Judith Woodsworth and some of the Concordia board members who may or may not choose to eventually find out why she left her position as president

I find myself, more than anything else, amused that everyone is focusing on Concordia University's Board of Governors in the wake of the sudden departure of its president, Judith Woodsworth.

When I was a student at the university from 2000 to 2005, I tried to attend as many of these board meetings as I could, to get an idea of how the university operates. It didn't take me long to figure out how things work there.

Like many other such bodies, the Board of Governors is largely a rubber-stamp organization. The big decisions are taken at the level of the executive committee, who presents them to the board as a fait accompli. Sometimes there is debate - particularly when someone outside the ruling clique has a problem with the decision - but the result of the eventual vote is rarely in doubt.

Strange definition of "community"

Concordia's Board of Governors is made up of 40 voting members. The largest group - and one which by itself forms a majority - is 23 people selected from among the "community at large". The others are a mix of faculty (6), staff (1), students (5) and alumni (3), each appointed by their respective associations, plus the president and chancellor.

A look at the list of those representing the "community at large", and you see the words "chairman", "president and chief executive officer" and "corporate director" a lot. They're all from the crowd you see at black-tie galas for hospital foundations (in fact, many members of the board are also on the boards of hospital foundations), not the ones setting up community gardens or organizing festivals or doing all the other stuff you think of when you think "community".

The biggest problem with this group is that it is de facto self-appointed. The board has a nominating committee, which recommends candidates to the board, which appoints them to a body called the Corporation of Concordia University (whose makeup is identical to the board), who then appoints them to the board. The "community at large" group forms a majority on each of these bodies.

The inherent problem with this setup has been obvious to the Concordia Student Union for more than a decade. But they control only four seats on the board. Occasionally, they might get support from the one graduate student, but their cause is always a losing one. Faculty, staff and the general public weren't on the side of the crazy anarchists.

Questions from unexpected places

The sudden departure of President Judith Woodsworth just before Christmas was the straw that broke the camel's back. Concordia's previous supposedly-permanent president, Claude Lajeunesse, also left well before his first mandate was to end, and also for reasons that were never made clear. Meanwhile, the university has lost a lot of other senior administrators over the past couple of years.

Now people are starting to take notice. Donald Boisvert, who was the university's dean of students while I was a student there, wrote a piece in The Gazette demanding an explanation from the board. Lucie Lequin, president of Concordia's faculty association, wrote a public letter to members (PDF) saying they should also demand to know why so much money is being spent forcing senior administrators to leave.

The situation has attracted the attention of the news media. Peggy Curran, The Gazette's universities reporter, is writing a piece every day or two about it. On Saturday, an article in the Globe and Mail. Chris Mota, the university's official spokesperson, has been working overtime the past couple of weeks doing interviews for TV and radio, trying to explain a statement that Woodsworth herself has reportedly admitted isn't true.

Meanwhile, that "community at large" group remains silent. The chair, Peter Kruyt, and the other members of the board have not been heard from. A complete blackout on public statements.

Time to shine some light

Clearly someone needs to step in and demand explanations. Unfortunately, the only body with the power to overrule the Board of Governors is the Quebec government, and they have shown a strong reluctance to do so in the past. We don't know yet whether this latest scandal will be enough for them to step in.

If they do, though, questions should be raised not only about the process for hiring and firing senior administrators, but about whether there is something inherently wrong with an organization that controls millions of dollars having a self-appointed board of directors. The government should investigate whether this is a good idea, or whether it is likely to lead to the formation of a clique, conflicts of interest, and the negative consequences that come with it.

Concordia, like all universities, is a publicly-funded institution. It needs to be responsible to the public.

Want your name on something? Just donate some money

A foreshadowing screed from my hippie days

I wrote the following article for a journalism class (a version was also published in the student paper The Link) in 2005, shortly before Dr. Frederick Lowy ended his term as Concordia University's president. In the past 25 years, he is the only Concordia president to have departed on friendly terms, completing a mandate and not needing to be replaced by an interim president/rector.

Philanthropists Anonymous

Near the entrance of the J. W. McConnell Library Building, three pillars feature plaques commemorating the financial contributions of students, alumni and government to the building's funding campaign. A fourth explains the building's name, citing the "exemplary generosity of the J. W. McConnell Family Foundation." It makes no mention of who McConnell was or any non-financial reason why the building might be named after him.

Above the plaques, suspended from the ceiling, a gold and copper-coloured display laughingly referred to as art by the university's administration lists major individual donors to Concordia's Capital Campaign. The starting price for your name here: $5,000.

At Concordia, high-profile donors are honoured not just with ugly plaques, but prestigious academic awards, honorary degrees, buildings and programs in their name, and in many cases a seat on the most powerful body in the university's hierarchy.

There is no formal contract in these exchanges. No agreement is made forcing the university to reward financial donors, and these rewards have been given to many who haven't given the university a dime. But far too many names appear on the lists of those honoured and the lists of those who donate than can be explained by coincidence.

Is this a way of thanking people who have contributed to the community, a teaser to encourage more donations, or is there something about Concordia's major financial donors that causes them to be praised for reasons other than their material wealth?

In Quebec, where tuition in Canada is at its lowest, the pressure to seek alternative sources of funding is extremely high.

Frederick Lowy, Concordia's president, says post-secondary education in Quebec is drastically underfunded, and that more money is needed to keep Concordia competitive with other universities across Canada. In Maclean's magazine's annual rating of Canadian universities, Concordia is currently rated second-last out of 11 universities in its category. Most of its low points relate to a lack of adequate funding compared to other Canadian universities, where tuition is higher.

Every year, when the Maclean's rankings come out, Lowy brings them to the group most concerned about Concordia's overall financial picture: its Board of Governors.

The Board of Governors is Concordia's highest governing body. It meets about once a month during the academic year to make decisions on university governance. It approves budgets, hires senior administrators, and approve major policy changes, but the meetings themselves usually involve little more than receiving reports and rubber-stamping recommendations of committees.

The 40-member Board of Governors is composed of representatives appointed from different constituencies, including faculty, staff, alumni and students. The largest constituency, comprising just over half of the board, is known as the "community at-large". Since Concordia is a public university, it logically follows that members of the community should have a say in how it is run.

But unlike the other constituencies, the community-at-large members aren't appointed by the group they represent. Instead, the board appoints a nominating committee, composed mostly of community-at-large members, which receives nominations and recommends appointments back to the board. The board accepts the recommendations behind closed doors, and appoints the person to the Corporation of Concordia University. The Corporation then meets and appoints the person to the Board of Governors.

Once this process is complete, the person begins a three-year term, and their appointment is made public. Normally, a governor will serve up to three three-year terms on the Board of Governors, for a total of nine years.

Lowy says that in addition to academic and cultural backgrounds, the nominating committee looks for "people who can spark donations," either by donating themselves or gathering other donors.

So it's no coincidence that the community-at-large seats are filled with some of the richest people around: executives at large corporations. Almost all of the 23 community-at-large members are (or were) senior management of large companies, including the National Bank, Quebecor World, Ernst and Young, and the aptly-named Power Corporation.

These people are also among Canada's most prolific political donors, including some of the heaviest donors to the federal Liberal and New Democratic parties. They're called upon to lobby and negotiate with the provincial government to try to secure more funding for education.

Jean McGuire, a management professor in the John Molson School of Business, says this situation is very common for private and non-profit corporations alike. She says donors feel more comfortable if they know what's going on in the organization, and want to make sure their money is used wisely.

She says their motivation for giving to universities isn't to control them, but help them in their mission. This is why donations and increased involvement in a non-profit organization both come together.

Tim McSorley, the Quebec regional chair of the Canadian Federation of Students, doesn't quite see it that way. While he agrees that the corporate sector does have a place on the Board of Governors, he believes its weight is too much and is silencing the voices of others who could serve.

McSorley says the unusually wealthy corporate CEOs don't reflect the economic diversity of the community. "It's an academic institution," he says. "It should have a multitude of voices." He rejects the implication that corporate CEOs are better at managing large organizations and says there are people who know how who aren't part of the corporate sector.

CFS Quebec has long claimed that corporate CEOs on the Board of Governors have an inherent conflict of interest. They have a say in the organization that trains their future workforce. CFS-Q says this creates a danger that certain programs, like those in engineering and the sciences, will receive more attention if they're more profitable, while programs like philosophy or history would receive less.

Students have already raised concerns that the needs of fine arts students are being taken away to give more space to computer science and engineering.

As part of the CFS-Q executive, McSorley has been raising awareness about the dangers of private involvement in education, a solution he doesn't like any better than increased tuition. He says students are providing free labour for large corporations while paying for their own training.

