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Post Publishing Correction: According to ex-SPAC members, SPAC no longer exists. Correct me (again) if I’m wrong, but I think Stop The Salaries is more accurate.

Before I go on, some things to address from my last post:

• Students First now has a website.
• Here is The Varsity’s coverage of Fake Brett’s adventures.

One of the most exciting things about elections is that there are debates. Candidates are put in the spotlight and go head to head. Debates test their ability to think on their feet, and it’s usually here where we figure out how seedy, or legitimate, or committed, or half-assed candidates are. Public speaking skills and, more importantly, public answering skills, can basically tell us how prepared a person is in whatever they’re doing. It’s one thing to convince with your speeches – it’s another to convince with your answers. Am I starting to preach? Sorry – I used to be a debater. Debates gives me lotsa feelz.

However, you need to organize a debate in order to have a debate, and that was something that was done poorly. Yesterday, the #UTSU2012 Twitter hashtag was going crazy over how little notice there was for both the candidates and the general public. More details here. But before you put the blame directly on UTSU, things like debates and, really, anything related to planning and organizing the elections, is dealt with by the CRO and Elections and Referenda Committee. Now, I’m not sure what CRO Daniel Lo and the ERC are playing at but, whatever it is, it’s not cool. Thankfully, the UTSU did a live stream of the event. Twitter was also very active throughout so, if you missed it, do a search for #UTSU2012 and you’ll find coverage.

What I’m going to talk about here is how impressed I was by the presidential portion of the debates. Unfortunately, I was unable to see a good chunk of the VP debates, so I’ll leave them out. Think of this post as a “Meet Your Next President” profiling post.

One of the things that struck me during the presidential debates was how candid the candidates were. There were three: Shaun Shepherd of Unity, Brent Schmidt of Students First, and Rohail Tanoli who is running independently. While on the table, they displayed this kind of camaraderie, actively referring to each other. Rohail even said that both Brent and Shaun are his friends. Cue the “awwwww”s.

Shaun Shepherd

For the first part question period, Shaun relied heavily on what the UTSU has done to answer his questions. Towards the end, he was a lot more independent and showed that, perhaps, he can hold his own without the legacy of the UTSU supporting him. Sure, he used UTSU facts and stats to help build his case (which is reasonable since his slate is the UTSU slate), but he went from quoting them directly to using those facts to help support his case. That’s actually a huge relief because, between him and Corey, it was Corey that has always struck me as the one that is best able to hold his ground. That makes me a little bit more relieved if Unity wins the race.

It felt like I was finally seeing Shaun as a leader, something that has honestly never occurred to me before. Of course, like any politician, he evaded questions he was unable to answer or gave diplomatic, slightly long-winded responses when a short answer was demanded. One such question had to do with IAW. Now, I’m not going to say I’m an expert on it, but if memory serves me correctly, it stands for Israel Apartheid Week. It’s something that UTSU has been supporting, and is also an issue of debate. The questions was: Should a student government endorse such sensitive political agendas? Instead of giving the requested “yes” or “no” answer (it was getting late), Shaun gave a rather long-winded answer about how the UTSU is committed to supporting the students etc. etc. etc. If we want one to continue the long and well-known UTSU legacy, this guy is it.

Perhaps what struck me as most compelling about Shaun is that he was sincere in his apology. The Fake Brett/Real Brett Twitter fiasco was brought up and he was criticized for not answering at the time. Give the guy a break: there are rules to follow, and you don’t want to be disqualified just before campaigning has even begun.

(While on the topic of IAW, do you think that student governments should support political campaigns? Brent and Rohail both said no, as this kind of politics is beyond the realm of the student body. What do you think?)

Brent Schmidt

It was clear that Brent is a trained and true debater. He used every trick my debate coach taught me when I first started out, and it’s no wonder that he’s successful as a competitive debater. He admitted his own faults, and used his platform to back him up. He praised other candidates when they gave good responses and also for the work that’s already been done (obviously referring to Shaun).  While what I heard of the VP debates focused on the Campus Bar, he took questions about other issues related to the student body in stride. It’s good that he was able to open up about other platforms because, until that point, everything about Students First was about the Campus Bar. He was eloquent, assertive, and it’s very clear that he is the pillar of his slate. And it’s very important that he is the pillar because, as Students First VP External candidate Alexander Ripley so kindly admits, he (Alex) isn’t the most involved and experienced candidate on the bench. I would hazard to say that the rest of the team is on the same boat.

