URSU voices concerns about finances, student oversight, Women’s Centre has concerns about dishonesty, hostility
allister white & hammad Ali, author
The University of Regina Students’ Union’s (URSU) first serious discussions about the compliance statuses of the student centres funded through student levy, of which UR Pride is just one, began on Sept. 13, 2024, but current URSU General Manager (GM), Aoun E Muhammad, says talks about non-compliance began years ago, before his tenure as GM began in March 2024.
According to Muhammad, the entire issue started when it was discovered that URPride had not completed audits for several years. A number of (now former) URSU board members initiated discussions about compliance. “That’s where it all started. Domino effect. ”
It wasn’t until September 2024, though, that the dominos truly began to topple. Muhammad says that during the first week of September, he emailed all student centres explaining that they were out of compliance, and communicated the documents that were needed in order to ensure compliance standards are met. These include but are not limited to: audited financial statements and details of the current board of directors, when the last board election was held, and evidence that board elections are being held in a timely manner and “any other documentation as required in a ratified URSU bylaw.” Muhammad says that centres were given until the end of September, and some asked for more time while others did not respond.
A few weeks later, at an URSU Board of Directors (BoD) meeting, the URSU board approved the following three referendum questions to be asked in their then-upcoming by-election:
- “Do you support eliminating the levy fee collected for the University of Regina Women’s Centre Inc, effective Winter 2025 semester?”
- “Do you support eliminating the levy fee collected for the UR Pride Centre for Sexuality and Gender Diversity Inc, effective Winter 2025 semester?”
- “Do you support eliminating the levy fee collected for the Engineering without Borders- Regina Chapter, effective Winter 2025 semester?”
All three referendum questions were approved, but none were asked during URSU’s November referendum and by-election. However, a separate referendum question about increasing the student levy fee towards the emergency bursary fund was asked.
Muhammad says that the questions weren’t asked in order to give student centres more time to ensure they are in compliance, but that they might be asked as referendum questions during URSU’s upcoming general election, which is usually held sometime in late February to mid March.
Student centres and elections
A common misunderstanding seems to be that URSU can unilaterally defund student centres. All three of the student centres in question were formed at different times throughout the history of the University of Regina (UofR) with a referendum question.
A similar referendum question was asked a few years ago when URSU attempted to form the Student Legal Advocacy Centre (SLAC) by charging students a levy fee similar to those charged for existing student centres. The referendum did not pass, but URSU’s board formed SLAC regardless, and funded it using their operational budget.
Nevertheless, URSU cannot directly defund student centres. What the URSU BoD can do is decide whether or not referendum question(s) about defunding can be asked, and, if the motion passes, ask the referendum question(s).
If the question(s) are asked, the future of the centre(s) in question depends on the outcome of the referendum, but student centres can only be defunded the same way they were formed – with a referendum question posed by URSU and voted upon by the UofR student body.
On paper, the membership, or the UofR student body, holds the power to determine whether or not URSU continues to collect levy fees from students for centres including the Women’s Centre, URPride, and Engineers Without Borders Regina.
At first, the answer might seem simple: vote.
But history tells us a different story.
In 2019, a large-scale investigation at URSU looked into what an URSU press release called a “significant volume of reports of voter fraud” and severe allegations against several candidates. According to emails from the Chief Returning Officer (CRO) at the time, candidates and their supporters may have planned to corrupt or manipulate the voting system, and controls had to be put in place to detect suspicious activity.
In November 2023, according to a statement by Style Stenberg and Tejas Patel, the CRO for the Fall 2023 by-election informed URSU that a person had interfered with the by-election by forging signatures and placing forged nomination forms into the URSU safe after the nomination deadline had passed.
Furthermore, concerns about slating were raised during URSU’s last AGM, when several candidates were investigated, but none were found guilty.
Historical threats of voter fraud, meddling, and slating mean that the solution to student concerns goes beyond voting – students have a responsibility to engage with student politics to create a culture of accountability and transparency for student centres and URSU alike.