Lowy says that despite the apparent problems on paper, he's not concerned about corporate influence. He says the board has no wish to control the curriculum. Instead, he says, it leaves that to the university's senate, which deals with academic programs and is comprised only of students, administration and faculty. The senate, he says, is free of such corporate influence.

But Concordia's corporate connections aren't just through its community-at-large board members. Lowy himself sits on the board of directors of two large companies.

One is Dundee Bancorp, a holding corporation for financial management companies. Lowy sits stone-faced as he describes the nature of the company, his public relations officer looking on nervously. The company's board of directors includes fellow governors Richard J. Renaud and Normand Beauchamp.

Lowy also sits on the board of Neurochem, a pharmaceutical company, with fellow board member Peter Kruyt.

He is quick to downplay the potential conflict of interest his membership on these boards represents, saying there are "no areas of conflict."

Lowy is also quick to dismiss the idea that he and the board members meet in secret. He says that while the executive members of the board meet often, his relationship to the community-at-large members is "collegial," not personal.

But Lowy isn't the only one with these extra-curricular connections. Most of the corporate CEOs on the board run companies, and many sit on the boards of other non-profit and for-profit corporations. Playing a quick game of six degrees of separation yields many connections between these members outside of the university.

Board member Jonathan Wener owns Canderel, a real estate company. Canderel employed the services of the Davies, Ward, Phillips and Vineberg law firm, as well as fellow board member Lillian Vineberg. The law firm, meanwhile, has another board member, Rita Lc de Santis, as one of its partners. Similar connections attach at least 15 members of the board's community-at-large contingent together.

Concordia's president doesn't pretend that dangers don't present themselves. But when it comes to the pressures of sacrificing integrity, he points to an entirely different problem: personal favours.

Lowy says the most common request involves parents who want their children's admission rejections or failures overturned. Lowy says it's difficult to say no to such requests, especially when they come from friends of the university, but that aside from providing an explanation of the university's point of view, he never gets involved in such matters.

The matters he and Concordia's academic administration do have a say in is the awarding of honorary degrees and the naming of buildings and facilities. Some believe these symbolic gestures are an acceptable way of thanking donors, while others are uncomfortable with the idea of universities selling their good name to the highest bidder.

Former governors Francesco Bellini, Dominic D'Alessandro, Leonard Ellen and Alan B. Gold have all received honorary degrees after donating millions to the university. The university's policies currently forbid giving honorary degrees to sitting members of the Board of Governors.

Honorary degrees are given to people who have contributed to the community. Lowy says they are given to Concordia graduates who have "done important things in life" or are "leaders in their field."

Though major donors are among Concordia's honorees, most degree recipients are not donors to the university.

McGuire dismisses the idea that degrees are given as a result of donations. The awarding of such degrees are decided by faculty councils, not senior administration. McGuire says the possibility of future donations has never been raised at these meetings.

Lowy says people would feel insulted if honorary degrees were purchased instead of being awarded based on merit.

"You can't really sell the degrees," Lowy says. "It's not a bad idea," he adds with a laugh.

Honorary degrees are awarded for service to the community. But the naming of buildings, rooms and programs are more directly related to the donations received to aid in their construction.

The Richard J. Renaud Science Complex, which opened on Concordia's Loyola campus in 2003, was named after Renaud, a current member of the board, largely due to his financial contributions. About a dozen facilities and programs are named after major donors for the same reason.

The largest known donation came from Molson Inc. in 2001. Eric Molson, Molson's chairman and Concordia's chancellor, announced that the brewery would be giving $10 million to Concordia's business school. In return, the Faculty of Commerce and Administration would rename itself to the John Molson School of Business, after the man who founded the brewery over 200 years ago.

When it comes to naming buildings after donors, McSorley is hesitant to immediately denounce the practice in general. He says naming a place isn't a problem in itself, but a symptom of the need for funding from the private sector.

McGuire doesn't think the deal benefits Molson. She says the company could just as easily have started a foundation named after itself. "Most of the people who are giving money already have prestige."

But McSorley has some reservations about Molson. "You have 30,000 people going to Concordia who know their commerce school is called the John Molson School of Business," he says. "When you think of how much beer students drink..."

Concordia's Board of Governors next meets on Thursday, Feb. 17, at 8 a.m. in room 2.260 of the EV building, 1515 Ste. Catherine St. W., corner Guy. Expect it to be a circus of people demanding the governors finally speak up about what's going on.

UPDATE (Jan. 10): Board chair Peter Kruyt has finally issued a public statement on the matter. It's filled with bullshit, so I've extracted key paragraphs (emphasis mine):

Notwithstanding our support of the principle of transparency, good governance requires, among other things, that the Board respect confidentiality agreements in conducting the business of the University. The statement that Concordia issued on December 22 was approved by both Concordia and Dr. Woodsworth, and both parties are accordingly limited in what each can say publicly. I also believe that individuals should have the right to privacy.

We are determined to build on this solid foundation and have established ambitious yet attainable goals for ourselves through our Strategic Framework. Our commitment is to focus on Concordia’s strengths, striking a balance between our tradition as a welcoming and engaged university, and our mission of building on excellence in education, research, creative activity and community partnerships. We aim to rank among Canada’s top comprehensive universities within the next decade and to be a first choice university for students and faculty in Canada and internationally in defined fields, or “signature areas.”

It was in this context and following discussions with members of the Board during the month of December that Dr. Woodsworth made the decision to resign.

Though the idea was to say nothing here, this statement makes a few things clear:

• Despite what it says, it's pretty clear that Woodsworth did not leave willingly (and not just because that's what Woodsworth herself has said). You don't have "discussions with members of the board" and then suddenly decide to resign effective immediately just before Christmas while getting a hefty severance package. The board wanted her out, and fired her, offering the option to say she resigned while still taking her severance. That face-saving move is pointless now that everyone has a clear idea what actually happened.
• Knowing that, it's clear that this was either some sort of disagreement over policy or the board not feeling that Woodsworth was doing enough to meet its priorities. And rather than have a formal process for reviewing the president, some board members apparently took it upon themselves to convince her to resign.

Though supposedly meant to quell the controversy surrounding this issue, obviously this statement will not do anything of the sort. The one good thing it does is put to rest any suggestion that this has something to do with a minor scandal over expenses (it's all the media has to go on at this point because it happens to be before a court). But the thought that anyone is going to be satisfied by this statement is wishful thinking to the point of self-delusion.

Judith Woodsworth was thrown to the curb through a process that is sketchy at best (the Board of Governors has not met once since this whole thing began). And the board's ruling clique isn't about to investigate its own activities.

Concordia board chair Peter Kruyt (or, more likely, a secretary) welcomes comments about this issue at Chairman.Board@concordia.ca. But since he and his friends are not giving any interviews, don't expect to learn anything.

UPDATE (Jan. 12): About 200 professors have signed an open letter demanding answers and comparing the board to a "star chamber"

Alumni support resignation

UPDATE (Jan. 14): Concordia's three alumni associations have picked sides, and they back the university the board whoever forced Woodsworth to resign. The university sent out an email to alumni (including myself) on their behalf with the following key paragraphs:

Appreciating that the President’s resignation has raised many questions about Concordia’s governance practices, we queried our Board of Governors representatives* and senior university officials on the matter.

Those discussions, which respected the confidentiality that governs deliberations by the Board of Governors, have allowed the executives of the three alumni associations to concur that Dr. Woodsworth’s decision to resign had the support of a significant majority of the internal and external members of the Board of Governors. In our view, the process was conducted fairly and objectively and the transition to a new Interim President and Vice-Chancellor is in the best interests of the university and the alumni.

I'm not sure what "respected the confidentiality" means. Either the executives got information out of their representatives on the board, which it seems to me would violate that confidentiality, or those representatives said "just trust us" and said nothing of consequence, or there were hints that they think didn't violate confidentiality but probably did.

As for their confidence that the decision to resign had "significant majority" support, I have no idea where that information would have come from. To be clear, there has not been a board meeting since her resignation.

*For the record, the alumni representatives on the board are:

• For the Concordia University Alumni Association, Francesco Ciampini, a lawyer
• For the Sir George Williams Alumni Association, Robert Barnes
• For the Loyola Alumni Association, John Lemieux, a lawyer and partner in his firm

Students support resignation

Meanwhile, undergraduate student representatives appointed by the Concordia Student Union have also supported Woodsworth's decision to resign, according to an email the CSU's Amine Dabchy sent to The Gazette. In fact, they demanded "significant changes" after being disappointed with Woodsworth's lack of leadership in a meeting on Dec. 1:

We stated unequivocally that the students had lost confidence in this administration and we called upon Peter Kruyt to take immediate action by demanding significant changes.

