Discourse of uselessness, waste of money

Whether they acknowledge it or not, every student at Mcgill benefits from the services and advocacy provided by SSMU. Extended library hours, the operation of the Shatner building, Senate representation, reading week, student rights – none of these could exist if SSMU had no money to spend on services as well as advocacy efforts. This is the case for any student union. As such, it is just patently wrong to argue that paying the SSMU fee is a waste.

No service SSMU provides can come for free. Understandably, students are hesitant to increase their fees. This provides a useful talking point for the reactionary who would prefer that this money not be spent toward progressive goals. Hiding behind the argument that progressive groups ( often funded via, but not by, student unions) are useless, however, is merely avoiding a discussion about the true political intents of the reactionary.

Any other entity on campus that has a mandate to fight for social and environmental justice also needs to be funded – the amount of labour that goes into these endeavours and the socials goods that they create make these groups worthwhile investments. Examples of such groups include CKUT, QPIRGMcgill, and everybody’s favourite campus newspaper ( yours truly). According to the reactionary, funding these groups privileges their political stances above others and this privilege is unearned. But this is false. Money for these groups comes from student fees levied through referenda, and students have repeatedly voted in favour of these initiatives. If SSMU and other organizations are truly useless to most students, nothing can explain the fact that these can survive and have survived for decades now with students’ continued support.

Any group with sufficiently high levels of support can lobby both SSMU and the University to be funded by student fees. The Mcgill Chapter of the World University Service Canada (WUSC), for instance, collects a Student Refugee Fee in order to fund refugee students’ studies at Mcgill. It surely cannot be the fault of social justice groups that no opposing reactionary student group is funded through student fees.

Lauria Galbraith, who wrote this article, was The Daily’s SSMU beat in 2014-15. From her vantage point, it was clear that SSMU could be used as a tool, yet students need to be convinced first. (“End your apathy,” March 30, 2015, Commentary, page 22)

Finance Director of SSMU Mike Clarke complains about EUS members who complain about how SSMU is useless, while never proposing any solutions themselves. (“EUS considers secssion,” November 27, 1968, page 3)