Friday, January 21, 2011

Where did the bunnies go??

This post is an agreement/response to the opinion piece found in the Martlet this week. I am very against a "rabbit free" campus. The rabbits on campus are definitely part of what makes UVic the great place it is. If we were to completely eliminate the rabbits from the campus, the students and community would lose one of the biggest things that we associate with the campus and with ourselves. I personally love the rabbits on campus, and have gotten to know several of them throughout the years. I am saddened by the fact that I will no longer get to see those rabbit friends that I made in the past.

I agree that there were too many rabbits on campus last year, but that doesn't mean we have to remove them all. There has been a balance found in the past, and it can be found again. It would not take that much effort to determine a population that would be able to sustainably live in this area. This way we could keep many rabbits here and alive, UVic wouldn't lose it's greatest charm, and the administration can look like it actually cares about student's concerns.

I do take issue with one thing the Martlet piece said though. It questioned why students were petitioning about bottled water issues and not the bunnies, intimating that the issue of bottled water is not as important. First of all, it takes awhile to build a campaign, and the bottled water one is something that has been in the works for over a year. It will also take time to build an effective bunny campaign. Secondly, as much as I care about the rabbits at UVic, I feel the bottled water issue is far more important. It has tangible effects on the majority of earth's population, and definietly everyone here at UVic. Plastic from water bottles ends up in our oceans, and from there the chemicals from the bottles end up in the food chain, and eventually into us when we eat seafood. Privatization of our water sources undermines public access to clean water, which eventually leads to everyone having to pay exhorbitant rates for something that should be a human right and free to everyone. This hasn't happened much yet in Canada because of our abundant water sources, but it has happened in other countries around the world.

In short, I'm not saying that everybody should jump on the water bandwagon and ignore the lack of bunnies. I'm saying there is room for both. I definitely want to see students put pressure on UVic to take a balanced approach to the rabbit issue at the same time we deal with water issues on campus. There are so many issues that our society needs to deal with, and if we get mad at people for dealing with one instead of another, all our in-fighting is not going to get us anywhere. We need all of us working on all of these things cohesively in order to achieve all the good things we want to do.

Rob McDonald

Saturday, January 8, 2011

UVSS goes to court with CFS

On Thursday and Friday the UVSS had their court date against the CFS to try to procure a referendum on our continued membership with the CFS. I was only able to attend the proceedings for a short time on the first day, for complete coverage, go here. I am glad, however, that I was able to witness the part of the proceedings that I did.

What happened while I was there was the CFS tried to get an affidavit accepted regarding an alleged debt owed by the UVSS to the CFS. The problem was, they only filed the affidavit on Tuesday, even though they have been conceivably aware of the debt since 1999, and certainly since May. The judge rightfully threw the affidavit out because the CFS had no reason to delay the submission of the affidavit for so long for any purpose than to try to disadvantage the UVSS.

My longstanding position on the CFS is that I supported our right to have a referendum (though my mind has changed many times on how to go about doing that), but would vote to stay within the CFS because I feel the services they offer are worth the money we pay to them. However, the dirty and petty games played by the CFS during this process, as evidenced by the affidavit issue, has moved me more in the direction of not wanting to be in the CFS. I don't like being part of an organization that pulls underhanded tactics that the CFS is trying to use. I think that until the CFS can fix its heirarchical, autocratic, and ethical issues, it might be best for the UVSS to leave the organization.

Perhaps if in the future, the CFS can become a more democratic organization that gives it's members more powers to decide their own fates, the UVSS can look at rejoining. In the meantime, I feel that we should take a stand and say this kind of behaviour is unacceptable and we don't want to be part of it.

Rob McDonald