After 27 episodes, this is the official finale of UBC Insiders On Air. Thank you to everyone who listened, everyone we interviewed, everyone we talked news with, and everyone who talked to us at whatever event we were covering. It has been an extremely rewarding labour of love for both of us to make the show each week and meet people from all over the university that we never would have otherwise.

This episode is my version of a parting love letter to UBC, as I leave to start a new life and career in Victoria. Yes, I have been a frequent and vocal critic of the university, but only because I care deeply about this place and want it to be the best it can be. What makes the university great are its people. In my mind there’s no show that better portrays humanity than As It Happens, the venerable CBC radio show now in its 48th year. (For those unfamiliar with the show, it is a current affairs show in which most of the interviews are conducted via phone or Skype, allowing the host to talk to people all around the world and get stories from a local angle, often speaking to the person directly at the centre of a story. The stories can range from very serious to very silly, but are always engaging.)

I’ve wanted to make an episode of As It Happens all about UBC for quite a while now. So I did.

You’ll hear from people with all sorts of connections to the university: the episode includes a prospective student, undergrad students, a grad student, a postdoc, a faculty member, a staff member, and alumni. The university’s reach also stretches well beyond Vancouver, with interview locations including Agassiz, Kelowna, Montreal, Seattle, and Costa Rica. You’ll hear stories that are serious (UBC’s deficient sexual assault response; the faculty’s no confidence vote in the Board of Governors), studious (curing Beriberi, a condition affecting infants in Cambodia; teaching cows to pee in the right place), and a bit silly (becoming an inventor because your parents turn off the wifi each night; putting a box office on the back of a big tricycle). Enjoy.

Insiders Out.

The events of the case date back to 2002-2003, when Peet was the CEO of a company called A.L.I. Technologies (ALI). It was then that ALI was acquired by another company called McKesson for $530M. Peet and his family owned a substantial number of shares in ALI and were due to receive $23.5M as part of the sale. Peet approached KPMG for tax planning advice in light of the impending windfall.

KPMG suggested eight possible strategies for achieving tax savings. From those, the plan ultimately chosen by Mr. Peet was dubbed the Quebec Year-End Shuffle (“Q-Yes” for short). The details of Q-Yes are fairly intricate and required nine transactions to be executed in a specific order; if you’re interested, consult the court decision at paras 19-20 for the complete outline. In broad strokes, the plan involved the incorporation of a new company called Veracity Capital that would have a presence in both BC and Quebec. By setting different fiscal year end dates in the different provinces, funds could be shuffled around such that taxable gains were not being recorded in either province. “The direct result, under the Q-Yes Plan, of Veracity having a June 30 fiscal year end for federal and B.C. purposes, and an August 31 fiscal year end for Quebec purposes, was that Veracity avoided paying $1,175,249 in B.C. income tax. That tax was not paid anywhere. It was avoided entirely,” wrote Justice Macintosh (emphasis ours). In Quebec, Veracity was claiming that 100% of its gains were earned in BC, while simultaneously claiming in BC that 90% of its gains were earned in Quebec. “Veracity adopted contradictory positions about the allocation of the same income,” the judgment reads.

While none of the individual steps of Q-Yes contravened any laws, there is a “general anti-avoidance rule” (GAAR) built into BC’s Income Tax Act. The GAAR “is intended to draw a line between legitimate tax reduction and abusive tax avoidance” – essentially a blanket rule to protect against the egregious exploitation of loopholes in tax laws. Justice Macintosh found that the Q-Yes plan constituted abusive tax avoidance, offending the GAAR. The government’s assessment that Mr. Peet owes the province $1,175,249 was upheld.

On January 4, 2016, Peet appealed the case to the BC Court of Appeal. No court dates have yet been set. Despite it being impossible to find any public contact information for Mr. Peet, an attempt was made to contact him via another member of the Board. No response was received by the time of publication.

What does it say about Peet’s values that he would engage in a plan like Q-Yes, designed to deprive the government of tax revenue? Then, once the government caught on to the plan, continuing to avoid the taxes by taking them to court instead of simply paying his fair share? Then, in the wake of the BC Supreme Court findings, deferring payment again by filing an appeal of the decision? In short, rather than paying his provincial taxes, where the funds could be directed towards providing public services such as post-secondary education, he has chosen instead to pay his tax attorneys.

Peet is very influential member of the the Board, as pointed out by Aaron Bailey during his successful campaign for a seat on the Board:

“There are specific Board of Governors members who may have a little more influence than other people, whom it’s important to get in touch with and make sure you’re able to work with to lobby them effectively. One such person is Greg Peet, the chair of the finance committee. Many of the finance committee decisions — revolving things like the strategic investment fund and the sustainable futures fund, which are both in my platform — go through that committee and he has a very strong voice, a lot of knowledge and frankly a lot of respect and influence over the board.”

Likely due to that influence, Peet has been a key player in the Board’s recent scandals and controversies. He was involved in the secret committees which culminated in the resignation of former president Arvind Gupta and also led the committees that recommended against divestment based on reasoning that has been called both hypocritical and perplexing.