Not only that, Dabchy suggests that the departure of so many vice-presidents might not be so much a problem with the board being drunk with power as it might have been the fault of Woodsworth herself (at least for those resignations that happened under her watch).

Faculty supports Woodsworth

From that same Gazette article, we learn that the six faculty representatives wanted Woodsworth to complete her term. Why the faculty would be the protesters while the students, alumni and others stay silent is a really good question.

Board members exceed own term limits

UPDATE (Jan. 19): As noted by The Link, 13 of the 23 community-at-large members of the Board of Governors have exceeded recommended term limits of two times three years. This list includes chair Peter Kruyt, former chair Lillian Vineberg, as well as a majority of members of the nominating committee (that, of course, decides who sits on the board), and a large chunk of the members of other key committees that deal with real estate and senior salaries.

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The resistance has begun...

So last week, the Liberal-controlled provincial government rammed through Bill 115, née Bill 103, which sets rules whereby students in English-language private schools not otherwise eligible for public English education can acquire such a privilege.

And if you believe Pauline Marois, Pierre Curzi and others with similar mindsets, the French language and Quebec society are one step closer to extinction thanks to the evil anglophone invader.

Yeah.

And yet, the public outrage about this law isn't what they expected. In fact, many politicians and pundits are downright shocked that there hasn't been some sort of mass uprising about Bill 115.

As an anglophone, I'll admit that I'm hard-wired to be against whatever the leader of the Parti Québécois is for when it comes to language policy. It's instinctual more than it is reflective.

But I agree with them that this is a bad law and creates a system where the rich have more rights than the poor.

Where we disagree is our alternatives. The PQ would rather deny rights to more people than have the rich be able to buy it. I think we need to look at whether denying English education does more harm than good to the future of Quebec.

The numbers

I don't have statistics on how many students want to enter English private school in order to get around ineligibility, but the impression I get is that it isn't many people. On Tout le monde en parle on Sunday, culture minister Christine St-Pierre gave a figure of 4,000 students out of a total of 1 million. That sounds about right.

Anglophones from anglophone families for the most part already have access to English public education, so when we talk about this issue we're looking at those students whose parents were educated in French (in other words, francophones) or those from outside Canada, both anglophones and allophones who would prefer English education to French. I'll deal with those groups below.

Francophones: Though I suppose there are some people out there whose parents were educated in French but whose mother tongue is English, let's assume that for the most part this consists of francophones whose parents believe that sending their child to an English school will give them a better grasp of North America's dominant language than the English classes they would get in a French school.

This is, quite simply, an embarrassing failure of Quebec's francophone education system. The teaching of the English language in French schools is apparently so bad that francophone parents would rather have their children go to English schools whose paperwork is in English, whose students are English-speaking and whose French classes rarely seem to go beyond the rules of basic grammar (I'm assuming it hasn't changed much from my high school days in the mid-90s). Rather than obsess about loopholes, imagine if politicians asked themselves how they could make Quebec's French-language schools better so no one would want to spend thousands of dollars "buying a right".

Unfortunately, having a serious discussion about the quality of education doesn't score cheap political points as easily as screaming in the National Assembly about whether the Québécois nation is a "grand peuple" or a "petit peuple."

Anglophone immigrants: Anecdotally, the group I keep hearing about at the centre of access to education debates are immigrants from the United States. These people speak English, but for some reason (most likely work-related) they have decided to immigrate to Quebec and contribute to our economy.

Under the French language charter, these anglophone immigrants are forced to send their children - even teenagers more than halfway through high school - to a French-language public school. There, the students can't understand their teachers, their classmates or anything else. How this could be useful as a means of education, when there's an alternative that is specifically designed for them, is beyond me.

So these parents face one of three options: Send their children to private school at great expense, have them educated outside Quebec (even to the point of driving every day to a border town in Ontario) or give up and move out of the province. I fail to see how any of these options benefits the French language.

Allophone immigrants: Because of Quebec's declining birth rate, the number of allophones is increasing in Quebec, particularly in Montreal. Pierre Curzi would have us believe that the vast majority of immigrant allophones become anglophones, but according to the latest census figures, the number of allophones choosing French as their second language has surpassed those who chose English. Note that this includes all allophones, regardless of how long they have been here. For recent immigrants, it's closer to 75% French and 25% English.

For those allophones who are fluent in neither English nor French, it's hard to argue against French being the best choice for the dominant language of education. Despite the doomsayers of the PQ, Quebec is still predominantly French, and it's easier to be a unilingual francophone than a unilingual anglophone, though it's best to be bilingual.

For those with some fluency in either language, it makes sense to continue one's education in that language for the same reason as I point out for anglophone immigrants.

Won't someone please think of the children?

I find it interesting in this debate that nobody seems to give a rat's ass about what's best for the children who are being educated. The PQ talks about the future of the French language, implying that this common good is more important than any other consideration when it comes to choosing what school a child can go to.

The other side of the debate isn't better. The English school boards, represented by the Quebec English School Boards Association (though particularly the English Montreal and Lester B. Pearson boards), talk about their need for increased enrolment, how much they're suffering because fewer anglophone children are entering their schools. I suppose it shouldn't surprise anyone that a bureaucracy is primarily concerned with self-preservation (name me a bureaucracy that isn't), but I can't criticize the PQ's stance on this issue without pointing out the equally self-absorbed mirror image.

The children are mere pawns in this game of tug-of-war, numbers to be tabulated on a political scoresheet. That's probably the saddest part about this whole debate.

A chart of language statistics from Pierre Curzi's study on the French language in Montreal

Grand peuple

Curzi and other sovereignist hardliners like to throw out the statistic that the island of Montreal has fewer than 50% francophones for the first time.

The statistic is valid, having come from the 2006 census. But it's also misleading. It gives the impression that 51% of Montrealers don't speak French, which is not the case. The statistic refers to mother tongue, and those break down as 49% French, 25% English and the rest some other language. Of those anglophones, the majority are bilingual, and the majority of allophones become francophones within a generation or two.

In fact, using a chart from Curzi's own report on the so-called anglicization of Montreal (PDF), it's clear that the proportions have remained pretty stable over the decade studied, with the only difference in the increased number of Quebecers whose first language is neither English nor French. And even then, the spoken language figures remain about constant. Quebec isn't turning English; the statistics in fact show a slight downward trend in the proportion of native English speakers.

Not that I'm worried that the English language is going to disappear from Quebec.

This isn't to say that Curzi is wrong in everything he writes. His 85-page document has 106 references and includes a lot of statistics, but also a lot of one-sided analysis of those statistics that assumes its conclusion and then tries to prove it.

I could get into a long argument about these statistics, with each side throwing out a bunch of percentages to prove that the French language is in freefall or that it's stable or even growing, but this blog post is already a week in the making and I'm getting tired of wading through contradictory statistics. (Besides, I don't want to start sounding like the National Post.) Both the French and English language are healthy in Quebec, but the declining birth rate of both combined with 50,000 immigrants a year means the number of those speaking a third language - particularly on the island of Montreal - is rising.

Throw all the statistics at me you want, it'll be pretty hard to convince me that a language spoken by five million people representing 80% of the population, and with 220 million speakers worldwide (and growing), is in serious danger of extinction.

UPDATE (Feb. 10, 2011): The Gazette's Don Macpherson also uses Curzi's statistics against him.

So what do we do?

I don't pretend to have a magical solution that ensures the French language will be here for the next 10,000 years. I think globalization pressures will eventually cause the world's population to gravitate toward its most popular languages, whether it's English, French, Spanish, Arabic or Mandarin. The business world communicates in English. Given a few hundred years, the world could end up being mostly English-speaking. And I doubt there's much that can be done to stop that.

For the medium term, it might help to focus on some of the causes of decreasing Frenchification than obsessing about raw numbers. Is Montreal becoming less French because of increased immigration? Probably. Are immigrants being too drawn to English? Maybe. Are francophones becoming richer and moving to off-island suburbs in far greater numbers than anglophones and allophones? It seems that way. Do zombies on the island of Montreal prefer eating francophone brains? Absolutely.

Between the carrot and the stick, let's look at the carrot side. I know of very few Quebec anglophones who wouldn't want to speak and write better in French, myself included. So maybe there are ways to help them.

