On 20th November 2019, the shady Dalhousie Student Union quietly passed a motion to disallow livestreaming of its meetings.

To quote,

Soon after this motion was brought forward, council voted to discuss it in-camera. This means everyone in the gallery had to leave council chambers for the duration of the discussion, so we have no way of knowing what was said during that hour. However, before going in-camera, DSU President Aisha Abawajy said livestreaming makes councillors uncomfortable.  “Folks don’t feel comfortable speaking when it’s plastered everywhere,” she said.

Her point is moot. If DSU executives and representatives can’t stand by the statements and decisions they’re making, then they shouldn’t be making them.

The motion, which was moved by the vice-president (Student Life) Ruby Coles, suggests livestreaming isn’t an accessibility issue. Meeting minutes are posted online and people can request a recording of a meeting if they wish, said the DSU. In my experience (as News editor last year and as editor-in-chief this year), meeting minutes often take weeks to post. As of Nov. 21, the Oct. 23 meeting minutes are still not posted on the DSU website. But even if the minutes were posted in a timely manner, they don’t have the same level of detail a full stream would. The DSU knows this, of course, its councillors just don’t care. That said, the recording bit is news to me. I’ve decided to take the DSU up on this and put in a request for the recording of the Nov. 20 meeting.

During my persecution at Dalhousie, I noticed that the DSU seemed to dominated by the children of local Criminal Elite, dipping their toes into the world of skullduggery and sleaze (before they would head out to become exces in the next Nortel or SNC Lavalin). Now, they have shuffled things around, encouraged participation from minorities so that things would look outwardly diverse, but again, came down with a heavy hammer on some of the new participants (Masuma Khan) when things really started changing. I am aware that some of the people involved with the current DSU are pretend Muslims, coming from the familes of intelligence assets of CSIS who were previously used in covert activities in the Halifax Muslim community.