Despite all that, he appears to have even bigger things planned for this year. During the divestment discussions, it was strongly hinted that the Board is planning to look at restructuring the entire system of UBC endowments. As Chair of the Finance Committee, Greg Peet would be the one leading that project. The clear finding that he (through his company) entered into a tax avoidance scheme should cause the Board to carefully consider whether it might be in the best interests of the university to have someone else lead this process.

“As leader of an organization, you are fully accountable for your actions and the actions of others who are reacting in response to your behaviours. To be completely transparent with you, we are still not certain that you fully appreciate the scope of your accountability. As President and leader, issues such as low employee morale on campus, the relationship challenges with your key stakeholders and the simmering external reputational risks developing as a result of these challenges, are fully yours to own.”
From John Montalbano’s notes following a May 18 meeting with Arvind Gupta, Alice Laberge, Lindsay Gordon, and Greg Peet.

The document dump from the dozens of Freedom of Information requests pertaining to Arvind Gupta’s resignation finally landed on January 25th. Unsurprisingly, the most useful parts of the correspondence and documents requested were redacted. Turns out, they were actually hiding in plain sight. A post made tonight on the /r/UBC subreddit pointed to the fact that a large volume of attachments were contained in the PDF of the records released. The attachments are completely free of redactions, and are already saved on the hundreds of hard drives that downloaded the package. Three key documents – letters between John Montalbano and Arvind Gupta – point to a significant deterioration of the relationship between the Board and the President starting just months into his term. They contain unrelenting and thorough criticism of the President’s divisive communication style, dismissive attitude towards the Board, lack of a plan behind his vision, misinformed and unprofessional office staff, dismissal of executives without a plan for replacement (particularly of the then-provost David Farrar), and lack of understanding of formal governance.

The FOI release indicates that trouble may have been brewing as early as March 2015 when some Board committee meetings were taking place. (Side note: these committee meetings were outside the Board’s normal meeting schedule and the Board even recently denied that they took place). Since members of the Board would all be together for these meetings, John asks Arvind “do you want to meet with us to have a chat in confidence with private members of the Board as we discussed?” [pg 393] This meeting is clearly meant to be taking place off-book. A few messages later in the same email thread Arvind says “It’s tough love but in the end it’ll be better. Let me know if I need to do anything.” John responds: “Just give some thought in advance what you would like to talk about. It is your hour with us.” Ultimately, the attendees at that meeting appear to be John, Arvind, Alice Laberge, Greg Peet, and Doug Mitchell – not members of a particular Board committee, but rather an ad hoc group of Board members.

A few months later, things don’t appear to have improved. On May 14, Arvind emails John looking to set up another off-book meeting. “I spoke with Brad and would like us to work together to get things back on track.” (The Globe and Mail has reported that “Brad” is Brad Bennett. He is a former Chair of the UBC Board and his wife Birgit currently sits on the Board.) A meeting ends up occurring on May 18, also with an ad-hoc handful of Board members. A week later, John sends Arvind 6 pages of notes from that meeting.

That document, which was entirely redacted in the original FOI release, is perhaps the most sensational part of the entire FOI package . It can be read in its entirety here (summary notes below). While John goes out of his way in the letter to repeatedly state that his main wish is for Arvind to succeed as President, most of the letter is a pointed and unrelenting thrashing, detailing nearly every aspect of leadership style and management skill that you can think of as deficient. Here’s the opener:

“The Board has noted that your first year as leader of The University of British Columbia has been an unsettled one. Relationships with key stakeholder groups, notably your senior executive, the Faculty Deans and the Board of Governors are not at functional levels to allow you to move forward in a confident manner – unusual even for an organization undergoing strategic shifts in vision and key personnel.”
From John Montalbano’s notes following a May 18 meeting with Arvind Gupta, Alice Laberge, Lindsay Gordon, and Greg Peet.

Another private meeting between Arvind, John, and Lindsay occurs on June 2. Arvind emails the next day: “Hi John, I appreciate the candor at our meeting and our collective desire to look forward constructively.” The day after, John once again sends Arvind notes about their discussion, detailing ways he would like Arvind’s planned response to the Board to be changed. That document, which was also entirely redacted in the original FOI release, can be read in its entirety here (summary notes below). It’s clear that the exact same topics were covered as in the previous meeting. While John once again tries to use supportive language in parts, it’s clear that he feels Arvind’s response to most of the issues are unsatisfactory. Here’s one of the more dramatic passages:

“There is general consensus that your actions and reactions to the Board’s concerns, advice and inquiries suggest you possess an indifference or intolerance of the Board at best ‐ or worse, an intended disregard of its authority”
Letter from John Montalbano on June 4th following up on June 2nd meeting with himself and Lindsay Gordon

A few days later, on June 8th, Arvind submits a letter to the Board’s Executive Committee. That document, which was also entirely redacted in the original FOI release, can be read in its entirety here (summary notes below). Arvind expresses his desire to improve relationships with everyone at the top – UBC Executives, Deans, and the Board. He lays out his plans for improving communication, information flows, and general morale. He promises to engage an executive coach to develop his leadership skills.