Some suggestions:

• Make all French language courses free. There is a program to educate immigrants to improve their French, and the government offers financial aid for French language courses, but there are still fees. Work on eliminating them and having completely free language courses for anyone who wants to learn or improve their French.
• Improve education of the French language in both English and French schools. The English side has already improved drastically since I was in elementary school 20 years ago. French immersion is being introduced at a younger age and more forcefully, getting young children to pick up their second language when it's easiest for them. A majority of anglophones are bilingual. But this can still be improved. More students should be put into immersion programs, for one.
• Start giving a crap about what happens in the rest of Canada. As unalarmed as I am about the state of the French language in Quebec, it's pretty clear how poor a state it's in elsewhere. While bilingualism rates in English Canada are stable or even improving slightly, they're dropping among younger Canadians, which is a bad sign. French immersion outside Quebec and the Maritimes was in the single digits in 2000. And in New Brunswick, Canada's only officially bilingual province, well ... see for yourself. If language hard-liners in Quebec took half the energy they do maintaining French here and spent it negotiating or promoting improvements to French language education in other provinces, we might see some real movement.
• Focus on taking down cultural barriers instead of putting them up. Quebec has an impressively healthy culture considering its size. Canadian producers in film, music and television look to Quebec with envy. But few anglophones take advantage of it. I don't know why, and I don't know how to fix it, but bringing the two solitudes together culturally will go a long way toward integrating anglophones into Quebec society.
• Put people in schools based on language, not heritage. If we establish that English schools are better for anglophone students and French schools are better for francophone and allophone students, how about sending people to schools based on competence rather than where their parents were educated? Putting a student in an English school with a strong French immersion program shouldn't impede their learning of the French language. If it is, that needs to be fixed.

What not to do:

• Don't restrict unsubsidized private schools. The PQ wants to expand the French language charter to include unsubsidized English private schools, which is kind of scary when you think about it. I'm imagining black-market schools that teach forbidden subjects in an illegal language, the kind of stuff you'd find in a science fiction novel. Fully private schools, whether they're English language schools, religious schools or other, exist outside the public system and shouldn't be interfered with unless they're doing something illegal. Yes, this means that the rich will have better access to education than the poor, but that's life. Unless you're planning to make university education free, outlaw private tutors and start restricting access to bookstores, rich people are always going to have it better than poor people.
• Don't extend language laws to CEGEPs and universities. It's really hard to believe that someone who has gone through French elementary and high school will lose their ability to speak the language because they went to an English CEGEP. Besides, many people choose CEGEPs and universities based on the programs they offer, not the language they teach in. Restricting access would limit educational opportunities for francophones.

I'm not an expert. Half the arguments in this post might be bogus. But this whole issue just annoys me so much that I have to get this off my chest.

If you want more objective analysis, I'd suggest watching some reports from the Téléjournal last week about language in Montreal. You might even learn something.

There. Now that I've solved Quebec's language debate, let's move on to something else.

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But this week, even though the drama on campus seemed to be just as big as every year (The Link this week was filled with election stories - PDF), nobody really cared off-campus.

Part of it is that the left-right divide that polarized student politics 5-10 years ago doesn't exist anymore. Looking at the two parties that ran this year, I couldn't figure out which party was on which side.

In the end, the party that was expected to win did so handily, with 73% of the student vote, 26 of 29 seats on the Council of Representatives, all four elected seats on the university's senate and both elected seats on the Board of Governors.

But that wasn't the big story of this election.

Instead, the big issue was on the referendum ballot, and questions about fees.

Free money

It's a perennial thing at Concordia that various groups will pester the CSU council to put a referendum question on the ballot demanding to institute or increase an independent fee levy on students. While student unions complain of non-tuition fees that have been steadily increasing over the past decade and a half, the CSU seems more than happy to add to those fees, usually by putting on the ballot misleading questions that sell an organization and then demand some small-looking per-credit fee (nowadays with a promise to refund students if they ask).

Two groups got questions on the ballot:

• Le Frigo Vert, the vegan food store that wanted to increase its levy by 50% - it says it wants to expand its hours and offer better discounts on food, but critics say it just wants to increase salaries of the people who work there. The vote failed 1,576-1,754.
• Cinema Politica, an activist movie screening group, wanted to increase its fee by 250%, for reasons that I'm sure it thought were justified. The measure passed by only 15 votes, 1,674-1,659.

A third question about fees also failed. The student union has been collecting massive fees for years to build a new student-owned building that would house extra-curricular activities. In order to speed up the process, the union asked to have the fee more than double, to a point where it would end up costing a full-time student $135 a year, and rake in more than $2 million a year total from Concordia undergrads. That question was soundly defeated, 931-2,348.

You can't leave me!

The big question on the ballot, though, was about whether Concordia undergraduate students wanted to maintain their membership in the Canadian Federation of Students.

In the past two years there has been a wave of student associations who have gone through the process of disaffiliating with CFS. Not because they disagree with the CFS's stand on tuition or social or economic issues, but because they feel the CFS is undemocratic, and their repeated attempts to reform the CFS's structure have failed.

In fact, the situation has gotten so bad that the CFS is now at war with its own Quebec chapter (tensions had been simmering for quite a while for years previously), and has banished CFS-Q from its organization (now demanding that it change its name).

As if proving their point about the lack of democracy, the CFS is refusing to allow student unions to leave, even after referendums are held with students voting overwhelmingly to disaffiliate from the CFS and stop paying fees.

How can they ignore the democratic will of students so brazenly? Well, it's in the CFS by-laws.

In a document poetically called Solidarity For Their Own Good, and posted to Stephen Taylor's blog, Titus Gregory spends 339 heavily-footnoted pages talking about the structure of CFS and the increasingly convoluted procedure put in place to disaffiliate from the organization.

The procedures put an insane amount of power in CFS's hands considering the obvious stake they have in the result.

Among the rules the CFS forces student unions to go through:

• A requirement that 20% of students sign a petition demanding to leave CFS (this is just to put the matter to a vote). For the CSU, this would mean more than 5,000 students, and about 10 times the number it would take to force any other matter onto a referendum ballot
• The CFS, not the student union, sets the date for the referendum
• A standardized question that makes no reference to what fees students pay to CFS
• Votes for disaffiliation by any one student association must be a minimum of five years apart
• Votes for disaffiliation cannot take place between April 15 and Sept. 15, or between Dec. 15 and Jan. 15
• No three student associations can hold disaffiliation referendums within the same three-month period. As a result of this (and the previous rule), the CFS refused to allow a referendum at Concordia until almost a year after the petition was delivered in October.
• A special body, with half its members appointed by CFS, decides on what campaign materials are allowed (and can unilaterally tear down posters it feels are not compliant). During a referendum at Dawson College in 2008 (this one to join CFS), posters arguing against CFS affiliation were declared illegal for incredibly dubious reasons (most alleging defamation against CFS), including the argument that one had "out of date" citations from student newspapers.
• The CFS has the right to appoint poll clerks, scrutineers, and one of two members of an appeals committee to deal with any disputes over these rules
• Campaigning of any kind is prohibited outside of the campaign period, but an exception is made for any material that describes or advertises CFS services so long as it doesn't reference the referendum directly
• All outstanding fees must be paid to CFS before choosing to disaffiliate. The CSU was shocked when the CFS calculated their outstanding fees to be more than $1 million, and outright deny that any such deficit exists.

Imagine any other organization imposing these kinds of rules for someone wanting to leave that organization, and one word comes to mind: undemocratic.

It's easier to leave a cellphone contract from hell than it is to leave CFS.

Which brings us back to the entire reason these student associations want to leave.

But they can't leave. Instead, the CFS is suing or threatening to sue any student union that dares try, finding some violation of the CFS-imposed rules to argue that the union is violating CFS by-laws and hence a contract between the two organizations.

Other battles are going on with the McGill graduate association, as well as Concordia's Graduate Student Association, which CFS also argues owes it a lot of money. If all the disaffiliation campaigns are successful, the CFS will be left with virtually no presence in Quebec, Canada's second-largest province.

At Concordia, even though the question was simply whether they wanted to remain part of CFS, the students voted 72% against. Not only did members of both parties running for the executive support leaving CFS (one made it a primary platform point), but the issue seemed to unite (what's left of) both sides of the political divide, proving once again that corruption is not a partisan issue.

And so, like that psycho ex-girlfriend who insists your relationship isn't over until she agrees to end it, the CFS will be using its lawyers to convince student associations to stay (Heck, I expect a lawyer's letter threatening me for this post any day now). And all the money being sunk into this battle (from both sides) is money that won't be used to advocate for student causes and provide services to students at universities.

