Undergraduate Students

Call the question galore at CSU council meeting

Local Journalism Initiative / The Link / September 30, 2025 / Concordia University, CSU, Geneviève Sylvestre, Undergraduate Students

Councillors call the question nine times at latest council meeting. Photo Maria Cholakova

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

Calls to end debate and accusations of filibustering mark latest council meeting

The latest Concordia Student Union (CSU) regular council meeting (RCM) on April 9 saw councillors strenuously approve the consent agenda and reject all three motions on the agenda.

Throughout the evening, councillors successfully motioned to call the question—or end debate and move directly to a vote—a total of nine times, leading to accusations of filibustering.

When it came time to vote on approving the consent agenda—the set of committee minutes and executive reports for the month—at the start of the meeting, councillor Drew Sylver motioned to remove four items for further discussion. The items included were the External Committee minutes, the Policy Committee minutes, the Community Action Fund minutes, and the Clubs and Spaces Committee minutes.

Sylver called for sections of the External Committee, Community Action Fund, and Clubs and Spaces Committee minutes to be separated and voted on individually. All motions failed.

For each of the items taken out of the consent agenda, councillor Ali Salman successfully called the question during his speaking turn.

Almost 40 minutes into the meeting, as council was still approving the agenda, Sylver addressed the chairperson, saying that the constant calling of the question could be considered filibustering according to his interpretation of Robert’s Rules of Order.

In politics, a filibuster is a procedure used to prolong debate to delay or prevent a vote or decision.

The chairperson said this was not their interpretation of the rules and continued the meeting. All minutes were approved by council.

Following the approval of the consent agenda, three motions were presented to council. The first was brought forth by Lena Andres, a member of the cooperative CultivAction. Andres motioned to reallocate $25,000 from the CSU Loyola coordinator’s grant to CultivAction, to be divided between the Loyola Campus garden groups.

Andres claimed they made multiple attempts to communicate with the Loyola coordinator, Leen Al Hijjawi, and expressed dissatisfaction with the new grant. Al Hijjawi answered that they had been in communication and that she does not have a budget of $25,000.

After some discussion by council, Sylver called the question, clarifying he was doing so in a “non-‘filibustery’ way.” The motion failed.

Council moved on to discussing a motion put forth by Sylver to mandate that each councillor must disclose their affiliation with any CSU club in the name of transparency. As before, Salman successfully called the question, and Sylver’s motion failed.

Lastly, councillor Liora Hechel presented her motion to create a new CSU committee under the Student Life Committee to host food truck events on campus. Hechel proposed that $10,000 be allocated to this new committee per semester.

External affairs and mobilization coordinator Danna Ballantyne raised concerns about the logistics and costs associated with Hechel’s motion. Later, Hechel said that the CSU could hold fundraiser events, such as a LinkedIn photoshoot, to earn additional funds.

Once again, following additional discussion, Salman successfully called to end the debate and move to a vote.

Hechel’s motion failed, and the meeting was adjourned around 8:30 p.m.

Call the question galore at CSU council meeting Read More »

CSU budget updates include $20k operational deficit and service expansions

The Concordia Student Union held a special council meeting on Aug. 11, 2025. Photo Maria Cholakova

Hannah Scott-Talib,
Local Journalism Initiative

Legal Information Clinic to add $50k in staff honorariums, Advocacy Centre to create new position

One Concordia Student Union (CSU) executive member and one councillor were appointed to the Board of Directors for the Sustainability Action Fund (SAF) at a special council meeting on Aug. 11.

The CSU also presented recent changes to their budget.

According to its website, the SAF is a student-run fee levy group at Concordia University that seeks to fund projects to “develop sustainable infrastructure, urban agriculture, community-building, and education surrounding environmental and community issues, with the long-term goal of inspiring and developing a culture of sustainability” at the university.

In the meeting, CSU sustainability coordinator Mia Kennedy was appointed as an executive to the SAF Board of Directors alongside CSU councillor Sarah Aspler.

“With my past experience volunteering for different organizations, I feel that I would be a good candidate,” Aspler said during the meeting. “Getting more people on [the board of directors] who are neurodiverse would be a good idea as well, opening it up for everyone and making it more [accessible] for everyone.”

Following this point on the meeting’s agenda, CSU finance coordinator Ryan Assaker presented adjustments to the student union’s budget.

“One of the biggest things that has changed [is that] we’ve seen an [increase] in academic initiatives,” Assaker said during the budget presentation. “Academic initiatives have gone up around $6,000-$16,000.”

According to Assaker, another budget increase can be seen in the domain of sustainability initiatives.

“We’ve seen some carbon offset projects that have happened in the past that are also going to happen this year,” he said. “There’s also a major thing that we do every year, which is the Menstrual Equity program, which provides hygienic products to students.”

Assaker then explained that several student services have a significant budget surplus—money accumulated by these services as a result of going under budget in previous years—that transfers into a CSU savings account.

This surplus, Assaker said, can be used by student services to expand and create new initiatives.

One of the expansions happening this year, according to Assaker, involves the Legal Information Clinic (LIC), which has accumulated around $115,000 worth of surplus.

Drawing from this surplus, the LIC is upping their honorariums section by $50,000 “due to the high demand in terms of students reaching out to be represented and informed [by the LIC],” according to Assaker.

Assaker said that the Advocacy Centre plans to expand as well, due to the creation of a new working position at the centre.

The finance coordinator finished the presentation by revealing the CSU’s current total revenues of $4.1 million and its total expenses of $4.2 million, creating a deficit of around $20,000.

“Generally for the budget, what’s important to keep in mind is that nothing much has changed in terms of [cuts to] the student services,” Assaker said. “The main cuts that have happened are more on the operational side, and we’re still seeing a deficit in operational costs.”