The events of late July, immediately before the resignation occurs, are still unknown, except that there was one last private meeting between John, Greg, and Arvind [pg 578-579]. Greg sent a follow-up email the day afterwards [pg 589] and then Arvind was gone.

This is by far the clearest picture anyone has had so far of the crisis leading up to the resignation. If the criticisms in John Montalbano’s letters to Gupta are to be believed, the rumors that Gupta was feared by his Executive team, facing mutiny from the Deans, and experiencing mounting distrust from the Board of Governors all seem to be true, with problems connecting to the Public Affairs department, and a weak staff in the presidential office to make matters worse. The dismissal of Provost David Farrar seems to have been a turning point, and the search for a new provost is dwelt on considerably as a test of Gupta’s leadership. The letters paint the President as an arrogant leader with a confrontational communication style, who failed to build trust with his closest reports and with the wider academic leadership circles within the University. Anyone can see that his letter of response to the Board’s criticisms is not particularly meek, and even defiant in places, emphasizing that change and centralization of vision must leave some people unhappy.

Yet questions remain about the way that these criticisms were funneled through the university ranks to the ad-hoc groups of Board members who seemed to be most involved in the critique of the president’s performance. The extent that each narrative truly reflects UBC’s administrative and academic leadership will probably continue to be controversial. What isn’t up for debate anymore are the two opposing narratives from the Board and President Gupta himself.

Highlights from May 18th letter:

• The Board has noted that your first year as leader of The University of British Columbia has been an unsettled one. Relationships with key stakeholder groups, notably your senior executive, the Faculty Deans and the Board of Governors are not at functional levels to allow you to move forward in a confident manner – unusual even for an organization undergoing strategic shifts in vision and key personnel.
• The Executive Committee of the Board has identified key aspects of your leadership style and management skills which require a “course correction” in order for you to lead the University effectively. To be very clear, we all wish you to succeed, as it is in the best interest of the University that you do.
• Because there is a low level of trust among those that work most closely with you, morale is low. You are rarely seen to solicit or seek advice from those best positioned to support you.
• Creating division among individuals whether within the Executive, the Board or the Deans must cease immediately. The role of the President is to bring people to together. [sic]
• We are deeply concerned that your office is not providing you with the information you need on a trusted and timely basis. The issue with the Dean’s in response to the Provost announcement was a catastrophic example that you are not either being informed in a timely manner or worse, the very people you are relying on are unable or currently not in a position to develop relationships of trust to provide you with the information you need prior to any major initiative.
• We are also very concerned that your office is not only inexperienced and perhaps under resourced, but that certain members of your team do not reflect well on the tone that the office should wish to establish with stakeholders on and off campus.
• Communication releases of key departures have inflamed concerns on campus and in the community. Specifically, while the communications are fact based, they are void of empathy, often not tied to University strategy and deemed to be hastily released without proper pre-consultation to prepare key stakeholders in advance.
• We appreciate that you have come to understand that you have some key deficiencies in your leadership style that must be addressed. No doubt, it is difficult to reconcile how the very skills that made you a success at Mitacs are the very skills working against you as the President of one of Canada’s most important Universities.
• As leader of an organization, you are fully accountable for your actions and the actions of others who are reacting in response to your behaviours. To be completely transparent with you, we are still not certain that you fully appreciate the scope of your accountability. As President and leader, issues such as low employee morale on campus, the relationship challenges with your key stakeholders and the simmering external reputational risks developing as a result of these challenges, are fully yours to own.

Highlights from June 2 letter

This letter discussed a meeting between Chancellor Gordon, Montalbano, and Gupta. Montalbano suggests edits to a draft of a letter Gupta is preparing to send to the Board Executive, and reiterates many concerns left unadressed from the May 18th letter.

• Deans: both Lindsay and I found this section light on further strategies to improve your engagement with the Deans. We completely understand your desire to ensure that Dr. Redish has every opportunity to succeed in her role as Interim Provost, however, we ask that you reflect further on how you will build trust with the Deans in a more interactive manner.
• no aspects of the [University] Act are to be ignored at your discretion, only at the discretion of the Board. It will be ideal that you explicitly acknowledge your understanding that you report to the Board.
• Board is very concerned that you may not fully appreciate the importance of formal governance, in every aspect of your role. There is general consensus that your actions and reactions to the Board’s concerns, advice and inquiries suggest you possess an indifference or intolerance of the Board at best – or worse, an intended disregard of its authority.
• How do we remove the sense, fairly or unfairly, that the “ship is rudderless”? Can you lead in anyway differently to inspire and guide your team?
• You mention in your letter that your first year of leadership concentrated on building the foundations for change. From the Board’s perspective, it feels that the foundation has weakened, as a result of the turmoil on campus, within key stakeholder groups
• we suggest that we spend considerable time discussing your letter at the Executive Committee of the Board with you present, but then end the meeting with 30 minutes of in-camera.

Highlights from Arvind’s June 8 response

This is a letter sent to the Board Excecutive replying to the concerns in the two letter above.