The CFS might even win some of these court challenges, successfully finding some loophole that invalidates months of work on the part of a student association that just wants to leave.

But just because the CFS might win doesn't mean it shouldn't be ashamed of itself.

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Spotted at Concordia University last week

Nice to know I have a government that will spend my tax money on giant, unnecessary signs that advertise to me other ways the government is using my tax money.

I wonder if there's a similar sign outside Canada's sign-making factories, saying the government is "investing" in them too.

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Applications are due by April 30 (April 10 if you want to apply for scholarships)

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In it, Curran points the finger at student apathy, saying people who go to university just don't care enough about what goes on in their student government:

The truth is, your average student is usually too busy with classes, work, movies, gym and love life to pay attention to student government. So the decision-making and, more importantly, that ginormous bankroll, falls to that small clique of keeners for whom politics is passion and bedside reading is Robert's Rules of Order.

This argument sounded familiar to me, so I went looking in the archives. Allison Lampert said the same thing eight years ago, when students started to turn on their radical left-wing student government:

It's a university with a history of political activism, and a group of older, working-class students who feel their social causes are as important as what they learn in the classroom.

It's also a university that attracts mature working students, who prioritize their jobs and part-time classes over voting for student council.

"The same things that make a small number of students really active also make a large number of students less involved," observed Concordia University student Zev Tiefenbach, 23.

...Some observers argue the CSU executive was elected because of voter apathy at Concordia - about 7 per cent of students cast ballots in the last election, compared with 20 per cent at McGill University.

Their explanation: Concordia has a larger number of part-time students - 45 per cent of the student population - who are often less inclined to get involved in school politics.

Apathy is certainly a problem, no matter what the political leanings of the student government. And apathy breeds corruption. But the CSU actually gets a lot of students involved. Its elections have gotten as much as 10% turnout, which is very high for student elections in large universities. The fact that these scandals are being uncovered should be considered a good sign in that regard. I'm sure there are plenty of questionable expenses from smaller student groups, like clubs and faculty-specific student associations. But few people care about those.

It's not just Concordia, either. Dawson's student union learned a hard lesson last fall when an executive went crazy with a union-financed credit card.

Should the university step in, and take the financial reins? Even if they wanted to they couldn't. The CSU is an accredited student union that's separate from the university, and Concordia can no more step in and take control than an employer can take control of a workers' union.

The decision must be the CSU's to make, and while they've already promised even tighter financial controls, that's not the answer. After all, financial controls are what got them into this mess in the first place, after almost $200,000 went missing from its coffers in 1999 and 2000.

And it's been shown time and time again that turnover every four or five years causes an inescapable loss of institutional memory, and the slow deterioration of any good intentions that may have been placed there by predecessors. Outside staff hired to make up for that loss (like the bookkeeper accused of mismanaging those hundreds of thousands at the CSU) end up gaining more and more power through their growing knowledge, and learn how to manipulate things behind the scenes.

Instead, the CSU and other student associations charged with managing any money simply shouldn't be doing so. They should setup an independent organization to handle their finances, sign their cheques and do financial reports (with another accounting firm doing the auditing, of course). Political decisions would rest with the elected student government, but balancing the chequebook would be left to professionals instead of 20-year-old students with no experience handling a million-dollar-plus budget.

My worry isn't so much about the CSU, which has a few eyes on it at all times, but more about the smaller organizations getting student money that aren't the subject of constant attempts at coups d'état. Their financial mismanagement - or just imprudent choices of where to spend money - might go on for years before anyone notices them.

If student government want to be truly proactive about solving this problem, they first have to admit they have a problem, and that they need help to solve it.

UPDATE: A McGill student association executive resigned over personal use of a $2,000 hotel gift certificate that was deemed inappropriate.

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One of the provisions requires that at least two thirds of the boards' members must come from outside the university and be chosen from the "community"

That sounds great, in theory. Universities are government-funded, so they should belong to the people.

But in practice, there's a major problem with these boards that the law doesn't fail to address: How they are appointed.

Currently, board members are chosen out of applications from the community by a committee set up by the board, who then make recommendations to the board which are then approved by the board.

In other words, these boards are self-appointing. They literally dictate their successors like some sort of monarchy.

Fortunately, the boards of universities (which, in theory, can be overruled by the Quebec government) are benevolent dictators, take their responsibilities seriously and work to better the universities out of a sense of civic responsibility.

But these boards also have a very strange sense of what "community" really means. They're predominantly business elites, CEOs of large corporations and their friends/wives/tennis partners. You won't find many plumbers, community activists or artists here unless they bought their way onto the board with huge donations to the university. Though there's never a formal quid pro quo, the reality is that your chances of being appointed to a university's board are much greater when you've given a substantial amount of money in donations.

This is what the Quebec government has to deal with, this idea of informal shareholders who buy a stake in a university in exchange for a bit of control over it. But the government won't do that because they rely on these donations to offset the huge cuts the government made to education over the past two decades.

All this makes the new law seem a bit silly, don't you think?

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Editor-in-chief Andrew Phillips explains the history of the project in his blog. He also links to the associated website, as well as a page with teaching materials for educators who want to make this part of their classrooms.

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School boards

(Decisions apply to all schools and head office unless otherwise indicated)

• Lester B. Pearson School Board: CLOSED (council meeting to take place as scheduled)
• English Montreal School Board: CLOSED (according to Q92/CJAD)
• Riverside School Board: CLOSED
• New Frontiers School Board: CLOSED (according to CJAD)
  
• Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys: CLOSED
• Commission scolaire de Montréal: CLOSED
• Commission scolaire de Laval: OPEN CLOSED (ped day)

English private schools

(That I could think of, have your butler check the website (or CJAD's list) if not listed here)

• Emmanuel Christian School: CLOSED
• Queen of Angels Academy: CLOSED (Monday exams on Thursday)
• Selwyn House: CLOSED (Monday exams on Friday)
• The Study: CLOSED
• Villa-Maria High School: CLOSED
• West Island College: CLOSED (Monday schedule on Tuesday)

English CEGEPs:

• Champlain College St. Lambert: OPEN (check website for updates)
• John Abbott College: OPEN (though their website is silent on the issue)
• Marianopolis College: CLOSED
• Dawson College: OPEN (exams continue as scheduled, check for updates)
• Vanier College: OPEN (exams continue as scheduled, check for updates)
• Collège Gérald-Godin: OPEN (9am exams begin at 10am)

Universities are usually open through all but the most crippling of snowstorms. Check individual class websites or student portals for details.

Doing my part

I was going to do some Christmas shopping today, but because (a) shopping malls amazingly are still closing at 5pm on weekends two weeks before Christmas and (b) I took one look outside, I decided to stay home and be one less strain on the transportation network.

That kept me in perfect position to see the lightning that everyone's talking about, along with its acoustically suppressed thunder.

UPDATE (Dec. 18): The Journal wonders if the schools jumped the gun and if the closings were really justified.

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It reaches this conclusion based on the fact that people who stay up all night have statistically better grades.

This is an uncontrolled study. Rather than take two randomly-selected students and have one stay up and the other go to bed, it asks people after the fact about their habits. While it shows a link between sleep and grades, it does not show that the lack of sleep while cramming causes a decrease in grades.

The study could be simply explained away by the fact that students who do poorly tend to procrastinate to the last minute and do all-night cramming. There's no evidence that getting them to bed earlier would improve their grades, because nobody has actually tested for that.

AP (and the Globe) should know better than this. Comments attached to the Globe story pounced on it immediately. Why didn't a journalist?

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Acting like Bill O'Reilly doesn't make you a better interviewer. When you invite a leader of the student protest movement on your show and yell at him like a madman, it doesn't make people agree with your position more. In fact, people already agree with your position that protesters provoke police and that the tuition hikes are modest and don't necessitate this kind of response.

So why are you yelling like a baby who thinks nobody is listening to him? You invited the guy on your show to speak his mind. At least let him speak.

Mongrain Clenche Porte Parole Etudiant 50 Dollar
Uploaded by mediawatchqc

UPDATE (Nov. 19): Mongrain's contract expires next spring, and he doesn't seem worried about his future.

UPDATE (Nov. 20): via Patrick Lagacé comes this example of classic Mongrain:

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It's not that I think there aren't any rotten eggs in the police department, or that their tactics aren't a bit heavy-handed when it comes to protesters (fully-armored riot cops don't exactly have to fear for their lives against kids), but at some point the boy has to stop crying "wolf". Especially when the protesters are the ones starting the fights.

