UWSA law representative quits due to election controversies
By Nick Olynyk
News Reporter
March 26, 2008
UWSA law representative, Ken Birchall, resigned from council last week, over what he says is a flagrant disregard for democracy.
The third-year law student has been known to passionately speak his mind at UWSA meetings and says he has had enough. “I’ve been unhappy for a while. I’m unhappy with what I felt was . . . direct lying from certain executive on certain topics, at different times. The Lance contract was one of them.”
Birchall officially resigned from the council on March 18, citing that the issue of Tosin Bello being disqualified from the election was “the last straw.”
He also added that CRO, Justin Teeuwen, made poor discretionary decisions involving campaign posters, voting stations, candidate speeches in classrooms, and handing out demerit points. “If [students] want to see big changes [in how council works], they should go to the AGM [Annual General Meeting],” said Birchall. “Right now the only big moves being made are when the less open-minded people running the show are backed into a corner, and that is why I’m more in favour of using the AGM, rather than in any attempt at meaningful dialogue.”
The AGM meeting will be held at the CAW Student Centre’s Ambassador Auditorium Thursday, March 27 at 4 p.m.
Talk has swirled throughout council chambers in recent weeks that Birchall’s resignation comes on head of what was to be his impeachment trial. “I was going to get impeached… But I was already going to resign over general mismanagement of the election,” admitted Birchall, who claims he got into an argument on Facebook with now resigned senator, Holly Sullivan. They bickered over UWSA and Senate issues when Sullivan wrote a “snarky remark.” Birchall then decided to write back.
“It wasn’t a ‘fuck you, fuck you, fuck you’ type e-mail,” said Birchall, who added. “I sort of made a rude reference to the fact that she seems to eat a lot of Doritos cause she’s always got the orange tips [on her fingers]. I was rude, I’ll be honest, I was rude,” admits Birchall, “But the issue of why I wrote the rude e-mail is bigger than the e-mail itself.”
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