Responsibility to Represent

I want to talk a litle bit about how I feel student politicians, and politicians in general, should act. In particular I want to talk about the responsibility to listen to the general public and act on what they hear. I have given this issue a lot of thought since the Macleans debate and I will use that debate as an example of what I'm talking about.

The Macleans debate centred on whether the UVSS should do anything in response to the "Too Asian" article. The UVSS Board meeting that discussed this was the most well attended board meeting so far this term, and every attendee that spoke was in favour of boycotting Macleans. The board eventually voted in favour of the boycott, but there were some that voted against it. There were a couple reasons for the votes against: one was that because people thought the article was problematic, but a boycott would amount to censorship (I strongly disagree, and stated why at the board meeting, and won't get at that here as its not the true focus of this post), and the other is that the article didn't bother them combined with ideology of the first reason.

As for me, when I read the article, it didn't bother me. When the issue came before the board, I voted in favour of the boycott. Now why in the world would I choose to boycott something that didn't bother me? The simple reason is that I am on the board to represent the student body as a whole, not just myself and my viewpoint. I am not asian, so the article did not target me. However, many asian students, as well as other students, expressed to me that this was a racist article and that we should, as their representatives, do what we could to make their displeasure known to Macleans. As a student representative, it was my responsibility to listen to their concerns and act upon them. To do anything otherwise would be to not do my job.

The counter-argument to my reasoning is that it was simply a vocal minority and that the majority of students either don't care, or against the issue. I don't buy this argument for two reasons. The first reason is that the "vocal minority" in this case were the people directly affected by the article. Of course it didn't bother most people, they aren't asian. It was the asian community that stood up and said this bothered them. When a minority group says they have concerns that they are being targeted, they are the people you should be listening to.

The second reason is more what I want to focus on in this post as it steps away from the Macleans issue and addresses a problem I have seen in most governing bodies. The reason that I don't buy the whole "vocal minority" argument in this case and most cases is that by labelling a group a "vocal minority" you are delegitimizing what they have to say whether they represent a broader portion of the community or not. An important point here is that we don't know for sure whether they do represent the larger community or are just a vocal minority. The majority of people aren't vocal, that's why they aren't called the vocal majority, and we can't assume that we know what they want. All we can do as representatives is listen to the people that are talking to us, but who are these people?

In student government, as well as other governments, I am going to artificially narrow down who is talking to us into two general groups: our circle of friends that have access to us all the time (in other governments I equate this to the large business interests that always have access to the government) , and groups that campaign on a certain issue, the "vocal minorities". Often times these to groups conflict on how the government should address an issue (far less in student politics than at other levels). In this case, who should you listen to? Of course you should listen to both groups as they will both provide unique perspectives, but in the end, you have to make a decision to act one way or another, or make a compromise between the two. This is very difficult even for those with the best of intentions.

Sometimes there is no room for compromise, like if global temperatures rise by 2 degrees society as we know it will exist no more so every country has to do everything they can to reduce their impacts... wait, that's a really bad example. A better example is the Macleans motion that went before the board. It was either boycott Macleans or do nothing. There was a compromise amendment proposed that was to just write a letter, but in reality that would be to do nothing; Macleans would get that letter, say "how nice", and then throw it in the garbage. So really you have to make a decision to act or not to act.

When making the decision to act, or not to act, there are two key factors (note: I have noticed that I am incedibly binary in writing this post) that should go into deciding which group to side with. One factor is who is affected by this issue. I am far more inclined to listen to people who are genuinely effected "vocal minority" by an issue in a way that prevents them from participating in the community, effects their health, or effects their means of survival. Their arguments hold more weight for me than someone "friend" who not effected by an issue. It is for this reason that I weighed the point of view of the asian community in the Macleans debate over any other view.

The second factor is not related to the Macleans debate, and often not to student politics at all. This is who stands to gain financially or in power from a decision that has to be made. For example, if you have a tar sands company "business friend" that says there should be no regulation on them, and an environmental group "vocal minority" that says there should be, I am much more inclined to side with the environmental group because they have nothing to gain financially whereas the tar sands company does. Therefore, the tarsands company is far more likely to lie to you, or at least withhold the truth.

