Piper Plavins’ election platform for MSU president is wide ranging, but falls short on details and considering feasibility
Piper Plavins’ platform highlights the need focus on educating students about MSU services, advocating on behalf of students during a food insecurity and housing crisis as well as increasing what the MSU does for students. However, the candidate falls short on considering how to financially make her initiatives happen given the MSU's current fiscal state
Plavins' focus on student experience, especially as most of it relates to expanding old events and creating new ones, is without a concrete plan as to how to fund these events. When asked about this by the Silhouette, she referred to the upcoming Homecoming and Large Events referendum, which is not guaranteed to pass.
Without a clear plan to pay for these events, the current projected deficit in the MSU budget of $415,000 to $500,000 — in part caused by deficit spending on Homecoming 2024 — could be a major obstacle to the further large event spending the platform promises.
According to a December 2024 memo to the Student Representative Assembly from MSU VP Finance Declan Sweeney, the financial situation and deficit of the MSU is unsustainable.
Considering this, Plavins' platform is ambitious. Particularly as it relates to events, Plavins' plans do not align with the recent MSU initiative as outlined by Sweeney in his SRA memo: “considerable discussion about how to better reduce costs through integration of services & potential agreements with partners,” stated Sweeney.
"MSU Week," an event proposed by Plavins to raise awareness about the MSU near the beginning of the academic year, seems particularly fiscally irresponsible.
The first three days, the job fair, services day and advocacy showcase, resemble ClubsFest which nearly all of the MSU’s services already attend. Plavins suggested to the Silhouette that because ClubsFest can be “overwhelming,” having an additional event to promote MSU services would help raise awareness.
The choice of the name "job fair," Plavins admitted, may have been a mistake, as most MSU services hire between the start of the second term and the end of the academic year.
In her platform, Plavins’ promises to “continue the homecoming legacy” and expand the Holiday Market largely lack any details to distinguish her ambitions from current MSU initiatives, a pattern that resonates throughout the rest of the platform.
Plavins’ proposal for an Student Representative Assembly retreat, which she insisted in an interview could not meaningfully be replaced by team building exercises, concludes the first pillar by demonstrating its continued pattern of financial over-ambition.
Plavins’ first campaign pillar, while attempting to accomplish the necessary task of raising student awareness of available MSU services and spaces, risks falling short due to ongoing budget constraints. Considering the event that the Homecoming & Large Events referendum fail, she has not included any specific plans as to how she would otherwise finance her platform promises.
Even if the referendum succeeds, the redundancy of multiple proposals might prove a poor way of managing limited MSU funds.
Improving Student Advocacy
Plavins’ second platform pillar, student advocacy, in attempting to cast a wide net, finds itself lacking specific details in many areas.
When asked, Plavins admitted the lack of detail in some proposals was because she was going to be playing only one part in ongoing initiatives. Plavins’ reasoning here is solid, but in certain instances where the platform hints at larger ideas, her lack of detail is disappointing.
She could not clarify what she meant by “higher level clubs,” nor did she offer details on what advocating for “inherently accessible classrooms” would look like.
Plavins’ most concrete promise, a $5,000 funding increase to the Food Collective Centre, could be one of her most difficult to implement.
Sweeney shed light into how the current budgeting process works for the MSU in an email to the Silhouette: “Any budget adjustments would require careful consideration, as they may involve reorganizing existing allocations, increasing student fees, or making reductions in service operations elsewhere,” stated Sweeney.
The lack of detail about her own advocacy goals, in both her platform and interview answers was disappointing. However her repeated commitment to existing MSU and university level advocacy efforts suggests that Plavins’ could be an effective, if not particularly novel advocate as president.
Plavins’ shortest pillar, MSU excellence, is far less developed than her other two. Her proposal to revamp TwelvEighty was made without consultation with TwelvEighty's manager. Similarly, her parking plans lack the perspective a consultation with Parking Services might have provided.
In an email statement to the Silhouette, Rob Morrallee, director of parking services, confirmed that he had not been consulted by Plavins. He noted that her proposal for a Lot M bus schedule , as the service is already run at consistent intervals, and that her proposed flex passes are already being worked on.
These underdeveloped parking-related plans only serve to draw attention to the platform’s complete silence on assisting transit or cycling commuters.
While Piper Plavins offers students a very long platform full of promises, Plavins’ most developed proposals lack concrete plans to secure funding, while her less detailed statements lack much in terms of substance or consultation.
