How to Deal with Annual General Mania

There are at least three things Victoria College doesn’t lack: events with free food, great spots to study (nap), and opinionated student politicians. If you’re like me and many of your friends are involved in student politics, these past few weeks taught you more than you ever cared to know about board structures and the union that we all love to hate.

On October 7, the infamous University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) held their Annual General Meeting where a very important vote occurred to select a new board structure. The current board structure has been rendered illegal through changes made by the Federal Government to the Canadian Not-for-profit Corporations Act, which governs organizations like student unions. Basically, the real, adult world requires us to change things, but there needed to be a two-thirds majority vote for a board structure proposal to be passed, and that majority was not achieved.

Now we are in a dispirited limbo where our union’s structure is illegal, though it probably won’t be dissolved anytime soon because the federal government isn’t paying much attention to us. However, the day will come when they will notice our non-compliance and then we’ll be in trouble. I’ll have graduated by then, but I sympathize with whoever is still around. For the time being, there is the AGM aftermath to get through, while keeping your friendships with student politicians relatively intact.

Here’s how you do that.

To avoid sounding like a rookie, don’t ask how the AGM went without saying “point of information” first, so that you can at least pretend you’re in on the running joke. And if you’re talking to a crowd, tack on the word “folks” at the end—I promise it’ll earn you excellent wit cred. If you’re confused, hit up #utsuagm15 on Twitter and you’ll be hip and cool in no time.

However, even if you don’t know specifics, you already know how the AGM went. You know Vic’s side didn’t win because you didn’t see a succession of Facebook statuses along the lines of “I’d like to thank everyone that came out to support Plan B, which will add some much-need marginalized group representatives and keep our glorious college representation on the UTSU intact!”

As the involved parties return to the drawing board to figure out their next steps, you may find yourself in the VUSAC office caught in a flurry of activity as people pace around with matching determined faces, mumbling, “No, you’re absolutely right. This is absolutely ridiculous.” Perhaps you’ll also be reminded that the SGM (Special General Meeting) is coming up and you’ll be expected to proxy your vote again, or attend, whichever you’d prefer after hearing about the antics of the AGM. After all, who doesn’t want to see the impromptu interruption by the Lady Godiva Memorial Bnad (sic) of engineers that has become AGM tradition?

The main danger to watch out for, however, is walking innocently into a UTSU rant session, where the good and bad guys are painted with such extreme bias that it’s hard to believe they’re real people. Your best option is to altogether avoid mentioning the union-that-must-not-be-named. Seems simple, but let me tell you, there’s very little you can talk about lately without the UTSU sidling into the conversation. Discussion of voting conjures the #voteposal campaign, any mention of money immediately recalls a certain lawsuit, and don’t even get me started about samosas. If these word-associations are meaningless to you, consider yourself lucky.

Truly, all you can do now is wait for it to blow over, but who are we kidding? The only time UTSU politics blow over for student politicians is when they graduate, and even then a few have been known to be unable to let go of their glory days. The best you can do for your politically-inclined friends is to roll your eyes, tell them to kindly shut up already, and take them on a magic carpet ride to a whole new world, shining, shimmering, splendid, and UTSU-free, the way you know it can be.