The intention of this letter is to provide a commentary regarding disgust with the actions of the Students’ Union.
The SU supposedly represents the opinions held by the student body of the University of Calgary. In actuality, the representation is far from accurate. Despite the SU’s claims to the contrary, the SU makes decisions that most students find disagreeable or even abhor.
It is no secret that the majority of students at the U of C are apathetic and do not involve themselves with prudent issues and policies. Unfortunately, the SU manipulates this fact to lend support to their inappropriate decisions. The SU assumes that the silent majority of students advocate the decisions, but are simply not voicing their support. This is evident in many instances including the annual SU criticisms to the low voter turnout for elections and the recent fiasco surrounding the bus trip to Edmonton.
Many students are ashamed that the SU is conducting such an absurd tuition protest. Evidence of the SU’s lack of common sense and lack of introspective self-examination is represented by the embarrassing slogan, "Lyle, Lyle, pants on fire," accompanying the tuition campaign. This slogan begs the question, "What were they thinking?"
Does anyone at the SU understand that the handful of people willing to camp in tent town and endure a hippy-esque bus trip to Edmonton do not necessarily represent the majority of the students at the U of C? We can only hope that the provincial media coverage of the drum banging and insult screaming protesters will not be directly associated with the U of C. Also, many of the rational students wonder how much of their tuition was used to finance this futile attempt at protest? If only some of the gas from the bus could have been siphoned into my tank.
The only protest that should take place on campus is the storming of the SU office in Mac Hall. And still the SU remains confident that the majority of students at the U of C support them. The perfect test of this confidence would be to make the SU fees optional. Many students are willing to drop hundreds of dollars at the Den, but it’s a safe bet that none of them would be willing to give the SU a dime if given the choice.
I’d be pretty content if the SU returned my contributions over the past four years, prevented me from entering their precious MacHall, and changed their name to The Students’ Union except Brad LeMaistre.
This is the opinion of the silent majority.