• It is my goal, in close working relationship with you and with others in the UBC community, to lift UBC from the top 25 to the top 10
• engaging an executive coach to help enhance leadership skills
• One on one meetings with Executives
• Strategic planning retreats with Executives and Deans
• I particularly appreciate your identification of the need for improved resourcing in the President’s Office. With your support, I intend to address this gap
• change can induce anxiety and resistance. This is further magnified in a university setting; universities are places of great innovation, but also, historically, places which resist institutional and structural change [...] The current highly decentralized nature of UBC, often exaggerates this

The terms of reference for the fact-finding process had originally stipulated that the full report would remain private but that a separate executive summary would be prepared and circulated to the public. However, UBC is subject to Freedom of Information legislation, and a request was made the day after the report was delivered to the parties. The document linked above is what was produced.

Unsurprisingly, UBC has taken a heavy hand to redacting huge swaths of the document, claiming entire sections would harm the privacy of third parties if disclosed, or that the text constitutes policy advice or recommendations to UBC (despite the fact that Lynn Smith actually writes at the conclusion of the report: “The Terms of Reference under which I write this Report explicitly state that I will not make any recommendations for any actions to be taken by the parties relating to my findings or conclusions. Accordingly, I do not.”) The main redactions include:

• The names of all person interviewed, except for Jennifer Berdahl and John Montalbano, have been severed.
• A section titled “Chronology”, which is approximately 10 pages long, has been severed in its entirety.
• The next section, “Narrative” manages to reveal just one paragraph and two sentences of its 11 pages.
• Lynn Smith then delivers about 9 pages of “Analysis”. Only 4 paragraphs survived, with the rest covered up.

Ultimately, employees and officers of the university collectively acted in a manner towards a professor such that her academic freedom was infringed upon. It’s unacceptable that the identities of these individuals continue to be concealed, as well as the actions that occurred. Remember that the Smith report exonerated each of them on an individual level. What is the harm to these individuals that is being prevented by withholding disclosure?

The full report, after having gone through UBC’s severing process, arguably contains even less information than the executive summary which was released on October 15, 2015. A complaint will be filed with the BC Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner.

Of the little information that remains, there’s one troubling conclusion that can be teased out: structurally, the Chair of the Board is largely uncontrollable and essentially above the law. (The ‘law’ in this case being university policies.) For example, Smith notes that UBC Policy #3 (Discrimination and Harassment), which is a Board decree, does not include Board members among the people who must comply with the policy.

The Faculty Association and UBC have been contacted for comment. This post will be updated if received.

Update [January 12, 2016]: Reached by telephone this morning, UBC Provost pro tem Anji Redish defended the lack of information released in response to the FOI request. She re-iterated that the terms of reference agreed to by the parties were clear that the process was intended to be confidential. Individuals were encouraged to speak frankly and did so in the belief that what they shared would not be released publicly. Dr. Redish pointed out that if put in their shoes, it would not seem fair to release details that were given under those pretenses, but could not specify how that would cause harm the individuals.

Dr. Redish also argued that because the failure in Dr. Berdahl’s case was one in which the university failed to pro-actively upheld academic freedom, the specific details were not necessary to prevent future breaches. She re-iterated the university’s commitment to hiring a specialist on Academic Freedom who could educate governors and other members of the university community on that obligation, hopefully preventing any more instances of infringement in the future.

Bill 41, called the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 3), 2015, introduces amendments to the University Act, changing the conditions under which a Board of Governors collects fees on behalf of a student society and explicitly addressing the issue of fee collection from students who do not hold membership in a student society.

Here’s the background you need to know: student societies, as the term implies, are incorporated as societies in BC and must abide by legislation called the Society Act. Recently, BC significantly overhauled this legislation and renamed it as the Societies Act. The new Societies Act was given royal assent on May 14, but has not yet been brought into force. (In other words, it has been approved but not yet implemented.)

The old Society Act did not contemplate the issue of how a member of a society ceases to be a member of a society. It left that issue up to each society’s Bylaws. Generally student societies, in their Bylaws, had ways for them to remove members, but no way for members to remove themselves. Students could not resign and were members whether they liked it or not.

That changed with the new Societies Act, which directly addresses the issue of membership termination. It is clear that a member can resign his or her membership from a society at any time. This was identified as a major source of concern for student societies, which had become accustomed to universal membership. During the provincial government’s consultations prior to adopting the Societies Act, student societies identified this as a concern and asked to have this issue addressed.

Bill 41 represents the “fix” to this issue from the Ministry of Advanced Education. Today’s government news release about the Bill describes:

Amendments to the University Act and the College and Institute Act will ensure that fees continue to be collected from students who resign from the student society. The Ministry of Advanced Education will consult with student societies to determine which program or service fees should be protected under the legislation.

In reality, the fix is only a half measure. On the one hand, some fees will continue to be collected from students who resign. On the other hand, some fees might not.