Now I want to talk about a third group that you should listen to that I neglected to mention earlier. This is your fellow representatives. So many times I get frustrated at board meetings and feel that discussion is pointless because people don't listen to each other. The purpose of government should not be to oppose and attempt to embarrass to other by trying to find flaws in an argument. The purpose should be to provide different points of view and really listen to each other and then come to a decision by addressing concerns. There are some people on the board that do this very well, but there are others that refuse to be swayed by others on the board no matter what the situation. I find this to be unacceptable and it defeats the purpose of even having meetings.

So in summary, we as student representatives have a responsibility to listen to students on campus when they come to us with an issue. We also have a responsibility to listen to each other. Once we have truly done these things, we then have the responsibility to take actions to represent the students as we said we would.

Rob McDonald

UVSS Representatives Meet with Minister Ida Chong

This morning Ben Johnson, Dylan Sherlock, James Coccola and myself from Uvic, and Matteus Clement from Camosun met with Provincial Cabinet Minister Ida Chong and Assistant Deputy Minister Victoria Thibault to discuss issues affecting students across the province. Even with a full hour of discussions, we still didn't have time to talk about everything we wanted to, but we were able to hit on some key issues.

The first issue discussed was that of interest rates on student loans. Clement made the case that the interest rates had an inhibiting effect on students choosing to enter post-secondary education, and Sherlock followed that up with the argument that saddling students with paying all this interest was bad for the economy as it left graduates unable to effectively participate in important economic activities due to the inability to get more credit once they graduate. Thibault responded that reducing interest rates has been looked at, but not acted upon because government didn't have the money to cover that cost. I take a bit of an issue with this statement as while it may be true that the ministry might not have the money in their budget to do this, the government as a whole seems to have plenty of money to spend on frivolous things such as a new roof for BC Place, a new conference centre, and the Olympics.

The second issue talked about was the issue of grants and non-repayable loans. Chong pointed to the current programs as a strength of our student aid system, but Sherlock pointed out that BC has the lowest rates of grants and non-repayable loans in the country. Much of this discussion hinged on whether grants should be up front or on the back end. Chong said the reasoning for the current back end grants program is to ensure that students complete their programs so that the government doesn't waste their money. Clement made the point that back end grants don't get students in the door, because they still have to put up the money up front to start school. Sherlock followed this up by saying that back end grants were income contingent because a student would still have to have a certain amount of money to start school and may not be able to wait until they are done their courses to get that money back.

Coccola then turned the conversation to university funding and asked about changes to the way universities to be funded to keep up with inflation, especially for schools that have maxed out their enrolments to try to keep up. Chong expressed concern about increasing funding for schools that have maxed out their enrolments as she didn't want to take money away from regional schools that had lower enrolments to fund the bigger schools. For me, this sent up a big alarm bell in that the way she framed her concern was that there would be no room for an overall rise in funding for education, just a shift of funding from one department to another, in fact this was the tone of the entire conversation of the day.

Coccola also asked about the government's throne speech commitment to remove universities from Government Reporting Entity status. Chong said that this was understandably running behind due to the uncertainties going forward with the leadership in flux. She also said that it was a complex issue that might have unintended consequences such as damaging the province's credit rating. Sherlock asked if an opt out option for some schools that took issue with the status might be in the offing, and Chong said that was a solution that might be looked at.

Finally Johnson asked what the rationale was for the splitting of colleges and universities into two different ministries (though at the moment Chong oversees both ministries). Chong responded by saying it allowed each institution to focus on what they did best. For colleges that would means training people within their regions and partnering with local skills training organizations to help local economies. For universities this means a more research focused funding and partnerships with business research bodies. After, the meeting Johnson mused that this does sound good in the colleges case, but we all agreed that for the universities it could lead to an increasing role of private interests in our universities which is a place we don't want to go. Further to this issue, Coccola asked whether the split of ministries would effect the 2% cap on tuition fee hikes on either colleges or universities. Chong responded that this was not on the table at this time, and expressed willingness to talk about the cap and whether it could be raised at all, but she indicated that bringing that cap down to 0% was a no go zone.

