Letters to the editor – Feb. 16, 2012

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At the recent University of Regina Students’ Union (URSU) annual general meeting, URSU President Kent Peterson moved a motion to add a Candian Federation of Students (CFS) Liaison Director to the board, along with a few other new board positions, and then spoke against an amendment to remove the liaison. During his speech, he asked the room several questions about how much they knew about CFS Saskatchewan. The response showed that many students don’t know anything about CFS Saskatchewan. Peterson used that to justify his argument that if we don’t have a CFS Liaison Director, URSU members would be “getting screwed.”

Ironically, the CFS Saskatchewan representative on the national executive is Kent Peterson. The CFS Saskatchewan chairperson is Haanim Nur and the Local 9 representative on CFS Saskatchewan is Melissa Blackhurst.  All three are also members of the URSU Executive and URSU Board of Directors and should be the people held responsible for students lack of knowledge about CFS Saskatchewan.   

A quick Google search will show you that CFS Saskatchewan does not have a website. There are not minutes or financial statements available for CFS Saskatchewan online, so it is not surprising that URSU members – who are all CFS Saskatchewan members, by the way – don’t have significant knowledge about CFS Saskatchewan. What is surprising is that a member of both groups’ governing bodies would ask those questions when it’s partly his, along with his fellow executive members, responsibility to inform URSU members about CFS Saskatchewan.

This is not the only recent example of Peterson ignoring reality.  According to the Carillon’s recent tweets from the URSU board meeting, Peterson claimed the Electoral Reform Commission (ERC) had failed to meet.  He specifically blamed board members for this failure. The ERC Meeting scheduled for Oct. 13 was cancelled because Peterson had “recently discovered [he was] previously committed … to be elsewhere.”

On both accounts, at a board meeting and at the AGM, Kent Peterson distorted facts and refused to be accountable.  In both cases, he is the cause of the concerns he raises. Real leaders take responsibility for their actions.

Mike Burton
Contributor


In response to the harsh and irresponsible comment made in the Declass in the last issue, as well as the idiotic comments made during the University of Regina Students’ Union annual general meeting last week, I have found myself wondering exactly what the fuck happened to the supposed “higher learning” of post-secondary education.

I will start with anonymous individual whom wrote the Declass regarding the one precious elective being taken away in order to accommodate the potential of a class about the history of the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada. If you bothered to read the article in the Feb. 2 issue of the Carillon (“Indigenous Studies would change…” February 2, Vol. 54 Issue 18), you would know that this is not the case. Secondly, even if your dumb ass had to take said class, you would not be ripped away from your family, physically abused, sexually abused, mentally abused, experience the complete obliteration of your birthright culture and identity, or any combination thereof. This will not happen to you if you take this course! Your analogy is at worst racist and fucking ignorant at best.

As for the dumb fucking statements that start with ‘those people,’ ‘them’, or ‘ I am not a racist, but,’ you should know you are still being quite discriminatory. In fact, if you start your statement with any of the aforementioned sentence qualifiers, you are making a racist comment and therefore are a fucking racist. Stop pretending to be such a fucking pretend victim. Again, no harm will come to you if you take a class. I would go as far to say you fucking need the class.

With that being said, please leave the Declass to those students who wish to make wry comments and absurd observations, rather than subjecting us all to your stupid, hate-filled, scribbled hot garbage.

I mean, I have the guts to put my real name to this article. Too bad the same cannot be said for you.

Shaadie Musleh
Business Manager

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