Newly-created minority group representative positions are now empty after two students were impeached by the St. Thomas University Students’ Union late last semester.
Sexual and gender diversity representative Kris Foreman and aboriginal representative Keyaira Gruben are no longer part of STUSU because they missed too many consecutive council meetings.
Philippe Ferland, STUSU vice-president administration, said council members attempted to contact the reps via email and Facebook.
“I sent them an email saying, ‘This is why you were impeached, if you want you can put it up for appeal,’ which isn’t even a policy at STU,” said Ferland.
“We just felt like this was an awkward situation and we wanted to know what their side of the story was.”
He said he received no response to the impeachment emails.
According to STUSU policy, elected members must be taken off council if they miss three or more meetings without providing an excuse for their absence or “regrets.”
Gruben said she didn’t think it would be this serious.
“I take six courses, I work part time, I’m just busy and I found the [student representative council] meetings were always when I was working. So, I found I had to choose between the two and I’m obviously going to pick my job,” said Gruben.
Gruben is a youth care worker in an indigenous community. She said she ran because she wanted to contribute an indigenous perspective, but last semester just wasn’t good for her.
Gruben said she wasn’t aware impeachment was the consequence, but she chose not to write an appeal letter. As she intends on graduating in May, she said she will not run again.
“I hope [STUSU] do have all different walks of life and different backgrounds involved as well to make STU more inclusive, not that it isn’t.”
Foreman did not respond to messages and emails by print date.
Ferland said the two other new representatives, social inclusion representative Rebecca Kingston and international student representative Bruna Porto, are doing well.
“We get updates from the international student, we have a much better idea of what the international students want,” he said.
According to Ferland, because these positions are new, there is no policy outlining what to do in case of impeachment.
“Since there is an election coming up in a month, we will just wait to get people elected.”
Ferland suggested anyone who feels underrepresented should speak to Kingston.
“Come talk to me or go talk to Rebecca specifically since her position takes in anyone who doesn’t have representation currently. She would be the perfect person to talk to but, besides that, they can talk to any of the execs or anyone they feel like wouldn’t misrepresent them.”
Kingston said her position is all-encompassing and she welcomes the added responsibility of representing additional students.
“I’ll happily take it on. The same concerns that I’m getting I’ll just keep relaying them … Whoever thinks they deserve representation are more than welcome to it,” Kingston said.
“People are more than welcome to contact me. It is not ideal that the reps were impeached but the positions are still there.”
