The violation occurred on February 14, the day before the first disqualified vote.

“I can confirm that a member of Jon Silver’s campaign management team was running a voting booth in London Hall on the 14th,” Brianna Peniuk, chief returning co-ordinator for the USC, stated. “He was generally aware of an attempt to set up a booth in that area.” The campaign team member in question was Nicole Kopera, Silver’s campaign manger, whose presence violated Bylaw 2 of the USC, which governs elections.

Silver argued campaign members working at voting booths has, in the past, been accepted as a legitimate method of increasing voter turnout.

“It’s a tradition strategy for campaign teams,” he said. “We were just trying to get out the vote. This is something that’s been done every single year, time and time again.”

He added other presidential candidates had their own representatives staffing the booth.

“We weren’t the only team that was staffing that booth. Other campaign teams had members of their core team at that booth as well, at the same booth. So it’s unfortunate that we were the only ones that were penalized,” he said.

According to Peniuk, it was the fact that Kopera was a member of Silver’s core campaign team that was the problem. While there were members of other campaign teams also running the London Hall booth, none were integral members of their candidates’ campaign teams.

“We were unclear as to that being a problem. It was a miscommunication,” Silver said.

Silver stressed Kopera’s presence was not an attempt to influence voters to vote for any specific candidate.

“It’s a very serious offence to try to influence voters, and we would absolutely not do that,” he continued.

Silver also argued Bylaw 2 should be revised in the future, to prevent this type of misunderstanding. He also did not agree with Peniuk’s reasoning regarding Kopera’s status on his campaign.

“The fact that there were multiple members of different campaign teams show that this was not a partisan booth,” he said. “I think it’s an unfortunate decision. I think that maybe if they were going to penalize us, they might have to penalize the other team.”

—With files from Julian Uzielli

It’s February 28. Reading week is over, students are back on campus and scrambling to get back on track before St. Patty’s day. In any other year, I would most certainly not be writing a post about elections—but here we are. In case you’ve been living under a rock, the basics are that the USC vote website got hacked, the results were deemed invalid, and there is now going to be a re-vote—this week actually, with voting starting tonight at midnight and closing Thursday at 8 p.m.

Oh, and in the meantime the hacker has come forward and is likely going to be criminally charged, but that’s old news now.

Remember these guys? Me neither.

In fact, this whole election is pretty much old news now, and that’s a shame. After a record-setting voter turnout (over 10,000 votes cast), the revote is unlikely to yield more than a handful of votes, mostly from ardent supporters, USC insiders and, well, the Gazette staff. But I’m not sure I can really blame students for not voting a second time. It’s not that it takes a lot of effort to click a button on a website (how often do you like something on Facebook a day? It’s literally that easy to vote), but it does take a lot of effort to get informed, get excited and feel like your vote counts for something. When that all goes down the drain, and then you go drink your face off in Cancun for a week, it’s really hard to reignite the political fire.

Our four candidates have returned from a break and a blackout with significantly less fervour, but still encouraging votes. Claire tweeted “Remember the Bear. Remember to #voteclaire. But do you remember why? #voteusc.” A fair question, especially considering most students would have to answer “no, not really.” Jon has mostly been retweeting supporters, although he came out of the gates with a more chipper attitude than his initial reaction to the revote, tweeting “Long Jon Silver – ready to sail the 7 seas again! #allaboard #votejonsilver.”

Logan tweeted “Have your voice be heard again. Re-vote tonight at midnight#lovelogan,” and also retweeted support from followers.

Adam has been following a similar strategy, but accompanied it with a blog post he penned on his personal blog that urged voters to look at each candidates’ reaction to the hack as an indication of their character. I’ll leave it up to you to guess whom he was referring to with the line “I knew how the rest of my team would react to the news. No one was going to cry, no one was going to break down and no one was going to go on an angry tirade because, surprise, USC Presidential elections should not and do not define people as individuals.” Hmm…

So that’s where we are now. If you’re reading this blog, I’m hoping you have at least the slightest interest in this election and so I urge you to revote. Yes, it sucks that the site got hacked. Yes, it sucks that we’re still talking about this election almost two weeks after it was supposed to be over. But try to suck it up, log on and cast your vote one (hopefully) last time. Hey, at least no one robocalled you.

Keith Horwood, a Western alumni, has taken responsibility for the hack.

“I had the memory span of a goldfish, I was thinking about three seconds ahead in the future at any given moment,” he said.

