UVic students were recently invited to vote in a non-binding referendum that asked:  “Do you support the introduction in 2012 of a new athletics and recreation building fee to help finance the proposed new facility and expansion of services?” 

Of those students who voted, 59 per cent of undergrads said “yes” to the question, while 77 per cent of grad students said “no.”  Why such a wide gap in opinion between these two groups?

It is true that grad students don’t use athletics facilities as much as undergrads do. But there are other compelling reasons behind the widespread graduate student opposition.  Some of these reasons might surprise you.

First, the proposed mandatory athletics fee of $55 per term will be in addition to the existing mandatory athletics fee of $73 per term, for a grand total of $128 each semester.

Also, the combined fee will not be as all-inclusive as UVic wants you to believe. Drop-in classes and other services at the new facility will still carry unspecified user fees.

And the proposed facility would include a seven-story parking garage, making it very expensive to build, and more convenient for people to burn fossil fuels going for their workouts.

But there’s at least one more important thing you should have known. The proposed increase to athletics fees represents a whopping 75 per cent increase to a mandatory fee, despite the fact that B.C. government regulation caps annual increases to tuition and mandatory fees at two per cent. 

The mandatory “building fee” described in the referendum question is exactly the kind of mandatory “building fee” capped by the Tuition Limit Policy, and therefore violates the B.C. government’s policy.

A few days before the referendum began, the Grad Students’ Society (GSS) Director of Communications wrote to UVic’s Associate Vice President Student Affairs, asking that he provide students a web-link to the GSS website before the voting began.

The Associate Vice President refused on the grounds that UVic’s ballot-related web pages were factual and unbiased. But UVic’s web pages left out important information about the fees and the policy. 

The GSS website filled the gaps with information that UVic apparently didn’t want you to see. 

Because many grad students received more details about the fees and the policy from the GSS, it is no grand leap to assume that grad students voted on the basis of a more complete picture.   

If undergrads weren’t provided the big picture to see before they voted, that might explain the wide gap in opinion between undergrads and grad students. It seems reasonable to think maybe that gap in opinion was actually a gap in information.

UVic seems to believe that a “yes” vote based on incomplete information by a small minority of the overall student body is enough to move toward increasing mandatory fees, contrary to government policy. 

But consent is not the same as informed consent. Why did UVic block the easy flow of information to undergrad students?

Why is UVic ignoring the Tuition Limit Policy, and why hold a referendum about a fee increase that is simply not allowed in this province? Wouldn’t you like to know? We would too.

Why not send a short email (avpsa@uvic.ca) or text to your Associate Vice President Student Affairs, and ask him? In last week’s Martlet, he was quoted as saying:  “What the students say really does make a difference.”  It’s not too late to have your say.

Mike Large is the representative for grad students in law on the GSS Grad Rep Council. Amy Cox is the Director of Communications for the GSS.