Instead, backlash against URSU has been brutal. Despite URSU’s assurances that approving the referendum questions was not a targeted attack, URSU employees and executives alike claim to have received hostile, racist emails from student members and alumni.
The Carillon obtained one such email, signed by Carolyn Thauberger, a UofR alumna, and sent to URSU’s “member services” email. In it, Thauberger wrote: “this move is not in your personal best interests…few managers are going to hire anyone with a such a record [sic] of disservice to women. That would be you. At least the Taliban will be pleased with your actions.”
Muhammad and URSU executives alike were discouraged and hurt by what they say are several emails of this nature. “It was ironic that in the name of women’s rights, it is okay to be racist…. it is not okay to be misogynist, homophobic, or racist.” [sic], Muhammad said.
Zuhruf Zarooq, the current Vice-President of Student Affairs at URSU, echoed Muhammad’s claim that perceptions of the BoD as making gendered or targeted attacks are misguided. “This isn’t a targeted attack, per se…because the Carillon, RPIRG, UR Pride, EWP, and the Women’s Centre all were given these warnings,” Zarooq stated. “Some decided to fix it, some are trying to fix it, and some are not fixing it.”
Mahad Ahmad, the current URSU president, and Zarooq both expressed frustration at the fact that student centres spoke to the media, with Zarooq calling their behaviour “elusive” and stressing that “fixing [compliance issues] would have been a much better option.”
Ahmad spoke on behalf of URSU stating that they are “very sad about…the approach student centres took,” and again stressing that “it’s just a compliance issue…that could be solved if they wanted to.”
URSU/UR Pride debacle “complicated and costly”: Stenberg
It’s possible that the situation may not be as simple as Ahmad, Zarooq, and Muhammad suggest. A messy tangle of complicated relationships implies that more may be at play. Connections between URSU and UR Pride’s boards coupled with a history of bad blood between student centres and former URSU GM, Carl Flis, complicate the situation.
On Dec. 13, Style Stenberg, UR Pride’s current Vice-Chair and a former URSU board member, told CTV News that “this is a time for the student body here at the University of Regina to really come together and not be divided around this. This isn’t an issue of ‘he said’ ‘she said,’ this is an issue of unity.”
The Carillon obtained emails sent by Stenberg in March 2024 that tell a different side of Stenberg’s story.
A March 3 email from Stenberg to the URSU board at the time said, in reference to UR Pride’s interactions with URSU, that “there are some severe red flags here.”According to his email, Stenberg went “above and beyond since November [2023] and [had] worked tirelessly to help them [UR Pride] out.” At “every chance,” UR Pride put up “roadblocks by not delivering documents” that URSU required to put the centre back in compliance.
Stenberg’s email also alleged that UR Pride was not “in good standing with the Workers Compensation Board because of an estimated 40K amount owing in wages.” Stenberg claimed that UR Pride “did not lay off any staff,” but instead, “just stopped paying them.”At the time, Stenberg cautioned fellow board members against committing to any “extraordinary fees” for UR Pride because of “cases of missing money, poor money management, and non-compliance” on the part of UR Pride.
“As each day passes, it becomes more and more complicated and costly,” Stenberg stated.
It remains unclear how the relationship between URSU and UR Pride has shifted since Stenberg’s tenure at URSU ended and his time with UR Pride began, or what motivated Stenberg’s change of heart towards the student centre.
The Carillon arranged an interview with Stenberg, but Stenberg cancelled the interview due to illness. The Carillon and Stenberg agreed to an alternate interview time, but Stenberg cancelled for a second time. The Carillon and Stenberg were unable to schedule a third interview time before the deadline for the current issue.
“Zero trust” between URSU, Women’s Centre: Arnott
On the second floor of Riddell Centre, there is a small corner filled with separate office spaces. The floor is home to URSU’s front desk, the Carillon’s office, RPIRG, UR Pride, the Women’s Centre, and a handful of computers.
Most days, it’s bustling with activity, but on Monday, Dec. 23, the little hub was quiet. URSUs front desk was shuttered, and the lights at the Carillon were off. UR Pride and RPIRG had both closed their doors for the holiday break, and from a distance, the Women’s Centre looked completely empty.