It wasn’t until the changes he had made went public and people started mentioning it on Twitter that he realized the magnitude of his decision. The next day, the votes were deemed invalid and a re-vote was scheduled.

Horwood stressed that the hack didn’t require a lot of finesse or cracking into somebody’s account. He explained it’s a common system vulnerability that shows up in many database sites like the USC vote system, and is fairly easy to fix. All the changes were made using the webpage URL.

“That’s what happened. I’m not magic, I’m not a superhero, I just happened to recognize the vulnerability and knew what to do with it.”

After the hack, Western’s Community Campus Police Service and Information Technology Services started an investigation. Horwood—who conducted the hack while at a friend’s house—said he made the decision to turn himself in after police started to question his friends, who he said were unaware of his actions.

“I just didn’t want to put people through any more BS on my behalf and wait for them to come get me. They’re my friends and the people I’m close to—I didn’t want them to have to go through a bunch of grief,” he said.

First thing Friday morning, he turned himself in to campus police. They didn’t press charges immediately, and the sleep-deprived Horwood went to a friend’s house to catch up on some rest. Looking back, he said he doesn’t necessarily regret the hack.

“I personally am of the belief that you should live life without regrets. We make choices for a reason—maybe you’re not aware of the reason at the time. We’re not perfect human beings, none of us are. That’s my personal belief system.”

Still, he expressed sympathy for those who were affected and inconvenienced by the hack. Caught up in the moment, he said he wasn’t thinking about the damage he could cause, and noted he never recognized the amount of time, energy and money that goes in to the USC elections process. He said he hopes just as many people will turn out to vote in the re-vote.

“I ask that people show respect for the candidates because they were inconvenienced a lot. It would mean a lot to me if people went out and showed the same support.”

A self-employed small business entrepreneur and Western graduate, Horwood said he’s been teaching himself to code since he was 10 years old. He’s never taken a formal course in programming, learning everything he knows on his own. Police have yet to contact Horwood again, but have stated they intend to press criminal charges, which will likely mean a trial and maybe even jail time for Horwood.

But for now, Horwood is humbly awaiting his fate and hopes some good might come of his hack.

“I hope positive change comes from this. It seems like it’s going to. It seems like it already has for the most part,” he said.

“I hope nobody has to be in the position that I was in [...] I don’t think anything like that will happen again.”

>>More on this story

USC Vote Hacker to be Charged Criminally 

10, 000 in the Trash

Inside the hack that killed the vote

Hack the Vote?

London police intend to charge Keith Horwood, the Western alumni who claimed he was behind the hack that shut down the University Students’ Council vote site earlier this week, with a criminal offence, according to campus police.

“I don’t know how many charges will be laid,” Elgin Austen, director of campus police, said. “London police are also involved in this occurrence, so they’ll be the ones who will decide what the charges are. We conducted the investigation, but because it took place on-campus [and] off-campus, London Police are involved.”

Austen said the investigation has been ongoing and while they had a handful of suspects, police had honed in on Horwood before he released his confession video this morning and had asked him to turn himself in, or else he would have been arrested.

“His view is that he was trying to be helpful. Consequently, we do not agree with his view that he was trying to be helpful, he actually caused quite a lot of damage.”

He noted Horwood could still be arrested and the case will likely go to trial.

Earlier today, the Gazette spoke with Horwood in an exclusive interview.

“I talked to [campus police] at at 7 a.m. this morning,” he said, adding he hadn’t slept in 24 hours due to the stress of coming forward.

“I’m at a friend’s house, I had a beer to celebrate that I wasn’t immediately charged,” he said, with a nervous laugh.

“I’m being an insomniac right now, I suppose.”

Horwood has agreed to speak with the Gazette again this afternoon, “so I can get a few hours of nap time in.”

Horwood, a graduate of Western with a double major in biology and biochemistry, tweeted a video to USC president Andrew Forgione earlier this morning, revealing himself as the hacker and apologizing.

“I do respect his courage to come forward into the public eye,” Forgione said, but added students may not be as forgiving.

“From the feedback I have received on Twitter, I doubt students will be on his side. He still cost the USC thousands of dollars, and made 68 candidates have to think about campaigning over their reading week instead of relax, even with the blackout period in effect. ”

USC presidential candidate Adam Fearnall responded to the video saying he didn’t believe Horwood thought of all the people who would be affected by the hack, but that he did appreciate that he came forward.