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Some were embarrassing and some were strange, but all of them had good explanations.
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The results were... interesting. Who's the best artist?
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1) Get a lead and maintain it
Voters will rank every candidate from one to seven. Round one simply indicates everyone’s first choice on the ballot, and the candidate with the least amount of first place votes is knocked out. For the rest of the rounds, the ballots for losing candidates are redistributed to their top remaining preference. This continues until a candidate reaches more than 50 per cent of the vote.
However, the preferential voting system has historically meant far less than you think it has. In the last five years, only one year has had candidates move position in the standings from round one to the end of the process. The largest of these was Sarah Jama who moved two spots from fourth to second overall in the 2016 election.
Close calls do happen. Teddy Saull’s 68-vote lead over Jacob Brodka in the first round of the 2014 election decreased to 66 and 11 in rounds two and three, respectively. This still ended in a 101 vote win for Saull in the final round.
Having a solid base of first place votes has shown to be important for momentum, and it is unlikely that a candidate that relies on votes coming from the preferential system will win.
However, with such a large number of candidates this year, the possibilities for overlap between platforms and voter bases are incredibly high. This year has the most amount of candidates since the 2013 election, which also had seven. This year has a higher than usual possibility for a candidate in first place during the first round to be upset in the later rounds.
2) Have MSU experience
David Campbell went from second place in 2012’s presidentials to vice-president (Administration) to winning the presidency in the first round in 2013. He was the only candidate in the last five years to win at any point earlier than the final round. Ehima Osazuwa was involved with the Student Representatives Assembly before winning in 2015. Justin Monaco-Barnes’ experience with the Underground represented some unconventional MSU qualifications before winning in 2016. Chukky Ibe was involved with the SRA, MSU Diversity Services and the Student Success Centre prior to his win in 2017.
The one exception to this was Saull in 2014 who noted, “I had never been a part of politics before, except for watching The Ides of March,” in his interview with the Silhouette after winning. He was the president of student council in high school and was involved as a Community Advisor for Hedden and Bates, but was still a candidate from outside of the MSU.
You can win as an outsider, but it has generally taken a lot of work and close calls.
This year features four candidates with SRA experience, one with unique MSU experience and two without any MSU experience.
3) There is an increasing need to have one big point
Campbell replied, “Study space, space in general on campus and library hours,” when asked to identify one issue that was the most important to students. Saull promoted the theme of community and made a few points off of this such as off-campus security, the student life enhancement fund and a bigger Frost Week.
Osazuwa’s run arguably changed the dynamics of MSU presidentials. The substantial focus on tuition advocacy resulted in criticism that mostly revolved around how alternative solutions may be better rather than the idea itself. Monaco-Barnes expanded on this with his unique background by promoting the idea of more affordable courseware being printed through Underground. Ibe’s main point of better WiFi completely overrode the lack of consulting on his other points because it was a point so prominently featured on his and so minimal on everyone else’s.
It is possible to have complete, top-to-bottom platforms win, and having one main point does not mean that the rest of the ideas are weak by any means. It is simply a great way to get people interested in your campaign and to express what your top priority is in a long list of ideas.
This year, oddly enough, appears to be going back to old presidential tendencies with the lack of any one candidate heavily promoting one idea. Each seem to promote themselves as the brand or some tagline or theme with multiple platform points under that. We will see how this develops during the MSU debate on Jan. 18 and our debate on Jan. 21.
4) How important is gender?
In a broader look at the statistics since the 1970s to present done by the Silhouette last year, it was mentioned that only 13 per cent of president elects have been female. It took 22 years to break a streak of male presidents with Mary Koziol in 2010. There have only been four women presidents elected in the history of the MSU.
In a Silhouette article in 2013 addressing the lack of women running for president, Koziol noted, “I was told repeatedly not to put women’s issues at the forefront of my platform. I think that’s an interesting dynamic — that it’s okay to be female and run for an election, but you have to be careful about how proud you are about being female.”
In 2014, the Silhouette noted that McMaster ranked eighth out of nine major research universities in Ontario for equal gender representation in student government.
Koziol appeared again in a similar Silhouette article in 2015 stating, “It’s challenging to say what the MSU could be doing differently. … The ultimate answer is we need a culture shift; one in which people who are traditionally underrepresented feel supported and safe in pursuing positions of influence.”
