CUSU has defended itself against allegations of censorship after it was revealed that dozens of students had been imprisoned in the Union’s offices for breaching election regulations.
As tensions surrounding this term’s elections continue to rise, Elections Committee Interim Deputy Co-Vice-Chair Emily Milton defended CUSU’s approach to the elections in a statement to the student press.
“We’ve made it very clear in the lead up to the campaign period that anybody who makes a positive, negative, or neutral comment about any of the candidates, in public or in private, is breaching campaigning rules.”
“To protect the integrity of the elections, the only suitable course of action was for all students or other members of the public who have breached campaigning rules so far to be abducted from their rooms by our Sabbatical Officers and interned at our offices until such a time that polling has finished and a candidate of whom CUSU approves has been elected.”
“This information was circulated via an A5 poster in the toilets of a vegan café in Cambridge, so nobody should be claiming that they weren’t aware of the rules.”
The censorship allegations are the latest in a series of scandals to hit CUSU in the last few days, after a series of controversial remarks were made by candidates at Presidential hustings. Signs that the hustings could prove tense first began to show when one of the candidates, Evie Aspinall, refused to attend the hustings, arguing that, “as a CUSU outsider, I don’t believe I should sit in the same room as my opponents”.
When pressed on policies, Aspinall declared that policy was “a very CUSU insider way of looking at this”.
“I’m such an outsider I don’t have policies. That’s me, the outsider in this race. Outside.”
The hustings also saw Siyang Wei, a former co-Chair of the student Labour club, and Connor MacDonald, a former Conservative Association Chairman, come to blows over financial policy.
When asked how they would clear the deficit in the CUSU budget, Wei stated that “since CUSU Officers have worked so hard to build up such an impressive deficit, I’m determined to restore it to its former glory”.
“Money doesn’t grow on trees, and it certainly won’t once I’ve abolished all money and other forms of property, with the help of a new Sabbatical Officer for agrarian reform and collectivisation.”
In response to the same question, MacDonald spoke of his support for balanced books and financial discipline, before referring to his experience with CUCA.
“As a former CUCA Chairman, I made friends with a lot of people who’ve got cash to burn. I’m confident they can help me cut the deficit.”
When asked for his views on the elections controversy, Stephen Toope, the University’s Vice-Chancellor, said: “Seriously? You’re wasting my precious Canadian time with this? Why can’t you find something more important to do?”