“In the end, it doesn’t really matter who the hacker is, all that matters is that the democratic process has another chance to succeed and all of the candidates are ready to give it another shot,” Fearnall said.

Shortly before 8 p.m. on February 14, unauthorized changes began appearing on the USC vote website, including the text “a vote for Bieber is a vote for world peace,” and a poll on Justin Bieber’s haircut.

In the video, Horwood claimed he was not attempting to be malicious but saw a flaw in the system and wanted to see if he could do anything with it. By the time he was in, the damage was done. Clad in a hoodie and framed by a line of empty liquor bottles, he made an apology to all the candidates for his actions and promised to turn himself in.

More to come as this story develops.

In the email, the writer pushed for a revote, saying that while “attempts were made to undo any permanent changes [...] it cannot be known whether or not they were successful.”

According to Geoff Pimlatt, senior manager of media and communications for the University Students’ Council, it appeared no votes were actually affected, but nonetheless, the votes were deemed compromised.

As of Wednesday afternoon, ITS was working through a forensic audit of their web server and database logs, Pimlatt said.

While the writer of the email insisted the hack was not malicious in its intent, such acts can be persecuted under the Canadian Criminal Code. Additionally, there are several policies in place by the university regarding online vandalism and hacking of university servers.

The email’s author reasoned the motivation for the hack was to shed light on the holes within the website.

“ITS needs to redo their election system before anything proceeds, the security flaw is systemic and they need to be aware of that,” the email read. “Software should always be tested thoroughly before being launched to a large public audience.”

No matter how noble the intentions of the hacker may have been, a police investigation is now underway.

“Right now, part of the investigation is just to collect the information and ensure that we understand the circumstances,” Elgin Austen, director of the Campus Community Police Service, stated.

Austen declined to comment on the headway being made, but USC president Andrew Forgione stated that during a meeting Wednesday afternoon, the ITS director was pulled out of the room due to progress in determining who was responsible for the hack.

“They had found out a couple areas where this individual may be with the IP address,” Forgione revealed.

According to Forgione, if the hacker belonged to a campaign team, the candidate would be eliminated from the race.

Additionally, Eliot Hong, communications officer for the USC, noted if the hacker was a student, they “are going to be held to the [university] code of conduct. Something of this nature, and of this magnitude, could very well lead to expulsion.”

The author of the email concluded by stating, “People should be aware that this isn’t a ‘minor’ flaw and a fair election is deserved.”

As of 5 p.m. today, Western University and the University Students’ Council has announced that the 2012 USC elections have been postponed.

After voteusc.ca fell victim to a “hack” last night, the results have been deemed invalid. Elections are tentatively to be held the week of February 27, the week after Western’s reading week.

The Gazette will update as more information becomes available.

Update: Read our more in-depth story on the uscvote.ca hack here.

Candidates are required to obtain permission from the respective faculty council presidents before campaigning in faculty buildings. The violation occurred when Silver reportedly campaigned in the faculty of music’s Talbot College without permission from the music faculty council president.

“We actually contacted the faculty president on the first day of elections and never heard back from her,” Silver said.

He maintains that very little campaigning was done, and that no campaign materials were issued at the event. “It was a very fun, relaxed setting. It wasn’t like we were handing out bag tags or anything.”

While Silver points out that he attempted every alternative to obtain permission to gain access to the building, he admits that the room was booked under the wrong pretense. A student at the faculty of music booked the room for a chamber rehearsal.

Cindy Zhang, president of Music Students’ Council, said that Silver requested to set up a booth in the music building, not hold a jam session in Talbot. Upon seeing the event taking place, Zhang questioned the faculty front desk, to which they replied a student had booked the room for a chamber rehearsal.

“I went back downstairs and quietly asked one of Jon’s campaign volunteers if we could talk. The individual grew curt and defensive. The individual did not shut the event down. The individual proceeded to imply my actions as ‘snake-y’,” Zhang said in an e-mail.

Silver says that he will appeal the decision. The appeal must go to the elections committee, who may require follow up information from the parties involved.

“We’re going to appeal on the grounds that there was a miscommunication” Silver said. “I think that our claims are very reasonable, we’re being very clear, very transparent about everything were doing.”

“The whole point of having bylaws is to ensure that the processes are fair so that every candidate has the same chance, so that students can make an informed decision,” Silver continued. “Were challenging this because we don’t think this reflects that ultimate goal.”