The mechanism by which Bill 41 does this is first by establishing two new defined terms in the University Act. They lay out two new types of student fees:

• A capital fee, which is left undefined and will be defined in regulation.
• A program or service fee, which is “a fee for a prescribed program or a prescribed service”

The bill then describes that if student resigns his or her membership in a student society, he or she will still be obligated to pay capital fees and program or service fees. The corollary to that, while not explicitly stated, is that that student society fees not fitting into those two categories will not be collected in the case of a resignation.

Due to the vagueness of the definitions, the matter of which fees fall into each category is left open, to be determined by conversations between student societies and the Ministry. A statement from the Ministry of Advanced Education said that “The Ministry of Advanced Education will consult with student societies before determining which program and service fees will be protected under this legislation. Government has the regulatory authority to determine which fees are protected, but development of the regulation will be informed by the consultation process.” Still, the possibility is now open that students unhappy with their student society in BC may soon be able to resign and get some of their fees back in the process.

The background for this part requires a close reading of something presented at the May 2015 meeting of the UNA Board, a proposal from UBC Campus and Community Planning (C+CP):

At the April 28 meeting of the Operations and Sustainability Standing Committee, UBC C+CP proposed to the Directors that residents who will live in university housing (only available to UBC staff, faculty, students) in the UBlvd precinct would become members of the UNA, as the UNA has always anticipated to represent all residents on campus that were not living in student academic housing. There is no market housing contemplated for the precinct. Although the precinct would not be a UNA neighbourhood, residents would enjoy the benefits of membership and the services provided by the UNA. In recognition of the cost of providing services, UBC proposes remitting all services levies collected from these residential buildings to the UNA. UBC would provide all municipal services in the precinct.

Sketchy Housing Projects

It is important to note that they specifically use the term University Boulevard “Precinct”, which is an unofficial area with arbitrarily-defined borders (below left). However, looking at the Precinct through a planning lens shows that it is not a homogeneous area (below right.) A portion of it is under the Village Centre Academic designation, which does allow for faculty/staff rental housing to be built within the oddly-shaped red box (below left). The rest of the Precinct is under the Academic designation, which does not allow for faculty/staff rental housing to be built.

Maayan touched on the general sketchiness of the current UBlvd plan in an earlier post, but it boils down to this: in the image above on the right, there are two blue blobs marked “GSAB” and “D.H. Copp”. It is clear that both sites largely sit on Academic land, and therefore private housing should not be allowed on the majority of those sites. Naturally, UBC is planning to build private housing on the entirety of both sites, because following the rules is for schmucks.

A side effect of the projects not following the rules is that they create an incongruity with how the UNA has been set up. On one hand, remember that traditionally, the limits of the UNA’s jurisdiction directly mirror the borders between the Neighbourhood and Academic land designations, an obvious and sensible practice. On the other, it’s outlined above that “the UNA has always anticipated to represent all residents on campus that were not living in student academic housing.”

By building private residential buildings on Academic land, UBC has made it so that residents who should be part of the UNA will not be part of the UNA because they are located outside of its traditional borders. To satisfy the UNA, who still believe they should represent all non-student residents on campus, C+CP has taken the approach that two wrongs will make a right. They are asking the UNA to join them in not following the rules, dissolving the traditional limits of their jurisdiction by annexing those buildings and extending the UNA’s reach onto Academic land.

Paying off the UNA

To sweeten the pot for the UNA, the proposal also included this arrangement: UBC will collect the Services Levy (that thing that approximates property taxes) from people living in the precinct and will give 100% of that money to the UNA. However, at the same time UBC will also assume full responsibility for providing all municipal-like services to those residents. As UNA chair Richard Alexander summed it up at the May UNA Board meeting, “We’re getting the money, but we’re not spending it on municipal services.”

Providing municipal-like services to residents is the UNA’s raison d’être, and providing those services is the basis for why the Services Levy needs to be collected. In this case, UBC is giving the UNA money for nothing. Free money is always a great way of getting buy-in.

Shit UBC Says

The document provided to the UNA Board in May outlining the governance proposal also stated: There is no market housing contemplated for the precinct.

Clear, unambiguous. No market housing contemplated.

The next month, a document was provided to UBC’s Board of Governors outlining the university’s plans for the precinct. For one of the sites in the area, where the now-demolished GSAB used to be, here are the options presented to the Board:

Scenario 1 – Academic uses across the site. Maximum height of a six storey
building fronting University Boulevard and an eight storey building fronting
Wesbrook Mall. 

Scenario 2 – Mixed use, with a six storey academic building fronting University
Boulevard and up to an eight storey building with university rental housing or
market rental housing fronting Wesbrook Mall.

Scenario 3 – Same as Scenario 2, but allowing the rental housing building to
increase in height up to twelve storeys.

[emphasis added]

So then.  Market housing is being contemplated after all.

While the UNA is being told market housing is absolutely not on the table, less than a month later the Board is being told that yes, actually, it absolutely is. This is not a mistake or an inadvertent slip. It is framed as university housing OR market housing – it’s clear that whoever wrote this understands that there is a distinction between those two types of housing, and still included market housing as something under consideration.

UBC straight up lied to the UNA and is exploring a plan they said would not be on the table. This is also a plan that no one was told about during a months-long public consultation on the area preceding this report.

