77th SLC begins with a fresh set of councillors
By Gurman Sahota, May 15 2019 —
On Tuesday, May 14 the 77th Student Legislative Council had their first meeting since the new councillors were elected to their positions. Swearing of oaths, appointments to vacancies and amendments to bylaws were the topics of the inaugural meeting.
Councillors Marley Gillies, Barney Miao and Michael Nguyen were sworn into their positions as Faculty of Arts representative, Schulich School of Engineering representative and Faculty of Science representative, respectively. With a round of applause from other SLC members and members of the gallery after the taking of oaths, the meeting continued on to executive and councillor reports. Much of the reporting was surrounding the transition from the 76th to the 77th council.
Vice president operations and finance Omer Mansoor led discussions on the appointment of the second Haskayne School of Business representative as well as the appointment of a Faculty of Social Work representative. Huzaifah Abbas for Haskayne and Marie Beaupre-Olsen for Social Work were appointed unanimously for terms that will last until the by-election. This means that come October, during the by-election, they must resign from these positions and run in the by-election — and win — in order to continue in the roles.
Mansoor further panelled the first reading of the amendments to SLC bylaws in terms of borrowing money from financial institutions. Three big amendments were discussed — adding the definition of ‘borrowing means’ into the bylaws, updating term 88.2 that includes two-thirds council vote on borrowing and amending term 96 pertaining to how the Students’ Union can borrow money.
As per the SU bylaws, “‘borrowing means’ means different methods the [Students’ Union] may use to receive money from either chartered banks, credit unions, or trust companies with the intention of paying back the borrowed amounts.”
Term 88.2 refers to the fact that ‘borrowing means’ is now subject to special super majority — two-thirds of council votes — in order to be approved.
Term 96 refers to how the SU can borrow money from financial institutions. According to the amended bylaws, the SU can borrow money defined by certain criteria such as using the monies borrowed for long-term capital debt or operation line of credit, using the funds solely for the purposes for which they were borrowed and to make sure that the term of borrowing does not exceed the probable lifetime of the capital property. Further, any monies borrowed will have to be brought forward by the operations and finance committee and then must be approved by SLC.
SLC meeting minutes and documents can be found here. The next SLC meeting will be on May 21 at 6:30 p.m. in the Executive Council Chambers in MacHall.
Update: In the originally posted version of this story, Michael Nguyen was incorrectly identified as a Kinesiology representative.