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The first, by the CEGEP-heavy, highly militant unlimited-strike-at-the-tip-of-a-hat ASSÉ, is this Thursday afternoon. (The event's tagline is telling: "Parce que la lutte continue, tabarnak !!!")

The second, by the bigger-budget, more organized PR-savvy FEUQ, is the following Thursday.

The reason behind the two protests is nothing more complicated than the two groups engaging in a pissing contest with each other. Rather than put aside their differences and come together, student groups prefer to fight and sue each other.

But even if this wasn't the case, the protest is pointless for one simple reason: They've already lost the battle.

In the last provincial election, Liberal leader Jean Charest made it abundantly clear he intended to unfreeze tuition and raise it by a small amount. ADQ leader Mario Dumont even wanted to go further. Those two parties took over 2/3 of the seats in the National Assembly.

The public, meanwhile, made it very clear that keeping Quebec's tuition the lowest in Canada is not their top priority. Even some students think our tuition is too low, and would prefer to see more student money go into the education system.

These protests (and the laughable "unlimited general strike", which hurts no one but the few students participating in it) are organized on the assumption that the public supports them. But it doesn't. And tying up downtown traffic so that some hippies can yell how $200 a course is too much to pay for university education isn't going to help their cause at all. It will just piss people off and make them think that these students have far too much free time on their hands that they could be spending earning money to lessen their tuition load.

The tuition debate is over as far as the government is concerned. If you're going to try to revolutionize the way Quebec finances post-secondary education, you have to convince the voters to think like you. That means a big, honest education campaign, not a protest.

And don't hold your breath expecting attitudes to change overnight.

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Some of the options being considered:

Abolish school boards entirely: This is the ADQ's solution to the problem, and the excuse for reason why they want to force a real election. Administration of schools would fall to municipalities, the provincial government, and the schools themselves, removing a layer of bureaucracy. Unfortunately, as municipal mergers should have shown us, it's not that easy. The bureaucracy created by the change might be as large or even larger than the bureaucracy it's replacing.

Give school boards more power: For those (like me) who complain there aren't any issues to be decided here (things like school taxes and curricula are set by the Quebec government), this might make elections more interesting. But it would also make the boards inconsistent, and that could lead to problems down the road.

Tie school board elections to municipal elections: I can't see how this isn't a good idea. Let's reduce the amount of times we need to go out, update a voters' list and wait in line to cast our ballots.

Here's one I'd like to suggest adding to the list: Have school board commissioners appointed by municipalities instead of elected by the populace directly. This may sound anti-democratic at first, but the system it's replacing isn't perfect either. This solution would keep the bureaucracy as is, but the decisions about how local schools would be run would be left in part to the municipal governments they're in. (Municipal politics aren't high on voter turnout either, but it's better than school board elections -- and most people can name their mayor at least.)

Just a thought.

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That probably had something to do with the fact that there were no issues in this election, nobody knew anything about the candidates, and school boards are powerless to make any meaningful changes about how our kids are educated anyway.

Still, for those who care (the immediate families of the candidates come to mind), here's a quick breakdown of what happened.

English Montreal School Board

EMSB results (PDF)

• Spiridigliozzi: Wards 8, 11, 15, 21, 22, 23 (plus 16, 17, 18 and 20 by acclamation)
• Barbieri: Wards 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 12, 13, 14
• Mancini: Wards 1, 4, 7, 10, 19
• Independents: None

The EMSB election, as Henry Aubin explained it, was a battle between chairman Dominic Spiridigliozzi (whose team had a slim majority on the board) and Rocco Barbieri and Angela Mancini, who work together and whose candidates did not compete against each other for seats. Despite having four candidates elected through acclamation (including Spiridigliozzi himself), the team managed to win only 10 of the 23 board seats, with the rest going to Barbieri and Mancini's teams. This will represent a major shift in the way this board is governed.

Spiridigliozzi lost 3 incumbents: vice-chair Elizabeth Fokoefs (NDG Ward 3), Daniel Andrelli (St. Henri/Point St. Charles/Westmount Ward 6) and George Vogas (Plateau/Park Ex Ward 13)

Two of the races were extremely close (close enough that judicial recounts have been ordered): Rocco Barbieri won by a margin of only seven votes: 319-312. Julien Feldman (also on Barbieri's team) defeated incumbent George Vogas in Ward 13 by only six votes: 319-313, with 52 votes going to independent Adam Beach. (A second independent, Ilias Hondronicolas, dropped out.)

As for Bryce Durafourt, who I had high hopes for, he received only 49 votes against Barbieri's Liz Leaman (454) and Spiridigliozzi's Mario Pasteris (200).

Lester B. Pearson School Board

Official results

Not as fun to analyze as the other board because there weren't any declared teams and there were only seven races. Two incumbents, Howard Solomon (who's been there 14 years) and Don Rae (a one-time incumbent whose website is filled with stock photos of smiling kids), lost their seats.

Commission scolaire de Montréal

List of winners (PDF)

Wow. You can't go wrong with a 100% victory, but that's exactly what the MEMO group did here, picking up 13 acclamations and winning all eight contested elections against independents. Even Dominique Cousineau, whose campaign apparently consisted of pointing out that her opponent was named Mostafa, won her board seat. I can't find a list of the vote totals (though with a turnout of less than 4%, maybe they're embarrassed to show them).

Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys

List of winners (PDF, apparently scanned from an old fax machine)

With 20 of 21 seats contested, this board's election was the most active. Diane Lamarche-Venne was the big winner, picking up 14 seats of the 19 her candidates ran in (including herself and one candidate who was elected through acclamation). Jocelyne Bénard-Rochon, who ran 17 candidates, only saw three victories, and lost her own seat to a Lamarche-Venne candidate.

Surprisingly, four independent candidates, three of whom ran against at least one of the parties, also picked up seats: Guylain Desnoyers, Jean-Guy D'Amour, Sonia Gagné-Lalonde and Sarita Benchimol (the latter ran in Cote-St.-Hamp-West, which didn't see any party candidates).

The turnout was also abysmal here, at just over 3%.

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This week, I talked with Bryce Durafourt (above), who's running in the school board elections for the English Montreal School Board in TMR/Saint-Laurent. He's 20, a McGill microbiology student, curler, and ran for city councillor the 2005 municipal election in Saint-Laurent, only to come dead-last as the only independent candidate.

So I asked him: What's up with that?

Also this week (though not online) is an explainer about the status of the Canadian dollar, which is constantly hitting new highs compared to the U.S. dollar. It also mentions the situation in Zimbabwe, home of the least-valued currency in the world and one of the worst examples of hyperinflation since the 1940s.

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The blog post points out that the test was developed by a French teacher and that this teacher made the errors. It also gives some complete B.S. about how the media is thorough in its research, which it clearly isn't.

Having a professional create the test was a good move for TVA. But not having the test verified by another professional was where they failed. It's relying on a single source to verify that something is accurate. This is one of the first things they tell you in journalism school not to do.

But TVA wasn't concerned too much with accuracy, because they didn't take it seriously. Just like the other tests given in the media, it was nothing more than a gimmick to fill air time and possibly generate ratings. Infotainment that had nothing to do with quality journalism.

Until the media start taking these kinds of tests seriously and having them properly verified, the public can put about as much faith in them as they have in the spelling accuracy on this blog: not mcuh.

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Bédard is complaining that the school board had Canada Post print some of its election material, and they did so in Toronto. Apparently this blatant outsourcing is taking jobs away from Montrealers willing to print flyers.

Yeah.

Scandal.

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Media coverage lacking

The Gazette's Don Macpherson complains in a column that voters aren't getting enough information about the candidates and issues. He places the blame for this problem on the school boards:

The school boards themselves might do more to inform voters. For example, the Pearson board provides candidates with space on its website. But most others give voters only a list of the candidates' names.

Nowhere in his piece does he mention the fact that it's the media's job to inform us of the issues related to election campaigns, a job they are failing miserably to do in this case. (UPDATE: To his credit, his opinion on the weekend of the election points out that major newspapers abdicated their responsibility for coverage of candidates to the community weeklies.)

The media talk the talk about how important school board elections are, but why aren't they giving us platforms? Profiles of the candidates? Examinations of the issues?

Instead, we get stories about how hard it is to convince people to vote for school board elections, and others that gloss over confusions over what boards voters are registered to vote for. The articles giving us lists of candidates, when they appear, tell us only who the incumbents are and what wards they're running for.

Last Friday, a letter to the editor pointed out that the media has a job to do too, profiling the candidates and talking about the issues.