I think his skill as a speaker and debater, and proof that he values skill and dedication over visuals, was most apparent was when he was questioned about diversity. One student came up and asked him, point blank, why diversity wasn’t reflected in his slate. The question was two fold: said student was commenting that Unity is very clearly racially diverse, while Students First isn’t. But he was also referring to the lack of representation of the different faculties (he’s an engineer) in the teams. It’s not unknown that politics would use things like race and gender to appeal to voters. Danielle Sandhu and Adam Awad’s UTSU largely appealed to the minorities – the visual minorities. Now, I’m trying to be extra careful here because I’m walking on a very thin line. Schmidt responded by noting that, sure, his slate doesn’t visually represent the diversity our campus is known for but, in choosing and picking his team, he looked for individuals who are skilled and committed. In terms of representation of the different faculties, he referred to problems within the school system (a common theme throughout the night) as preventing engineers from running. I felt that his answer was very realistic. He didn’t try to hide facts.

Rohail Tanoli

Rohail, Rohail, Rohail. I thoroughly enjoyed his answers, and I thoroughly enjoyed him. He was funny, he was down to earth, and he had both sides of the room (literally, the supporters of each respective slate congregated to each side of the room) giving him a standing ovation. He was definitely the highlight of the debates and, since I usually don’t have a lot to say about things I like (gushing comments sound the same after about 2 sentences), I’ll just say he just rocked my socks. Heh. So much for trying to keep it even between the candidates.

It’s true that, compared to the slates, his platform was considerably weaker than the other two candidates. But what he lacked in platform, he made up for with pieces of wisdom that we tend to forget in the debate room. He reminded us that, even though the people in the room have chosen sides (Unity vs. Students First), this polarity only exists within those who care. The general student body? They don’t know, they don’t care. Another piece of wisdom? It’s not about this side, it’s not about that side, it’s about the middle side, meaning its about the people. You can be as political polar as you want but, unless you have people following you, you aren’t going to be very effective. He stands for collaboration and moderation. He wants to create a progressive and secular U of T community and, by polarizing any group or side or spectrum, you are putting aside a huge chunk of our student population. His final word of advice? “Vote for who is right.” Don’t just vote for your friends. I hear it now… “Duh, of course I won’t vote irresponsibly.” Well, think again, people.

Things That Pissed Me Off

I have no qualms with the candidates; they’re doing what they’re supposed to do. However, people I can only assume are SPAC supporters (because who else would do this?) were quite… rude. Heckling was uncomfortably common, signs the said “No More Dirty Tricks” that were aimed at Shaun graced that part of the room, and that side of the room was making it hard to hear candidates’ statement and answers.

But you know what? That’s the dirty part of politics. I’ll accept it.

However, one of them was even sent out of the room by the moderator for interjecting and disrupting Shaun’s speech. Shame on you, SPAC.

That is why I would like to say that, while these people are very proud supporters of Students First, it would be wrong to just think that SPAC = Students First. They even clarified that those “No More Dirty Tricks” signs were not made by the slate.

By contrast, the Unity side of the room was relatively well-behaved. Why that is, I don’t know.

The reality is, the followers and supporters of any political party often colour how people see the party or slate. I’m hoping that this won’t hurt Students First’s chances at the polls.

To the people who read my posts: I urge you to read up on the candidates and their platforms. Better yet, talk to the candidates. I think that the underlying message here is that you can tell a lot about a person and what they stand for by how they talk and present their ideas. Don’t just listen to what others say about these slates and candidates. I mean, they’re there for you to talk to, right? It’s time for our campus to care a little bit more about these elections, and the least you can do for the rest of us is vote for who you think is right.

As always, I encourage anyone and everyone to comment and share their thoughts. I will be posting my thoughts here on blogUT throughout the election period, so look out for them! If you would like to contact me or you have a tip you want me to talk about, comment below or tweet me at @cjyc23.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 1st, 2012 at 9:07 am and is filed under Events, On Campus, Opinion, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.