In all, it was a very useful meeting in which we gathered a solid amount of information from Chong and Thibault. They both committed to continuing the conversation, and Thibault was willing to set up another meeting in the near future. I was left with the impression that they are willing to look at several different policies to help improve access to post-secondary education, but also that it did not look like their would be any more funding than current levels. I realize that Chong is not in a position to make more funds available, but she is in a position to lobby strongly for increased funding for post-secondary education and that is something we sincerely hope she takes up.

Rob McDonald

The Medium is the Message: The Lost Medium

Here is something I thought up in the shower this morning and I thought I should write is down. I admit it's rough and would need to be developed more to stand up to scrutiny, but I want to know what people think. So please read, comment and poke holes in if you want.

The Medium is the Message: The Lost Medium

Marshall McLuhan's “The Medium is the Message” shifted focus from the content of media to the medium itself as what is important to how societies function. A key concept he brings forth is that one type of media contains other types. For example, written media is contained in tv in the form of a script, oral media is contained in written media in the form of speech and so on all the way back to thought.

In his analysis, McLuhan, and the rest of our society as wrapped up in our mode of thought as we are, forgot, or didn't notice one type of media that was contained in other media in our history. The medium I am referring to is spiritual communications, be they signs, visions, dreams or what have you. This medium has been described by cultures across the world, including our own, though in the more distant past than most. The Bible is a great example of this, for in the Bible, a written media, is contained oral media (indeed the First Testament at least came from oral tradition and wasn't written down until long after it came into being, hence all the psalms), and within the oral media lies spiritual media. The easiest example that comes to mind is when Moses sees a burning bush and hears the word of God speak to him through the bush.

It is the spiritual media that has provided the moral grounding of societies throughout the ages. Oral traditions were used to translate spiritual media to those who couldn't access that media. Over time, the oral traditions were overtaken by written media, and in that process the spiritual media that was encased within oral traditions then became encased in written media. This transition created a situation where spiritual media became far more inaccessible to the regular person, and the church became the translator of all spiritual media through control of the written media (remember that in the beginning, written media wasn't very accessible as not many people knew how to read or write, and papyrus or parchment, the key materials used for written media before the 1600's wasn't easy to acquire or mass produce). With the the ability to be the (at least self proclaimed) sole translator of spiritual media, came great power, and with great power came the potential for great abuse. And abuse that power, the church did. The Spanish Inquisition, the burning of witches, and the elimination of the Templars are only a few examples of the abuses of the church.

The frequent abuses of power caused for a movement to separate church and state. This is what happened over the period of a couple of centuries and with that move emerged a new set of problems. The church remained the interpreter of spiritual media and the state was left to look after the physical well-being of society, which usually simply meant the economic well-being of society. It is important to note that since the state was not supposed to interact with the church, it did not have the spiritual media as the foundation of their existence that the church had. This left the state to look after the economic interests of their society without the moral foundations that had grounded society in the past. Of course this did not happen overnight, and for a long time the state was influenced by the morals of the previous spiritual dominated society that created it. However, in modern times and especially in Western society, states have become completely secularized and tied to an economic orthodoxy. This leaves us in our present situation where our economically focused governments can see only problems related to economic issues because that is all it has the space to do. They cannot address spiritual problems because of the separation of church and state. Furthermore, they cannot even acknowledge the existence of spiritual media because it is buried within the oral traditions which are buried within the written religious texts which they are not supposed to interact with.

Our governments are not equipped to deal with the moral issues of our time, be they inequality, racism, lack of spirituality/compassion/empathy in our society, or environmental issues (yes, I view environmental degradation as partially a moral/spiritual problem). And herein lies the problem with our society, because it is the government we look to to deal with these problems. What this means is that we need to understand that governments are not going to be able to solve these problems and we have to start solving them by other means, or we have to change the basic premise of how our governments work. If we want governments to deal with the moral issues of out time, we must re-incorporate the state with spirituality and most of all with spiritual media in a world that desperately needs it.

Rob McDonald