It’s rare for VPs or current USC members to speak out against candidates platforms, so this is a change and a treat. Many managers are reluctant to mention their future bosses’ ideas aren’t feasible in the future of the USC, and the VPs typically want to look impartial. This is a unique look into what the realities of the candidates’ platforms actually will mean for the organization. It also gives students who aren’t involved with the day-to-day life of the organisation the oppourtunity to look inside.

While not every point is covered, it does give a fairly accurate view of what the candidates could accomplish in the next year. While I would recommend reading the whole document, below is a breakdown of what what said about each candidate, in regards to the favourite campus hang outs, the Spoke and Wave.

Valadao notes candidates really shouldn’t touch the Spoke and Wave.  Adam Fearnall’s “sushi Wednesdays” came under fire as being too costly, because it would require purchasing many perishable ingredients, and even having the sushi outsourced has a high per-unit price. His “Home cooked menu” also takes some heat for the extra training and printing costs associated with the monthly change to the menu. As an example, printing costs about $1000 for each time the menu changes.

Logan Ross’ student discounts at the Wave “would be disastrous for the Spoke or the Wave” if discounts were offered every week to every student. Valadao notes the extending the current Monday night 15 per cent club discount to everyone would cost $900 a week.

Jon Silver’s “starving student burger” could be potentially feasible, but if it is being offered at cost, and the burger is popular, the increased labour costs could harm the operations.

The only candidate whose Spoke platform doesn’t  take some heat is Claire McArthur’s.  Her jukebox in the Spoke was actually researched by the current executive to be the jukebox in the Lounge. The only problem, however, is her changes to the midnight breakfast are changes to a platform point which was “extremely expensive to execute.” The project could cost $10,000 in the future, with the cost of food and staff.

Shortly before 8 p.m. on February 14, unauthorized changes began appearing on the website, having to do with simply “changing the names of stuff” according to Andrew Forgione, University Students’ Council president.

“We only have four people who had access to the server, and one of those people’s accounts was compromised, so some individual was fooling around with the server,” Forgione explained.

Eliot Hong, communications officer for the USC, noted that as of Tuesday evening, the USC has restricted access to the site to all users but Geoff Pimlat, senior manager media and communications for the USC, effectively cutting off the three other individuals who had access until the investigation is over.

Currently, it appears that polls and voting were not affected by the hack, but Forgione declared ITS would be investigating the situation regardless.

“On our end, we have a tally of all the ballots. We also have a tally of what ballots were added, modified or deleted. Based on what we’ve seen, it looks like nothing has been compromised,” Hong said.

The duration of the “hack” lasted for roughly 10 minutes before ITS began acting upon it.

“Every time Geoff took it down, someone was still compromising it—[repainting] the name or [redirecting] the [“vote here”] link. They still weren’t actually getting into the system, just changing the aesthetics of the site and the visual layout,” Forgione said.

According to Hong, one of the changes observed was a reference to Justin Bieber.

“Students are still able to vote, you might just see some additional comments after someone’s name,” Hong said. “But overall, there has been no compromise to the actual elections process.”

Read updates from the USC’s site here.

There’s no better way to start your day than to see the University Students’ Council presidential candidates compete in silly, hilarious tasks. We had a lot of fun at the Gazette office as we put the contestants through seven grueling challenges. Let’s recap how they did.

The quiz

Winner: Jon Silver

The quiz was a hard one, which seems obvious in retrospect considering Silver won with only 58.7 per cent. Some of the surprises included Adam and Jon both getting the number of student senators wrong. My personal favourite part was that all but one candidate didn’t know the year the Gazette was founded, although in fairness it only appears on the front page of every issue.

Twitter contest

Winner: Adam Fearnall

Our social media throw-in, where the candidates had to tweet that they really wanted a coffee, and whoever was brought one first, won. A few fun facts here—Adam actually had two teas brought, proving that he has the loyalest band of Twitter followers. Logan was brought one after Adam, which would signify that she has the busiest followers. Jon’s followers apparently would do anything for him short of providing hot beverages, which is weird because I’ve seen his campaign manager serving him lunch on occasion. Claire chose to abstain from the contest, not wanting to impose on any of her followers. A bold strategy, but it really hurt her chances in this one.

