SRC fee hike rejected in separate referendum.
Bottled water will soon become fodder for bootleggers and smugglers, following last week’s landslide vote in favor of banning the bottle at Bishop’s.
The embargo on selling and purchasing bottled water was supported by 73.6% of voters, who totaled just shy of 40% of the student body.
At last weekend’s SRC meeting, Environmental Officer Cate Collinson explained that the phase out of bottled water would not be completed until this time next year, at best. This is because there are still some contractual issues to iron out with vendors.
Collinson pointed out that such a timeline is not unreasonable, citing Ryerson University, which introduced a plan last week to end the sale of bottled water by 2013.
SRC Director of Finance and Operations Vicky Schaefer has said that the council’s goal is to have bottled water out of Doolittle’s by the end of the month.
“We are no longer ordering bottled water from Coke so whatever is left in the store is all we will have for the rest of the year,” she said.
“We want to set an example by being the first to implement the change.”
The referendum will make Bishop’s the fifth university in the country and the first in Quebec to go bottled-water-free.
The second referendum held during the billion-ballot bonanza was a proposal from the SRC to raise fees by 12% per year over the next three years. It was soundly defeated by a vote of 409 to 269.
At Sunday’s council meeting, it was mentioned by several members that the wording of the question may have been a “huge deterrent” to voters.
The question asked for an increase in the SRC’s operational fees by 12% per year for three years.
The ballot did not mention that these increases would have added up to just $15 per year.
Schaefer called the defeat a “huge problem,” and said that when minimum wage goes up, the council could be faced with some serious financial difficulties.
Minimum wage in the province is due to go up $0.50, to $9.50, on May 1.
Social Sciences Senator Sophia Faria asked if it would be possible to phase in a fee increase by raising the fees for next year’s incoming class. Leung responded that while this was technically constitutional, he thought it would reflect poorly on the SRC.
Collinson recommended holding another referendum in September, preceded by a vigorous campaign to inform the students of why the fee increase is necessary.
Turnout in the elections reached 39.1%, which is a marginal decrease from last year’s participation of 40%.
And elections are not completely done for the year – students will go back to the polls in a few weeks to elect 2 off-campus Student Affairs Representatives, and 3 off-campus Student Event Coordinators.
This represents a change in the composition of the Social Affairs department, which previously had an even split of 2 on-campus SECs and 2 off-campus.
The new makeup will be just one on-campus, and 3 off.
Such a change must go through the constitutional amendment process of two consecutive votes, and although only one has been held so far, the Council passed a motion allowing the Chief Returning Officer to open nominations for 3 SEC positions.
