Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Infrastructure... then what?
Friday, March 6, 2009
Where your billz at
But university has spurned their bid to get list of its holdings
A student group at Dalhousie University is trying to figure out whether the Halifax school has investments in Sudan.
Up to 300,000 people have died in the state-sponsored genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region, and 2.7 million have fled their homes.
"One of our campaigns is called the divestment campaign where, basically, students at various universities work to investigate the investment holdings of the university and then compare that to a list of companies . . . that are known to either work in Sudan, have conglomerates in Sudan or are somehow financially supporting the government of Sudan," said Tara MacDougall of Students Taking Action Now Darfur, which has campus groups across North America.
"And then we’ll work to remove those investment holdings from the university, thereby cutting off the funds of the government of Sudan."
But Dalhousie refused to just hand over details about its investment portfolio. Instead, the university insisted the student group apply for the data through provincial freedom of information laws.
"They’ve basically been giving us the runaround," Ms. MacDougall said. "They’ve finally come to the stage where they’ve told us we need to pay $300 to access about a 12-page document, which tells us the investments of the university."
The student group’s director, Kate Varsava, wrote to Dalhousie president Tom Traves and three other university administrators last month, saying its members had been trying for more than a year to get their hands on the university’s list of investments.
"I was wondering if I could arrange a meeting with any of you to discuss divestment and any possible methods of obtaining a list of Dalhousie’s investments, so that we can move forward with this initiative which we believe is imperative and will be effective in bringing an end to the atrocities being suffered in Sudan," Ms. Varsava wrote.
The email response from the president’s office turned them down flat.
"Dalhousie University has a fiduciary responsibility to its employees for whom we invest their pension funds to optimize our investments for their ultimate disposal," says the email.
Dal uses about a dozen specialist investment firms, it says.
"We do not direct their individual and changing investment decisions. Nor do we have detailed information about where the firms in which we may have a momentary investment carry out all aspects of their business," the email says.
"We cannot provide a list of individual investments without a large amount of work, and so if someone wants access to specific information of the sort you mention we would require you to file a (freedom of information) request, and if it is legal to respond we would require you to pay for the substantial staff time that would be required to compile the information since university staff would have to be pulled off their regular jobs to do so.
"Of course, the information provided would only be a snapshot of the information collected at that moment and could well have changed by the time it was forwarded if the investment managers wished to sell the investment and purchase something else in the meanwhile."
The student group, on principle, doesn’t want to pay the $300, which would be very tough on its yearly budget.
"We will pay the $300 if that’s what it comes down to; we do believe it’s important," said Ms. MacDougall, a third-year international development student.
But right now the group is trying to "embarrass the university into paying it for us," she said.
A Dalhousie spokesman contacted with questions about the issue did not return calls by deadline.
Members don’t know whether Dal has investments in the vast oil-rich country south of Egypt. But they are determined to find out.
"We think this is something that’s important and that the Dal community cares about," Ms. MacDougall said. "Maybe there are no investments indirectly contributing to genocide, but it’s the fact that the university seems to think it’s not important and isn’t being very transparent with us."
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Safety Bus
And if you're friends don't bus, and if they won't bus, well they ain't no friends of mine. S - S - A - A ...
This evening the pre-budget submission from the Halifax Student Alliance was presented to council. The topic, late night transit. We were asking for an extension of late night transit until around 3 AM on the major routes servicing the university areas the 1, the 41, the 10. You can read our report HERE.
The response - no decision for the next couple of weeks - Metro Transit staff and the Halifax Regional Police Service will be compiling a report on the issue to be prepared before final budget decisions are made.
In other news, bus fares went up by $0.25 per ride today to cover rising costs for Metro Transit and some service expansions.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Students group wants late-night buses
Expanded transit service would make downtown safer, letter to council says
A students group in metro wants Halifax city hall to consider providing late-night bus service downtown for post-secondary students, according to a submission to regional council.
The proposal from the Halifax Student Alliance says the plan is in line with two of council’s policy focus areas for this year: public safety and transportation.
Late-night transit would allow for safer and more convenient access to students’ destinations, the submission says, and "provide more transportation options for (the) entire community."
The pilot project would include popular Metro Transit routes such as those to Saint Mary’s and Dalhousie universities and those along Barrington Street, Spring Garden Road and Oxford Street.
Mark Coffin, chairman of the alliance, said in a letter to councillors the project is directly linked to results of the mayor’s roundtable on violence. He said about 1,540 students were surveyed for the study, and 45 per cent of respondents reported being crime victims while studying in metro.
"Alarmingly, 12 per cent of respondents disclosed that they had been victims of sexual assault downtown," Mr. Coffin said in his letter. He noted the city’s anti-violence report recommends a late-night transit service for Halifax’s central core.
The submission to council says the advocacy group represents more than 25,000 university and community college students in Halifax Regional Municipality. Many students rely on Metro Transit’s bus service, which stops at 1 a.m., and the alliance feels "an investment in late-night transit will reduce the frequency" of violent events involving young people.
The group wants the city to look at bus service ending at 3 a.m., a spokesman told The Chronicle Herald on Saturday.
Alliance members also pitched the economics of students riding city buses. They told the politicians in their letter that post-secondary students dish out at least $6.7 million annually to the municipality’s transit system through such things as bus fares and passes.
"The student contribution to Metro Transit’s operating budget is considerable," Mr. Coffin said in his letter. "The (alliance) will continue to encourage Metro Transit to provide better service to the universities and colleges, which are cornerstones of the local economy."
Transit funding is to be discussed at council’s committee of the whole session Tuesday afternoon; the alliance’s proposal is on the agenda for Tuesday night’s regional council meeting.
Dal graduate student Zach Dayler, the alliance’s executive director, said his organization is aware that late-night transit would mean bus drivers dealing with some passengers who are intoxicated. He said that scenario can be mitigated.
"I’d point to the investment in security cameras that they do want to put on buses," said Mr. Dayler.
"So that, I think, will alleviate some concern there about drunk people on the buses potentially causing incidents."
Mr. Dayler said should the municipality give the pilot project the green light, his group would like to see it running as soon as possible.
Whether there is political will on regional council for the alliance’s proposal remains to be seen. A couple of councillors have expressed their support, but others are against it. Mayor Peter Kelly hasn’t ruled out such a plan, but his is only one vote on a 24-member council.
Regardless of how councillors may feel about the issue, transit officials are not exactly hopping on the late-night-bus bandwagon.
"That’s on the back burner," Eddie Robar, Metro Transit’s planning manager, told the Coast last year.
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