Conclusion

C+CP’s penchant for playing fast and loose with development rules is what has led to the revision of the Neighbours Agreement passed by the UNA Board (via email because they couldn’t get quorum). In formulating the plan and pushing it forward, UBC has lied to the UNA and promised them free money to gain their cooperation in a plan that would allow for the quiet expansion of private housing on campus, going against all the plans that are on the books.

It’s enough to make you wonder whether UBC has a governance problem.

We are in the middle of pitching UBC Insiders On-Air  to CiTR (UBC’s campus radio station), so we hope it will be on the public airwaves and on their awesome podcasting platform soon. In the meantime, we recorded our first show yesterday, and we’re pretty pumped to get it out there. I will disclaim that we are both novices at the whole radio production thing, but we’re pretty proud of our first kick at the can and I hope you enjoy it.

This week: Ubyssey coordinating editor Will McDonald joins us for news roundups and discussion, and AMS Prez Aron Bailey is in the hotseat.

Let us know what you think, or a the very least say something mean about our choice of intro/extro music!

We’re not on iTunes yet, but if you have a podcast app that lets you manually subscribe, use this address to get every episode delivered to you: http://ubcinsiders.podbean.com/feed/

John Montalbano, the Board of Governors Chair, and Lindsay Gordon, the Chancellor, have so far only addressed the issue through confusing prepared statements, or terse comments to selected media. Everyone else on the Board has been absent from the public eye. To all those looking for answers amidst the turmoil, their collective silence has said much more.

UBC has a directory of people associated with the university. Search the name John Montalbano… no results. Search the name Lindsay Gordon… no results. An enquiry to UBC Public Affairs for their contact information was referred to the Board of Governors Secretariat, who claimed the information was private and could not be divulged. To summarize, John Montalbano and Lindsay Gordon do not have offices. They cannot be reached by email. They cannot be reached by phone. The two most powerful men at UBC are ghosts.

Certainly, everyone has a right to live as private citizen, but that right ends where their duties as Governors begin. They are not acting as private citizens when they vote on raising tuition, or the university’s billion-dollar budget, or when asking university staff to stop using the term “rape culture” because it makes them uncomfortable. Mr. Montalbano was not on the search committee that ultimately chose Arvind Gupta as UBC President in the role of “random individual plucked off the street”. All of these derive from the fact that they are people who have been given control over a very large and significant public institution. If they would rather be private citizens, they are welcome to take the advice of faculty member Nassif Ghoussoub and resign. Until they do, their roles come with a duty to the public, and the tens of thousands of people who hold a very real stake in the success of this institution.

Adding to the confusion, Susan Danard, managing director of UBC Public Affairs, was responding to enquiries earlier this week by stating that both men were out of town on vacation. She has since stated that those vacations were cancelled and in fact, there have been frequent conversations with various campus stakeholders. Their actual whereabouts are still uncertain. The UBC Faculty Association, for their part, sent a message to its members stating that a conversation with Montalbano had occurred this week, but details of any other engagements or actions taken are hard to come by. Where are they, what are they doing and who are they meeting with? Nobody seems to know, or want to say. Of course, this is just another example of the completely secretive way in which the UBC Board of Governors does business all the time. Faced with a situation that demands more clarity, all they create is more fog.

Read the previous analysis of this referendum which outlined how this “student fee” is not a genuine student fee, but rather a back-door tuition increase. The referendum was also not run by the KUS, but by a campaign called Make Your Mark (MYM) which was being led by a paid employee of the school. In the month since the referendum, more details have emerged about just how unethical much of the behaviour surrounding the MYM campaign and the referendum really was. Let’s dive in.

They did it!

On April 17, a month after the referendum MYM posted a video entitled “MYM Celebration”. Near the end of the video, the following image appears:

Both of these people are employees of the School of Kinesiology, contracted specifically to work on the Make Your Mark campaign. On the left holding the “we did it!” sign is Robyn Freiheit, Special Projects Coordinator. More on the person on the right in a moment.

Until recently, it was assumed that Freiheit was the only person involved with MYM who was being paid by the school for that involvement. That’s certainly the message she conveyed when interviewed by Kosta Prodanovic of the Ubyssey, writing that “the priorities and deliverables of the MYM campaign were entirely developed and implemented by students who are passionate about the project and the need for a KIN building.” Freiheit has consistently deflected concerns about her conflict of interest by pointing to the fact that she is a fifth-year Kin student and that she is passionate about a new building as a result of her experiences as a Kin student (but evidently not passionate enough to volunteer her time.) MYM is now always described as a student-led initiative.

Which brings us to the person on the right. Her name is Rachel Apted. Her job title with the School of Kinesiology is “Visual Coordinator”. Have you seen MYM’s extremely impressive campaign material? (The website was taken down subsequent to publication – here’s a backup. – Ed) She’s the one who designed all of it. Check out her portfolio, it’s top notch.