This emptiness threatens to become an everyday sight if URSU asks the referendum questions they’ve proposed and students vote in favour of defunding the three student centres in question.
On the morning of Dec. 23, though, the Women’s Centre wasn’t empty. Jill Arnott, the executive director at the UofR’s Women’s Centre sat at a desk inside a private office at the Women’s Centre full of brightly coloured stacks of paper and a comforting, busy clutter.
Arnott began her interview by explaining the services that the Women’s Centre provides. The Women’s centre has a “hangout area with a kitchen,” that includes a microwave, toaster, mini-fridge, and sink. There’s a private study room in the centre that students can reserve, but Arnott says that students also “study all over the place” and that there’s an area with an alternative library, books, and plug-ins.
The Women’s Centre is more than just a study space, though. “Moms who are students come here to breastfeed,” Arnott said, going on to explain that the Women’s Centre is the only place on campus where there is a private room for students who are breastfeeding. Arnott and former URSU GM, Talha Akbar, discussed ways to advertise this more publicly in hopes of increasing awareness, but that never happened.
Not everybody knows that breastfeeding or pumping and storing milk temporarily at the Women’s Centre is an option. “I often find moms breastfeeding in the bathroom… I’m like ‘oh, excuse me! There’s a space you can use, you don’t have to do it in the bathroom!’” Arnott told the Carillon.
Arnott also spoke with the Carillon about her work and the relationship between URSU and the Women’s Centre, which she says has been fractured by hostility and dishonesty on URSU’s part.
The relationship breakdown began when Carl Flis was GM at URSU. According to Arnott, Flis was “so hostile and difficult to deal with” that several student centres, including RPIRG and UR Pride had to use a lawyer to negotiate their service agreements with URSU. Prior to this, Arnott says, the relationship between URSU and the Women’s Centre “was excellent,” and the union was supportive of everything the centre did, but with Flis, “things sort of broke down.”
Arnott claims that Talha Akbar, now-former URSU GM, made attempts at rebuilding a working relationship, but alleges that Muhammad hasn’t done the same. Arnott isn’t sure if it’s possible to “negotiate…a friendly relationship” because of “the level of hostility” that the Women’s Centre has been treated with.
“They flat out lied,” Arnott said, stating that there’s “zero trust” between the centre and URSU.
URSU, Women’s Centre’s claims in disagreement
In a statement posted publicly by URSU via their social media accounts, the union claimed that they are “already covering for most of the services that WC was supposed to be covering” [sic]. “I know that URSU has said that they provide those services, but they don’t,” Arnott said, going on to talk about the work that the centre does, which she says there’s no shortage of. Arnott also says that the work the Women’s Centre does requires specialized training and appropriate backgrounds.
Muhammad says that URSU provides women’s hygiene products and contraceptives at their front desk, and claims that the Women’s Centre door has been unlocked by URSU staff frequently for the past several years. According to Muhammad and the current URSU executives, when the centre has been closed, a handful of cases of harassment and/or discrimination have had to be handled by URSU.
Muhammad admits that URSU doesn’t have the capacity to, and isn’t currently offering the counselling services or peer support that the Women’s Centre is mandated to provide. As of Dec 15., URSU’s ‘little free library’ / ‘take a book leave a book’ was empty apart from one book, and while they have flyers available, they predominantly cover bus routes, and brochures about URSU’s myStudentwellness plan. None relate to gender or sexuality.
“For URSU to suggest that they are doing all of this is an outright–” Arnott began but did not finish her sentence, instead letting the history of distrust between the Women’s Centre and URSU speak for itself.
Other statements made by URSU, such as those claiming that the centre isn’t being utilized, that office doors are often closed, and that the centre doesn’t host enough events, or post on social media frequently enough aren’t necessarily correct.
When Arnott’s door is closed, she’s speaking to someone privately. Arnott says she can’t and won’t provide URSU with names and dates of people who come to speak to her. “It’s confidential…and I won’t,” she said, but explained that “it’s not just students [who come to the Women’s Centre]. It is staff at this university who come and sit on this couch. It is URSU staff who have always come and sat on this couch. It is faculty who come in here and talk. The center is utilized by this entire campus community.”