The Transcontinental-owned community weeklies, including the West Island Chronicle, are being surprisingly effective at covering the individual candidates. Links to those articles are in the "candidates" section below. But even then the profiles are lacking. No questions about the role of religion in school. No questions about funding priorities. I don't care what age they are, or how many kids they have in school, or why they decided to run. I want to know what policies they'll support. And I'm not getting that information.

The Gazette's West Island section has articles about the elections of each of the school boards (Lester B. Pearson, Marguerite Bourgeoys), but they seem to focus on people complaining about the lack of candidates, or the reasons people are retiring. There's absolutely no discussion of any issues, or platforms, or anything else that would help people to decide who they will vote for.

Henry Aubin, The Gazette's regional affairs columnist, also opines about the lack of a real campaign. He blames the EMSB for not holding debates and the candidates for having vague, platitudonal platforms. At least his piece delves into some of the ugly partisanship behind the scenes with a look at the "parties" as well as some controversial issues they face (like closing schools and dealing with Bill 104). But it's hardly enough to satisfy our need for information about this election.

Why do I care?

The lack of coverage about the issues, combined with the lack of controversial positions being posted to the few candidate websites out there, suggest that there simply aren't any important issues to be decided here.

I respect how important grass-roots democracy is. But nobody's proposing we start teaching Intelligent Design here as far as I can tell. Whether it's the media's fault for not digging enough, or the candidates' faults for not having polarizing opinions, there's just nothing to vote for or against here. Just a bunch of people I don't know running against each other.

The Suburban tackled the issue of whether this election really matters in a point-counterpoint: School board commissioners matter vs. School boards' use is long past. Neither side is very convincing.

When it comes down to it, why are we electing school board commissioners in the first place? We don't elect hospital administrators, or police commissioners, or board members of Crown corporations. We don't even elect board members for CEGEPs and universities. What makes elementary and high school administration so important it requires its own political system?

(Think I'm asking a lot of questions? The Gazette has an editorial full of them, along with an op-ed from a former teachers' union president about how little this election matters.)

The candidates

(Note: "Ward" and "Electoral District" are used interchangeably. I use "ward" because it sounds cooler. Contested seats are bolded. The rest are considered acclaimed.)

Lester B. Pearson School Board (7/21 seats contested)

• Official elections website

Coverage

• Over half of Pearson board acclaimed (West Island Chronicle)
• 17 nominated for Nov. 4 election (The Suburban)
• Survival is key issue as vote looms (The Gazette West Island)
• Pearson parents invited to grill board candidates (West Island Chronicle)
• Voter lists may be big issue (The Gazette West Island)

Candidates

Ward 1 (Verdun—PDF map)

• Douglas Flook

Ward 2 (Southern LaSalle—PDF map)

• Sergio Borja

Ward 3 (Northeast LaSalle—PDF map)

• Giovanni Baruffa (email) (Candidate's statement)
  
• Ruben Fazio (incumbent) (email) (Candidate's statement)
  

Ward 4 (Western LaSalle/Ville-Saint-Pierre—PDF map)

• Frank Di Bello (incumbent) (email)
• Walter Godzisz (email)

Ward 5 (Lachine—PDF map)

• Patrick Whitham

Ward 6 (Dorval—PDF map)

• Barbara Freeston (incumbent) (email | website)
• Gordon Neysmith (email)

Ward 7 (Eastern Pierrefonds/eastern Dollard/northwest Dorval/eastern Pointe-Claire—PDF map)

• Rosemary Murphy

Ward 8 (Roxboro/Riverdale—PDF map)

• Craig Berger (email)
• Bashir Hussain (email)
• Nazia Nadeem (email)
• Howard Solomon (incumbent) (email)

Ward 9 (Central Pointe-Claire/Valois—PDF map)

• Allan Levine

Ward 10 (Lakeshore Pointe-Claire/Pointe-Claire Village/Western Pointe-Claire—PDF map)

• John Killingbeck

Ward 11 (Central Dollard-des-Ormeaux—PDF map)

• Marcus Tabachnick (LBPSB chairman and chairman of Quebec English School Boards Association)

Ward 12 (Île-Bizard/Sainte-Geneviève/north central Pierrefonds/Rive-Boisée—PDF map)

• Sylvia Di Donato (incumbent) (email)
• Bart Sellitto (email)

Ward 13 (Northwest Dollard-des-Ormeaux/Greendale—PDF map)

• Martin Sherman

Ward 14 (Southwest Dollard-des-Ormeaux/Fairview Pointe-Claire/eastern Kirkland—PDF map)

• Joseph Zemanovich

Ward 15 (North/east Beaconsfield—PDF map)

• Ralph Tietjen

Ward 16 (West Kirkland/east Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue—PDF map)

• Suanne Stein Day

Ward 17 (West Pierrefonds—PDF map)

• Luisa Bulgarelli-Vero

Ward 18 (Senneville/west Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue/Baie-d'Urfé/south Beaconsfield—PDF map)

• John Hachey (email | website) (dropped out)
  
• Judy Kelley (email)
• Don Rae (incumbent) (email | website)

Ward 19 (Île Perrot—PDF map)

• Susan Bartlett-Lewis

Ward 20 (Vaudreuil-Dorion/east Hudson/western shore communities above the St. Lawrence except Saint-Lazare and Rigaud—PDF map)

• Angela Nolet

Ward 21 (West Hudson/Saint-Lazare/Rigaud/Pointe-Fortune—PDF map)

• Armando Jardim (email)
• Daniel Olivenstein (email)

English Montreal School Board (19 of 23 seats contested)

• Official list of candidates
• Current commissioners
• Full electoral map (PDF)

Coverage

• Names missing from EMSB voters' list (The Gazette)
• Mockery of an election (The Gazette)
• Party system stifles debate (The Gazette)

Parties

(unofficial, based on Henry Aubin's list)

• Team Spiridigliozzi: 23/23 candidates, including 9 incumbents
• Team Mancini: 6/23 candidates, including 5 incumbents
• Team Barbieri: 12/23 candidates, including 2 incumbents
• 6 independents

Candidates

Ward 1 (Côte-Saint-Luc)

• Neil Chazin (Spiridigliozzi) (email)
  
• Syd Wise (Mancini) (incumbent)
  

Ward 2 (Montreal West)

• Susan Gottman (Spiridigliozzi) (email)
  
• Joseph Lalla (Barbieri) (email)

Ward 3 (NDG)

• Elizabeth Fokoefs (Spiridigliozzi) (incumbent, vice-chair) (email)
  
• Albert Perez (Barbieri) (email)
  

Ward 4 (Hampstead/Côte-Saint-Luc)

• Marvin Helfenbaum (Mancini) (incumbent)
• Gideon Rosenberg (Spiridigliozzi) (email) (Andy Nulman blog post about his grin)

Ward 5 (NDG/Saint-Henri/Ville-Émard)

• Leslie Alleynes (Spiridigliozzi) (email)
  
• Anne Williams (Barbieri) (email)
  

Ward 6 (Saint-Henri/Pointe-Saint-Charles/Westmount)

• Daniel Andrelli (Spiridigliozzi) (incumbent) (email)
• Richard Lalonde (Barbieri) (email)

Ward 7 (Westmount/NDG)

• Nick Primiano (Spiridigliozzi) (email)
• Ginette Sauvé-Frankel (Mancini) (incumbent) (email)

Ward 8 (Côte-des-Neiges/Snowdon/Outremont)

• Ellie Israel (Spiridigliozzi) (email)
  
• Kurtis Law (independent) (email)
• Donald A. Reid (independent) (email)

Ward 9 (Mount Royal/Saint-Laurent)

• Bryce Durafourt (independent) (email | website) (this kid's been around, running for mayor and city council)
• Elizabeth Leaman (Barbieri) (currently parent commissioner for elementary schools) (email)
• Mario Pasteris (Spiridigliozzi) (email)

Ward 10 (Saint-Laurent)

• Bernard Praw (Mancini) (incumbent) (email)
• Costa Saisanas (Spiridigliozzi) (email)

Ward 11 (Saint-Laurent/Cartierville)

• Stratis Kossivas (Barbieri) (email)
• James Kromida (Spiridigliozzi) (incumbent) (email)
• Darrell Seal (independent) (email)
  

Ward 12 (Ahuntsic)

• Joseph Petraglia (Barbieri) (incumbent) (email)
• Riccardo Pivetta (Spiridigliozzi) (email)
  

Ward 13 (Park Extension/Plateau)

• Adam Beach (independent) (email)
• Julien Feldman (Barbieri) (email)
• Ilias Hondronicolas (independent) (email)
  
• George Vogas (Spiridigliozzi) (incumbent) (email)

Ward 14 (Saint-Michel)