Thing is, Rachel is not a Kinesiology student, nor does she attend UBC. As per her LinkedIn profile, she attends Emily Carr, where she will be graduating this year from a Communication Design program. She has no investment in the success of Kinesiology’s building project beyond performing well at a job she was hired to do. In an email, Apted characterized her main motivation for becoming involved as having to do with building her portfolio and accumulating professional experience, a reasonable goal for an up-and-coming designer. That is also how it is portrayed on her C.V.:

The University of British Columbia UBC, Vancouver, CAN
Visual Coordinator (Current Employer)

Fulfilling an imperative role as the lead designer of a strategic marketing campaign to educate stakeholders in UBC’s School of Kinesiology campaign initiative. Through alternative strategic marketing tactics, brand development, brand recognition and social media promotion. Additionally acting as a liaison between the Dean of Kinesiology and the brand ambassadors, action committee, and the university. Providing regular contact with both and ensuring effective communication.

Read that again closely. It’s “UBC’s School of Kinesiology campaign initiative” (not the KUS’s, something which the school itself has said too) and her assertion that she fulfilled an “imperative role” role is believable. That she would mention being a liaison between Bob Sparks (Director of the School of Kinesiology), the university, and students once again raises uncomfortable questions about the level of UBC involvement in MYM; Bob Sparks declined a request to be interviewed about the school’s role in the campaign.

Highlighting all of this is not meant to criticize Apted’s work or involvement, but it forms a stark contrast to Freiheit’s comments that “the priorities and deliverables of the MYM campaign were entirely developed and implemented by students who are passionate about the project and the need for a KIN building.” Apted’s work is visible in almost all of the MYM campaign materials and having her on staff undoubtedly had a significant impact on the efficacy of the campaign. While it was inappropriate for the School of Kinesiology to hire Freiheit for the express purpose of running this referendum, its hiring of Apted is indefensible.

Genesis of MYM

At this point, it might be helpful to further examine MYM’s origin story. Its genesis as told by (outgoing) 2014-15 KUS President Jason Quach was paraphrased by the Ubyssey: “a former KUS Executive Committee decided to reach out to the School of Kinesiology about hiring a ‘non-voluntary’ person to help with the project, so they found Freiheit, who proposed a job description to the school through which she could assist the KUS and Kinesiology students by taking the lead on this student-led project.”

Quach, who also did not reply to an interview request, appears to paint the idea for MYM as something he inherited, but the “former KUS Executive Committee” he refers to was from 2013-14. Quach was a member of that executive, serving as VP Communications. Another notable member of the 2013-14 KUS executive that initiated MYM was that year’s president, Aram Karakas.

Coincidentally, the 2015 KUS elections administrator was… Aram Karakas.

#iVoteMYM

When contacted, Karakas said his role was limited to administration of the ballot and ensuring elections regulations were followed. He stated that “all elections procedures outlined in [AMS] Code and the KUS constitution were followed.” That claim does not hold up to scrutiny.*

And despite Freiheit telling The Ubyssey that “The KUS were responsible for writing and administering the referendum question,” MYM seems to have had carte blanche in relation to the referendum. What legitimate explanation could exist for why MYM was allowed to design and erect their own voting booth? A voting booth which carries School of Kinesiology branding and inducements to vote “YES” on the sides. (It’s important to remember, too, that many of MYM’s materials were misleading.)

Even the voting booth set up by the KUS advertises MYM [plus a Cookie Monster who voted more than once; Lougheed, is that you? -Ed]), and is watched over by students who participated in the MYM campaign.

Make Your Mark was a project of the School of Kinesiology, not of the KUS.

It concerns a School of Kinesiology building, not a KUS building.

The proceeds of the proposed fee will end up in the coffers of the School of Kinesiology, not of the KUS.

The campaign carried School of Kinesiology branding, not KUS branding.

It was funded by the School of Kinesiology, not the KUS.

Its leaders reported to the School of Kinesiology, not the KUS.

So how can this legitimately be considered a KUS referendum and a KUS fee?

Brought to you by the School of Kinesiology at the University of British Columbia. A place of mind.™

On every level, this referendum was a sham.

• A Memorandum of Understanding was generated premised on the fact that the KUS would hold a referendum on behalf of the university.
   
• The KUS had minimal involvement in designing and promoting that referendum, and largely delegated it back to the university.
   
• The university retained not one, but two employees to run that referendum campaign, and presumably funded the campaign’s operations. Although no one will discuss how much money the school spent, it must have easily exceeded $10,000 – beyond the means of any legitimate student group.
   
• Referendum campaign materials which misled students about the building project and the student fee referendum.
   
• An elections administrator, charged with ensuring a fair election, who seemed to place no limits on the university’s campaign.

Some have pointed to the strong mandate delivered by voters to justify the referendum’s validity. But does that mandate exist without MYM, without external funding, without school interference? If it does, then MYM, external funding, and school interference was all unnecessary and should have been disavowed. If it doesn’t, the argument basically boils down to saying that the effectiveness of MYM, external funding, and school interference in swaying votes is what lends the referendum credibility, which is absurd. This result should not stand.