Twister

Winner: All (so nobody)

I normally try to fill these blogs with criticism, but all the contestants impressed me here. The candidates really showed their flexibility, resourcefulness, interpersonal skills and perseverance on this challenge. Even when we told them to put one leg in the air, everybody stayed up, although Adam nearly went down after Claire “accidentally” kicked him in the chest. When it became clear that we were pushing our time limit, we called the contest a tie. In retrospect, we could have made it a more interesting contest by tying the contestants’ shoelaces together, or throwing things at them.

Flip cup (with water, of course…)

Winner: Jon Silver

A confidential source told me after the challenge the Jon Silver was taught his flip cup skills by the Social Science soph team. I suppose it would explain the talent I saw on display—pacing, smooth hands, graceful flips. I was impressed, although I’m fairly sure I could have taken him. Adam was fairly close to winning, but a last minute stumble meant Jon got his flip off first. Claire and Logan performed admirably, but were each only on their second cups by the time the contest ended.

Lettuce eating

Winner: Claire McArthur

No surprises here. Claire is legendary for her lettuce ingestion skills, so she had a natural advantage in this one. Whereas all the other candidates were on the verge of vomiting, Claire seemed to be enjoying herself. Adam looked lost, like he didn’t even know his way around a head of lettuce. Jon seemed distracted, probably figuring out how to get past this challenge and destroy the rest of the skills competition. Kudos to Logan for coming in a solid second place on this one—I wouldn’t have predicted she would do that well. I suppose she once again proved she’s more than “Little Logan.”

Super Smash Bros. (N64)

Winner: Jon Silver

The original plan was Mario Kart, but playing that game leads to levels of swearing that would be inappropriate to hear from presidential candidates. So we decided to go with the other game that defined the childhood of every ’90s kid. Jon’s Captain Falcon triumphed over Logan’s DK, Adam’s Yoshi and Claire’s Kirby. Adam seemed to be doing well to start, until he was eliminated first. After that, Jon seemed to be in total control, although that was to be expected when we had to explain the controls to Logan and Claire during the game.

Book search race

Winner: Jon Silver

We finished off with a good, old-fashioned rat race. The rules were fairly straightforward—each candidate got the title of a certain book in Weldon library, all of which were located on the fifth floor. The first one to find it, check it out and bring it to the Gazette office won. Although it was nice to see the candidates motivated to run hard, I had to follow Jon Silver, who “didn’t trust the elevators, only his legs” to get him up to the fifth floor first. I didn’t take this job to run up stairs. Despite my breathlessness, I managed to keep up with Lightning Legs and we arrived first at the Gazette office. Claire arrived soon after—I was told she and Adam were in a dead heat until Adam took a wrong turn. Happens to the best of us, I suppose, although I wonder why he didn’t simply follow her. Logan was unable to get her book, possibly because I chose one from the top shelf of the stack.

Overall Winner: Jon Silver

Congratulations to Jon for taking four of the seven contests. The other three performed well, and I’m still laughing every time I think of them playing Twister.

Each year, the Gazette news team looks carefully at the merits and pitfalls of each candidate’s platform. Here’s what we had to say about this year’s platforms points, organized into our favourite categories: the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good

Fearnall’s platform includes several good ideas that would provide real benefits to Western students. His “USC 311” initiative deserves particular recognition. Modelled after Toronto 311, it would streamline Western’s convoluted and poorly organized online services into “one-stop shop” with information and directions to all of the different web pages students need to pay tuition, register for courses, access USC services and so on.

Aditionally, Fearnall has proposed providing shuttle service between Western and London’s transit hubs, including the airport. It’s nearly impossible to reach the airport without taking a cab, a ride that can cost upwards of $50 each way. Though its feasibility is questionable, this is a service that would be a huge help to aviation students and students who have to fly home for the holidays.

The Bad

Fearnall has a few platform points that, while nice ideas, are impractical. Allowing the USC to provide academic research grants to undergraduate students is one example—undergrads lack the experience and know-how necessary to conduct useful research. After all, conducting real research is half the point of postgraduate study, and any undergrad dedicated enough to request a grant is likely to conduct better research when they are older anyway. Is this really the best way to spend student fees?

Fearnall also has a couple of platform points that would alter the Wave’s menu. After years of losing money, the USC-run restaurant is finally turning a profit. Why put that in jeopardy by making changes to the menu? The USC may own and operate the Wave, but its management should be left to the managers.

