A Message from your FEDS Science Councillors

Did you know that FEDS Execs get over $48k in salary, nearly $5k in benefits, and nearly $4k in auxiliary benefits and honoraria? Did you also know that the FEDS Board and Student Council make nothing? We are proposing reducing Exec pay $9.5k per exec, bringing the total executive remunerations from one of the highest amongst Canadian student unions (per exec) to still above the median pay level for full-time student executive leaders across Canada. This pay decrease will allow for a monthly stipend of $80.00 per Councilor and $120 per Board member who work hard to represent their student constituents and protect the corporation from liability, respectively. This restructuring will attract talent student government by rewarding their efforts and it also saves students $4000.00 CAD a year! What’s not to love about making your student union more attractive for participation and saving you money?

Together with FEDS President, Antonio Brieva, we have proposed created a student government task force with a 1 year mandate to address the concerns with student engagement in General Meetings and explore the potential avenue for Student Council to be restructured as a Meeting of Delegates to act as a gathering of the general assembly of members of the corporations between biannual GMs. This task force would look at how to improve the structure of the General Meeting during the auspices of the Corporations Act, RSO 1990 and the Non-for-Profit Corporations Act, RSO 2010 (not in force yet) to improve student participation and enhance corporate functionality and efficiency in student government. Students often complain of the glacial pace of student politics at Waterloo. Students lament with irritation the lack of progress it seems FEDS makes on many tasks. Students eschew the colossal bureaucracy of the organization and its internal operations through apathy. What’s the best way to address this? How can we reform to help address these concerns? Together institutional insiders from the Board and Executive will work with ardent reformers from the Student Council and at-large student body to create bylaw changes for a more effective, more transparent, and more accountable student union.