Another article in 2016 about women in the MSU mentioned Karen Bird, professor of political science at McMaster, who noted, “It is so puzzling that it is the case for local politics and for young women. Women are the majority in most desciples now, at least across the university. Women tend to do better in their GPA. They have all the skills and all the ability but there is still something that is keeping women from stepping forward.”
There have been no female presidents in the last five years. It is statistically likely that either this point or the second point about MSU experience will break this year considering all of the candidates with SRA experience are women and only one out of the remaining three have any MSU experience.
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Following a three-week long election period, the race for MSU President has finally come to an end.
After Sarah Jama’s reinstatement into the presidential race and the retabulation of votes on Friday, Feb. 5, Justin Monaco-Barnes remained the winner of the 2016 presidential election. Jama came in second overall, and Jonathon Tonietto fell to third place.
Justin Monaco-Barnes is now officially the MSU President for the 2016-2017 year. Some highlights from his platform to look forward to in the next year and a half include: his promise to print cheaper courseware through Underground, work towards sustainability at McMaster and efforts to continue addressing sexual violence on campus. The Silhouette interviewed Monaco-Barnes for our Feb. 4 issue which can be found on our Issuu page.
Sarah Jama was initially disqualified due to charges of misrepresenting expenses to the Elections Committee and a severe violation of “bad taste.”
The Elections Department released the minutes for the Jan. 28 post-election period meeting alongside the appeal decision. Following Bylaw 10 of the elections process, disqualification was briefly considered for Monaco-Barnes, Gill and Tonietto as well.
To counter the claim that she spent $500 on her website, Jama presented evidence that her campaign website was designed by a volunteer on her team who is also a co-founder of a website design company. Jama chose to display his logo on her website to promote the volunteer’s company as a sign of gratitude for his volunteer work. However, Jama told The Silhouette that she was still fined for not including her website designer as a part of her core team.
Jama’s campaign was also fined for a controversial retweet by one of her volunteers of an anonymous account that accused another candidate of sexual assault. The CRO acknowledged, as the candidate herself posted on her Facebook page, that Jama took quick action to delete the tweet and remove two members from her team.
The retweet played a significant role in Jama’s initial disqualification. However, as stated in a press release by the MSU, following their deliberations on Feb. 5 the Elections Committee decided that the tweet did not significantly affect the integrity of the election.
With the end of perhaps the most contentious MSU election in nearly a decade, we can all go back to forgetting about student politics until the Student Representative Assembly elections in early March. See you then.
Photo Credit: Michael Gallagher/ Production Editor
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With the announcement of the new President-elect, the MSU also revealed the results of the VP electoral referendum. During this election period, students not only had the chance to vote for their choice candidate for president, but to also vote for or against (or abstain) initiating an election process for MSU Vice-Presidents.
The referendum resulted in 66.4 percent of the votes in favour of the process, with 4,590 students saying “yes” to VP at-large elections. While this number is impressive, it wasn’t enough for the referendum to pass. A constitutional referendum requires two-thirds of the votes to pass, or in other words, 66.67% “yes” votes. Had it received 20 more votes, or roughly 0.27% more support, McMaster would currently be moving towards an at-large VP electoral system.
“We were angry and disappointed in ourselves. We could have made just one more class talk, or ask more people to vote in order for it to pass,” said Esra Bengizi, one of the managers of the pro-VP reform campaign, in an interview with a Silhouette reporter.
The pro-referendum campaign group formed in early November after the Student Mobilization Syndicate presented a petition with over 800 signatures to the Student Representative Assembly requesting the right for students to vote for their VPs (Education, Administration and Finance) — a task that is currently done exclusively by the SRA. The SRA addressed the petition at their Nov. 1 meeting and decided that the vote would go to referendum as opposed to becoming a constitutional amendment.
Had the referendum passed, McMaster wouldn’t be the first school to switch to an at-large VP electoral system. Western University currently runs on a system that allows students to vote for two of their five VPs. The system has proven successful — as they have managed to continually elect a candidate for each position — but over the years voter turnout has decreased, and voter fatigue is assumed to play a role in this.
