Open letter: UBC Alma Mater Society president and vice president won't resign

UBC Alma Mater Society president Blake Frederick and vice president Tim Chu sent out the following open letter last night (November 30). In it, they respond to the student council's resolutions asking them to resign after they filed a complaint to the United Nations without the council's approval:

Dear Council,

We are writing to acknowledge that AMS Council has passed motions at their Saturday, November 28, 2009 meeting asking for the resignations of AMS President, Blake Frederick and Vice-President of External Affairs, Tim Chu. Although we are disappointed that AMS Council did not wait to hear from us before asking for our resignations, we would like to take this opportunity to respond to Council’s request.

We would first like to formally apologize for not properly consulting with AMS Council and students before filing the UN complaint, which calls for increased government funding for post-secondary education, increased student financial assistance, and decreased tuition fees. We were both elected with the mandate to lobby government aggressively to lower tuition fees. Additionally, we raised the UN complaint several times in our Executive Committee meetings and received signatures on the legal contract to proceed with the complaint from our fellow Executives Vice-President of Finance, Tom Dvorak and Vice-President of Academic and University Affairs, Johannes Rebane. At the time, we believed these measures to be sufficient, but based on communications with councillors and students-at-large, it has become very clear to us that we should have undertaken a rigorous consultation process before filing the complaint. We sincerely regret that we did not follow this process and will correct our actions to ensure that this problem does not occur in the future.

We must state, however, that we stand by our position that the UN complaint was an effective tool to draw public and media attention to the financial barriers of attending post-secondary education and the government’s lack of action to support students. We firmly believe that education is a right, not a privilege. We also believe that the AMS Council’s position to support tuition increases up to two percent each year does not represent the views of students.

We have decided to not resign from our positions as AMS President and Vice-President of External Affairs. We have made a commitment to those who elected us to fulfill our mandate to lobby for lower tuition. We think that this situation should be taken as an opportunity by AMS Council to implement a tuition policy that is in the best interests of students. We have heard many people comment that Council’s indignation for our actions has nothing to do with our stance on tuition and everything to do with process. To that, we say: prove it. Adopt the policy motion that we have tabled for consideration at the Wednesday, December 2, 2009 AMS Council meeting, which calls for the AMS to lobby for lower tuition. Instead of pursuing the unnecessarily harsh and undemocratic measure to remove Executives from office, the AMS Council must act now to send a clear signal to students that their student union supports the reduction of tuition.

Signed,

Blake Frederick
President
AMS Student Union

Tim Chu
VP External
AMS Student Union