SFU Students Impeach their Board of Directors

Over 700 SFU students braved the cold to sit through a 3 hour Special General Meeting where they systematically impeached seven board members of their student society. The Group of Seven, mainly executive board members, have been in hot water ever since suspiciously firing a senior staff member, with 26 years of service under her belt, in what critics are calling the "Healthgate Scandal." It's about grad students, their health plan, their staff representative, and supposed CFS links and conspiracies - it's complicated and confusing and has been all over the student newspaper for months.

With 23 student unions and caucuses passing motions of non-confidence in their student society, Students for a Democratic University started organizing the impeachment campaign. Suffice to say, democracy came to town, and it was a shining moment of student involvement. Anyone who's familiar with SFU knows it's damn hard to get students to come out to anything. SFU's a commuter campus with many students rushing off the hill as soon as classes end. To get over 700 students (some accounts say 1000) to congregate in the bitter cold for hours means they must have been really pissed off.

Student Society President Shawn Hunsdale (who many claim isn't even a student) was the first on the chopping block with 724 votes in favour of impeachment, 6 opposed, and 13 abstentions.

The fun isn't over yet, as the Group of Seven have called the meeting "illegal" and will most likely spend more student funds dragging the issue through the courts. In my humble opinion, when a record number of students come out to impeach your ass, it's pretty arrogant to keep fighting to stay in office.

photo by Aleszcz