofficial, illegal joke slate.

With that said, here are the things that I think should have been election issues — and I charge whatever administration is elected on Friday night to follow through:

— Efficiency audit of current services: how many people actually use the UMSU Living office — enough to bother paying someone to sit there instead of hosting a website? How many blended drinks has Starbucks in the library served that IQs should have been serving? There are wild inefficiencies in any business, student-owned or otherwise, but it would be a huge improvement to work with existing problems rather than creating new ones.

— Playing campus radio on campus: self-explanatory. So do it!

— A food co-op: other universities do it, the GSA did it for awhile — why can’t we? This is my favourite suggestion, and one I hope the UMSU executive will take to heart.