-=-=-=-=-
*For example, Article 8(b) of the KUS Constitution says that referendum questions “must be passed by Council two weeks prior to the beginning of voting so that it may be advertised.“. The original approval of the question on March 3 is by the executive, not council. Subsequent minutes from March 10th (also an executive-only meeting) show that the first order of business was “edits with referendum”; voting started on March 17th. Correction: voting started on March 16th.

AMS Code Section IX, Article 9, 1(b) says “the Constituency‟s chief elections official and its elections committee must conduct elections in an unbiased and impartial manner;” Allowing MYM to set up a voting booth and supervise KUS voting sites does not ensure an unbiased or impartial vote.

Last week, things blew up when the Kinesiology Undergraduate Society (KUS) brought a motion to AMS Council asking them to approve a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) about their upcoming referendum. The motion came as a surprise to most of council, having been added to the agenda the day of the meeting and the MOU was not circulated in advance, leaving people just a short recess to read and digest what they were being asked to agree to. The MOU outlined the conditions under which the KUS would run the referendum and what UBC’s obligations would be should the referendum succeed. This is unusual, since under normal circumstances there would be no reason for a student group running a referendum for a student fee to even talk with UBC about it, let alone draw up a document outlining their mutual obligations to each other. Drawing up an MOU would only make sense if fee in question was not a genuine student fee and was in reality a university fee. It’s fairly clear that’s the case here.

Make Your Mark

A campaign called Make Your Mark (MYM), not the KUS, has been the driving force behind this referendum. MYM is described as “a student led campaign to secure funding for a new Kinesiology building at UBC.” The person leading it is Robyn Freiheit, a fifth-year Kin student whose LinkedIn page says that in her role as Special Projects Coordinator for the School of Kinesiology, she is “Responsible for the creation and project management of the “Make Your Mark” informational campaign focused on the Community Health Science Centre (CHSC) building project.” In other words, she’s on the school’s payroll to push this project.

KUS minutes from this year mention MYM only sparingly and from the few times it appears, it’s clear that the KUS is little more than a bystander while this campaign goes on all around them. When the KUS president was asked for more information about the building project and referendum, his response was to forward the inquiry to Freiheit. A similar scene went down at AMS Council in which Freiheit did all the talking while the KUS president sat at the table with little to say. There’s a lot that’s wrong with this picture: a constituency president who is unable/unwilling to talk about a referendum his organization is running, instead deferring to a paid employee of the school.

If this referendum was being driven by the KUS, it’s hard to imagine why the fee would go towards the CHSC when for $5M – the same cost as the Engineering Student Centre – the KUS could build their own building!

Do you believe in a thing called Kin manipulating its students?

While MYM claims to be an informational campaign, it is light on information. Basic details about the overall scope of the building project or how the rest of the building will be funded have not been published anywhere obvious by MYM. In fairness, that may be because the building is still just an idea – it has not even entered the initial design stages – and if that’s the case, what exactly are students voting to support? MYM gets around that by being a social media campaign of boosterism focused on feel-good things like leaving a legacy, showing leadership, and getting access to things like a juice bar, KIN-only gym, and 24/7 study space.

While the lack of basic information about the project is concerning, what’s even worse is the amount of misinformation sprinkled in. Two of the bigger claims are:

“This building will only start with a successful student referendum to gain further funding from external donors and the Provincial Government.”

That’s a strong assertion to make about a project still in the conceptual stages in which the overall funding picture is unclear. The only profile of the CHSC project (which could easily be out of date) describes an $88M project of which $78M will come from government, $5M from UBC and $5M from donors. It certainly seems like the $83M from other sources will be what makes or breaks this project, not the $5M that might be generated from students.

“These features have been confirmed by all relevant positions at UBC in a “Memorandum of Understanding” (MOU) document and legal contract between UBC and the KUS-AMS. All conditions of feature inclusions must be met for funds to be required by students in the future.”

And

“UBC has promised in a legally binding contract that the future building Planning Committee will have one seat for a Kinesiology undergraduate student, and one seat for a Kinesiology grad student.”

There is no legal contract in place about anything. Even if AMS Council had signed on to the MOU, it would not be legally binding in any way. An MOU is not the same as a contract, it’s better described as a Letter of Intent. Many of the promised benefits of the building are not backed up by anything concrete, which is not what these statements would lead you to believe. There are many ways in which UBC could wriggle its way out of any commitments in the future. Just five years on from its referendum, there are rumblings from the CUS that the university has failed to live up to its end of the bargain after they put their fee in place.

There are other issues with this referendum as well, to do with the timing of the building, that only KIN undergrads are being asked to pay (but not grad students, and not nursing students) and that many promises and agreements seem to be done on a verbal basis. On the other hand, it is also true that Kinesiology is currently hindered by being spread out all over campus and has been searching quite a long time for a single building on campus in which it can consolidate. It’s hard to begrudge any admin or students who want a place to call home on campus. But bottom line, as student referendums go, this one is a sham. It’s being driven by the School of Kinesiology, using the KUS as a shell organization through which to institute the fee. Like the Sauder fee, it’s a back door tuition increase, and students in Kinesiology should think hard about why this referendum exists, how the fee got so large, whether they could get better value for that fee, and in whose interests it is to vote in favour of it.