• Rocco Barbieri (Barbieri party leader) (incumbent) (email)
• Antoinette Corrado (Spiridigliozzi) (email)

Ward 15 (Montreal North)

• Michele Benigno (Barbieri) (email)
• Sylvia LoBianco (Spiridigliozzi) (incumbent) (email)

Ward 16 (St. Léonard)

• Dominic Spiridigliozzi (Spiridigliozzi party leader) (incumbent, chair)

Ward 17 (St. Léonard)

• Frank Verrillo (Spiridigliozzi) (incumbent)

Ward 18 (Rosemont)

• Agostino Cannavino (Spiridigliozzi) (incumbent)

Ward 19 (Rosemont/Hochelaga-Maisonneuve/Downtown/Plateau)

• Angela Mancini (Mancini party leader) (incumbent) (email)
• Sylvie Vogels (Spiridigliozzi) (email)

Ward 20 (Rosemont)

• Frank Di Cesare (Spiridigliozzi)

Ward 21 (Anjou/Pointe-Aux-Trembles/Montreal East)

• Elena Celsi (Mancini) (email)
• Ted Donnini (Spiridigliozzi) (email)

Ward 22 (Rivière-des-Prairies)

• Stephen Bertone (Barbieri) (email)
• Rosa Cerrelli (Spiridigliozzi) (incumbent) (email)
  

Ward 23 (Rivière-des-Prairies)

• Angie Bertone (Barbieri) (email)
• Patricia Lattanzio (Spiridigliozzi) (email)

Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys (20/21 seats contested)

• Official elections website
• List of candidates (PDF)

Parties

• Équipe Éducation et avenir: 17/21 candidates
• Équipe Lamarche-Venne: 19/21 candidates
• 15 independents

Coverage

• Party lines divide candidates (Gazette West Island)

Candidates

Ward 1 (Outremont—PDF map)

• André Larichelière (Lamarche-Venne) (article in Express Outremont encouraging people to vote)
• Dominike Parent (Éducation et avenir) (article in Express Outremont promoting party)
  

Ward 2 (Mount Royal/Saint-Laurent East—PDF map)

• Denise Rochefort (Lamarche-Venne)
• Jean-Paul Lauly (Éducation et avenir)

Ward 3 (Northeast Saint-Laurent—PDF map)

• Mohammed Benzaria (Éducation et avenir)
• Taki Kérimian (Lamarche-Venne)

Ward 4 (South Saint-Laurent—PDF map)

• Abi Koné (Lamarche-Venne)
• Abdellah Zidine (Éducation et avenir)

Ward 5 (North Saint-Laurent—PDF map)

• Mustapha Hennous (independent)
• Diane Lamarche-Venne (Lamarche-Venne party leader)
• Norma Lanctôt-Ponzoni (Éducation et avenir)

Ward 6 (Pierrefonds-Roxboro East—PDF map)

• Carole Legault (independent)
• Nathalie Morin (Éducation et avenir)
• Catherine Thomas (Lamarche-Venne)

Ward 7 (East Dollard-des-Ormeaux—PDF map)

• Guy Allard (Lamarche-Venne) (Gazette West Island profile)
• Denis Tremblay (independent)

Ward 8 (North Pierrefonds/West Dollard-des-Ormeaux—PDF map)

• Ibrahim Abdelatiff (Éducation et avenir)
• Guylain Desnoyers (independent)
• Félix Méloul (Lamarche-Venne)
• Amany Naguib (independent)

Ward 9 (Île-Bizard/Sainte-Geneviève/Pierrefonds centre—PDF map)

• Marie France Bourret (independent)
• Suzanne Marceau (Lamarche-Venne)
• Nathalie Hervé (Éducation et avenir)

Ward 10 (Pierrefonds West/Kirkland North—PDF map)

• Jean-Guy D'Amour (independent)
• Michel Lemay (Lamarche-Venne)

Ward 11 (Senneville/Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue/Baie D'Urfé/Beaconsfield/Kirkland South—PDF map)

• Sonia Gagné-Lalonde (independent)
• Hela Labene (independent)
• Réal Ouellette (Éducation et avenir)

Ward 12 (Pointe-Claire—PDF map)

• Claude Cuillerier (Lamarche-Venne)
• Sébastien Francoeur (Éducation et avenir)
• Susan L. Stokley (independent)

Ward 13 (Dorval/Île Dorval/Lachine West—PDF map)

• André Danis (another profile) (Lamarche-Venne)
• Danielle Houle (Éducation et avenir)
• Paul St-Amour (independent)
• Suzanne Tétreault (independent)
• Serge Girard (independent)

Ward 14 (Lachine East—PDF map)

• Michel Ménard (Lamarche-Venne)

Ward 15 (Côte-Saint-Luc/Hampstead/Montreal-West—PDF map)

• Sarita Benchimol (independent)
• Nadim Saadé (independent)

Ward 16 (LaSalle West—PDF map)

• Marie-Josée Boivin (Lamarche-Venne)
• Claude Martineau (Éducation et avenir)

Ward 17 (LaSalle North—PDF map)

• Jocelyne Bénard Rochon (Éducation et avenir)
• Monique Vallée (Lamarche-Venne)

Ward 18 (LaSalle South—PDF map)

• Lise Lemieux (Éducation et avenir)
• Gilbert Vachon (Lamarche-Venne)

Ward 19 (Verdun West—PDF map)

• Jean-Marc Crête (Éducation et avenir)
• Pierre Lavoie (Lamarche-Venne)

Ward 20 (Verdun centre—PDF map)

• Francyne Arbour-Blier (Éducation et avenir)
• Pierre Labrosse (Lamarche-Venne)

Ward 21 (Verdun East—PDF map)

• Olivier R. Langlais (Lamarche-Venne)
• Marc Touchette (Éducation et avenir)

Commission scolaire de Montréal (8/21 seats contested)

• Official list of candidates

Parties

• Mouvement pour une école moderne et ouverte (MÉMO): 21/21 candidates
  • Candidates
  • Platform
• Mouvement Équité: 1 candidate
• 7 independents

Candidates

Ward 1 (Cartierville—map)

• Viken Afarian (independent)
• Jocelyne Cyr (MÉMO)

Ward 2 (Bordeaux-Ahuntsic—map)

• André Gravel (MÉMO)

Ward 3 (Ahuntsic—map)

• Diane De Courcy (MÉMO)

Ward 4 (Saint-Sulpice/Saint-Michel Nord—map)

• Paul Evra (MÉMO)

Ward 5 (Park Extension/Villeray—map)

• Mostafa Ben Kirane (Mouvement Équité)
• Dominique Cousineau (MÉMO) (Profiles: One, Two, Three)

Ward 6 (Villeray/Petite-Patrie—map)

• Kenneth George (MÉMO)

Ward 7 (Saint-Michel Sud—map)

• Tomas Arbieto Ascue (MÉMO)

Ward 8 (Rosemont Nord—map)

• Jocelyn Pauzé (MÉMO)

Ward 9 (Rosemont Sud—map)

• Marie Depelteau-Paquette (MÉMO)

Ward 10 (Louis-Riel/Nouveau-Rosemont—map)

• Jean-Denis Dufort (MÉMO)

Ward 11 (Tétreaultville—map)

• André Bonin (independent)
• Catherine Harel-Bourdon (MÉMO)

Ward 12 (Mercier—map)

• Christian Giguère (MÉMO)
• Simon Vincent (independent)

Ward 13 (Hochelaga-Maisonneuve—map)

• Daniel Duranleau (MÉMO)

Ward 14 (Plateau Mont-Royal—map)

• François Vaillancourt (MÉMO)

Ward 15 (Les Faubourgs—map)

• Michel Bédard (indendent) (Manufacturing a scandal)
• Paul Trottier (MÉMO) (Encouraging people to vote)

Ward 16 (Saint-Louis/Mile End—map)

• Louise Mainville (MÉMO)

Ward 17 (Westmount/Côte-des-Neiges Sud—map)

• Georges Toda (independent)
• Akos Verboczy (MÉMO)

Ward 18 (Côte-des-Neiges/Snowdon—map)

• Khokon Maniruzzaman (MÉMO)
• Teklad Pavisian (independent)

Ward 19 (Saint-Henri/Petite-Bougogne/Pointe-Saint-Charles—map)

• Patrick Côté (independent)
• Benoit Dorais (MÉMO)

Ward 20 (Ville Émard/Côte-Saint-Paul—map)

• Daniel Bélanger (MÉMO)

Ward 21 (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—map)

• Marie-José Mastromonaco (MÉMO)

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