Although this recent loss is a blow to the efforts of pro-referendum campaign group, this may not be the end of the group’s campaigning. The VP Referendum is not the first to fail on a ballot, and this year doesn’t have to be the end of its campaigning. The Health Care Referenda, which constituted of three different questions related to the student health plan, failed the first run during the elections for the 2014-15 MSU President. The referenda were added to the ballot again the following year, and after increased promotions and education, all three referenda passed.
“With a team of only ten people we were able to get 4,590 voters to say yes,” Bengizi said. “Imagine if we had more. I was shocked to see such a success, and seeing this makes me even more ambitious to try again… we will not give up, we are going to continue to fight”.
*Files from Shalom Joseph
Photo Credit: Michael Gallagher/ Production Editor
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According to MSU President-elect Justin Monaco-Barnes, the most difficult part of the two-week campaign period was not the rigorous events schedule or grueling series of debates and interviews. It was waiting for the results after the polls closed on Jan. 28. “After a hard day, a hard couple of weeks of campaigning, we were all exhausted, but then it's the mental stress of waiting that's the hard part,” he said.
Results night was certainly drawn out. It took 11 hours for the rankings to be released, leading to a tense, sleepless night for the candidates and their campaign teams. “At like, 4:03 my phone started vibrating and I looked down and I saw Ehima's name on the caller ID. It was a very surreal moment. Apparently [the phone] rang eight times, but in my mind it had only rung once,” said Monaco-Barnes, who was seemingly still a bit shocked the following afternoon. “People keep asking, 'How did you feel?' I can't even tell you. It was everything. Every emotion I could imagine was in that moment.”
"I plan to work really hard to achieve what they started and take it to the next level.”
While Monaco-Barnes seemed somewhat shocked when he spoke with The Silhouette, his campaign manager Shaarujaa Nadarajah was anything but. The two became friends at this year’s MSU Retreat. She said she knew Monaco-Barnes would be a different kind of presidential candidate. “We were eating some awful camp sloppy joes and I was expecting him to ask me about my future plans in the organization because that's what everyone around me had been doing, but he just sat beside me and asked me about my family,” she said. A member of the Student Representative Assembly, Nadarajah was eager to take on the role of campaign manager. “It's hard to articulate, but when you have an infinite amount of faith in one person and their abilities, you just want to be in a role that is able to best support them. I wanted to be there for everything,” she explained. “The good, the bad, the challenges, the successes.”
Monaco-Barnes was happy to see fellow candidate Jonathon Tonietto was favoured in the polls as well. “During this process we really got a chance to talk a lot, and I got to know him better, and he's a really genuine person, so I was happy to see that he did well and that the student body could see what I saw as well.” The two candidates shared a passion for sustainability, and in earlier interviews with The Silhouette, Tonietto expressed his approval of Monaco-Barnes’ plans to make McMaster a more environmentally friendly institution. Monaco-Barnes added he was upset to see Sarah Jama disqualified from the race on results night. “I feel for her. I know what she put into it, what all the candidates put into it, and I totally understand how hard that would be,” he said.
The failing of the VP election referendum by what translates to approximately 20 votes was a reality check for the President-elect. Originally neutral on the issue, Monaco-Barnes came out in favour of the referendum partway through the campaign period. “I remember seeing the number and I was just kind of shocked. Because 20 votes, 20 votes. That's a tutorial,” he said. However, he noted that more students abstained than voted against the referendum, a sign he believes indicates the need for more education on the matter. “I think knowledge is power, and the more students know about the MSU and their school, the more they'll get from it.”
Reflecting on the campaign, Monaco-Barnes is proud of the work his team put into the election. “We ran a campaign that was just us. We were staying true to ourselves, and I think the student body really connected with that, and saw that it was a genuine campaign,” he explained. He cited the dedication of his campaign team as one of the reasons why he and his platform survived the campaign with relatively little negativity.
“I think knowledge is power, and the more students know about the MSU and their school, the more they’ll get from it.“
Over the next few months, Monaco-Barnes will wrap up his role as the service coordinator of the MSU Underground and complete his degree in English and Cultural Studies. During this time, he hopes to start working with current MSU President Ehima Osazuwa to ensure a smooth transition into the role of President and CEO of the MSU.
He plans to continue the current Board of Directors’ work on lobbying for lower tuition at McMaster and across the province. “It’s something that means a lot to me,” he said. “They've invested so much time and you never want to see something like that go to waste. I plan to work really hard to achieve what they started and take it to the next level.”
Photo Credit: Yung Lee/ Photo Reporter
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