Arnott says that since COVID, engagement with events such as talks or lectures has been reduced, so the Women’s Centre has moved away from hosting those events. Instead, Arnott says, they’ve increased bursary funding and helped other groups, such as the Muslim Student Association or YWCA, host events such as women’s only swim nights or vigils.
“We’re not looking to reinvent the wheel,” Arnott explained, going on to say that “when there is an organization either on campus or off, hosting something, filling a need [or] already providing something, then we are happy to work with them to do that,” Arnott said. “Feminist oriented groups who’ve been doing this work for a super long time know that activism works best that way.”
The Carillon’s archives: The Women’s Centre, historically
Historically, formal surveys have been done to determine the needs of female students, and the Women’s Centre has shifted focus in response to those needs.
In volume 30, the Carillon reported that, in the past, the Women’s Centre was “poorly run and inaccessible to many students.” As a result of mismanagement, in May of 1992, before the Women’s Centre had autonomy, URSU removed the entire collective at the Women’s Centre and appointed a new coordinator, Kathleen Thompson.
When Thompson began, the centre didn’t run any major events, but was still “open to students who want[ed] to take advantage of the centre’s library, peer counselling, or any of its other regular services.” Thompson and others at the centre conducted research to determine the needs of female students on campus, and the centre had a mandate to be fiscally accountable to all students on campus while tailoring their services to support women specifically.
There’s been no precedent set, then (even before the centre was independent from URSU) that large events must be hosted in order to sufficiently serve the student body.
Small campaigns and peer-support/counselling services were common during the 1992 fall semester, with major events being planned but none held.
For example, in October 1992, volunteers at the Women’s centre handed out condoms and information for the Aids Awareness Campaign outside of the Owl, and in December 1992, the centre began a campaign to bring awareness to the issue of date rape.
In November 1992, “the main day-to-day activities at the Women’s Centre” involved “the use of the feminist library and counselling services. Students, both female and male…dropped in for information, enabling them to incorporate a feminist perspective into their papers.”
In offering counselling, peer support services, and an alternative library with no major events held over the 1992 fall term, “the centre continuously received positive responses from students,” and, according to Keely Wight, a contributor to the Carillon, was “living up to its original objective” and “wasted no time in attending to the needs of female students.”
As a result, on Feb. 4, 1993, Thompson successfully secured a guarantee from URSU that the centre would have secure funding and autonomy.
What the future might hold
While there has not been a precedent set that mandates a certain number of large events be held by the Women’s Centre per term, regular board elections are necessary to ensure student oversight and input into the centres designed to serve them.
The Women’s Centre has a board made up of appointed, not elected members, and it’s not clear when their last general election was held. As of Dec. 29, 2024, meeting minutes are not publicly available, but Arnott has stated a willingness to provide the Carillon with recent and historical board meeting minutes in the new year.
Currently, there is no publicly available information to suggest that all centres have had regular board elections. It’s important to both parties that the centres are willing to ensure that boards are elected regularly, and financial statements are audited and made available.
Arnott agrees that transparency is key. She says that her sense of dedication to her community means that, in these circumstances, she can’t leave. Arnott has two degrees and makes about $43 per hour. Her position is unionized through CUPE. Arnott says the job has never been about money, which is why the Women’s Centre has not, in recent memory, asked for a fee increase.
“They [URSU] have increased all kinds of fees over the years; we have not, so what does that say about who’s committed to this campus?” Arnott questioned, going on to express concerns about URSU’s own transparency: “Our books are open, theirs are not. I will talk about how much I make, he [Muhammad] will not.”
“So who is committed and who has something to hide? I know, because it’s not us,” Arnott finished.
Should student centres providing essential services be defunded, URSU does not, at present, have the infrastructure, personnel, or concrete planning needed to seamlessly fill the void that these centres would leave. Should the referendum questions be asked and the move to defund UR Pride and the Women’s Centre be approved by voters, student communities will be left without adequate support for a non-negligible duration of time.
