By Thea Gribilas, Edward Djan and Heidi Lee
The Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU) has broken their own bylaws after announcing that election nominations would be taking place only four days prior to the nomination period, though the bylaws require at least 14 days’ notice.
On Thursday the RSU announced its 2022-23 elections schedule on Instagram, directing students to follow the RSU’s website for more updates. The nomination period is set to open on Jan. 24, but a deadline has not been given for them nor has any information on how to be nominated. The campaign period will run for only two days from Jan. 31 to Feb. 1.
According to section 6.1 of the RSU bylaws, “notice of the date of the election and the nomination procedures shall be given to members at least fourteen (14) days prior to the start of the nomination period.”
Students will be able to vote for candidates from Feb. 2 to 4.
The move also goes against the RSU’s renegotiated operating agreement with Ryerson University, which was obtained by The Eyeopener and states that the RSU “must comply with the provisions of its bylaws and policies.”
Under the operating agreement, Ryerson has the ability to terminate the agreement if the terms are broken and are not remedied by the RSU within six months.
The RSU posted an Instagram story directing students who want to participate in this year’s elections to the union’s website homepage. The homepage did not mention any details about running in upcoming elections.
A three-line notice about upcoming elections was posted at the bottom of the RSU’s “Get Involved” page and was not available anywhere else on the website.
The Instagram story also directed questions about elections to the chief returning officer’s email.
The RSU has ignored repeated requests from The Eyeopener regarding information about this year’s RSU elections, as well as the January Board of Directors’ (BoD) meetings.
The RSU executive team has not responded to any correspondence from The Eye in several months.
It was also listed at the bottom of the Jan. 17 and Jan. 20 RSU newsletters that four positions were available on the election appeals committee; however, there was no mention of election dates or how to run in the newsletter.
In addition, the newsletter did not include the number of available positions and instructions for the nomination package.
Last year, the RSU announced its 2021-22 election in its Feb. 3, 2021 newsletter, in which the union indicated that elections would happen in March.
Amanda Lang
It isn’t just the Eyeopener that’s not getting responses. Our program’s student union has tried multiple avenues to contact the RSU over the past year regarding a matter that requires their assistance and hasn’t received a single response. Not sure what the communication issue is or how to resolve it.