The Ugly

Some of Fearnall’s platform points seem like they would cost a lot of time and money, with negligible benefit to students. The best example is the “Mustang News Hub,” a proposed space in the UCC with TVs “tuned to the strongest news channels,” free newspapers and free coffee. Not only would this compete with two USC operations—the Gazette and the Spoke—it’s entirely unnecessary when almost all students have 24/7 access to the Internet, where they can get any news they want, any time of day, for free.

Fearnall also proposes an interest credit, where 1.0 credit of students’ degrees would be marked on a pass/fail basis. The logic is that students would be able to take a course they’re interested in outside their area of expertise without having to worry about getting a good grade. However, as other candidates have pointed out, this would require extensive updates to the thousands of module options available to Western students. And it seems it would be easy for students to exploit this system in order to fulfill breadth requirements, listing their less interesting breadth credits as “interest” credits so they can coast through the course without applying themselves.

The Good

McArthur gets credit for coming up with a strong brand for herself—no doubt aided by Premier Life. The bear is catchy, if not a little high school, and her ideas for the USC all seem fairly practical and feasible. McArthur’s platform builds off of a lot of things already in place—such as late-night shuttles and 24/7 library hours—or in the works. She also proposes some small changes that would make campus life just that much better, such as Dyson Airblades in the Spoke and an opt-in bus pass for part-time students. McArthur’s platform seems to be in touch with what students really want, and details a lot of very specific changes she would make. Whether or not everything she has proposed is doable will remain to be seen.

The Bad

A fall reading break and a crosswalk between residences on Western Road are nice ideas, but as pointed out at the presidential debate and Gazette media forum, these things aren’t really in McArthur’s control. Voting for McArthur because you’re desperate for a few days off in October isn’t the wisest idea—the most she can do is lobby administration, who have already been lobbied on the subject by past governments. Students have also called for increased student parking, which McArthur promises to lobby for. Again, the term lobby is mostly an empty word—there’s not much she can do if the administration decides they don’t have any more room for student parking. But McArthur’s ability to fulfill her campaign promises doesn’t just rest on Western, it also depends on approval by the City of London and the London Transit Commission. Live Arrival Time boards across campus and a student crosswalk are subject to the whims of council, giving McArthur little power to implement these changes.

The Ugly

A lot of McArthur’s points seem to be contradictory—she’s adamant about having healthy midnight breakfasts in the Spoke, but then proposes having bulk food study snacks full of confectionary goodies. Her proposed Spoke and Tim Hortons line camera also seems a little too “first-world problem.” Implementing a surveillance system to see when the line is short only means that by the time you get there, everyone else will be in line too. McArthur also wants to create “anti-office hours,” where she hangs out in the Wave or Spoke to talk to students, instead of hidden away on the third floor of UCC. What she doesn’t seem to get is that the reasons students aren’t talking to the USC president isn’t because he or she is hidden away—they just don’t really care all that much.

The Good

Ross is certainly the most visible candidate in the race, particularly when you’re standing on Concrete Beach or the Alumni Hall roundabout. Standing in front of the UCC, we spotted three Logan signs without having to turn our heads. She also gets points for addressing environmental issues in her platform, from online textbooks to centralized recycling, to a point where her opponents’ green initiatives look token by comparison. Additionally, her idea for USC webpages to help students with academic matters has a good ring to it, as it would create a central hub for student help and allow the USC to reach out more. The path behind Talbot is also a smart, simple idea that would be a visible improvement to student life.

The Bad

We’ve been impressed with how Ross has handled the many attacks on experience in student governance. Unfortunately, while she has assured voters that her lack of experience will help her better connect with the average student, she has in no way alleviated the anxiety we would feel should she be placed at the negotiating table with the administration. The USC president’s primary role is to be the chief advocate for students, and in a tense situation, not having experience dealing with administration members who have been there for years is a real disadvantage. Her decision promise to lobby for increased eligibility for the Ontario Tuition Grant also speaks to a bit of a misunderstanding of how the executive works at the USC. OTG eligibility is already a priority for the Ontario Students’ Undergraduate Alliance, and this will be better left to next year’s vice-president university affairs—the USC’s main representative at OUSA.

The Ugly

Ross piqued some interest among the Gazette editorial board when she announced her platform would be pliable throughout the campaign. While the intention is no doubt to prioritize student input, this move comes across as somewhat indecisive, especially in light of her lack of USC experience. Any candidate can listen to student input, as all the other candidates have promised, but a platform should set a runner apart from the others. Presidents have to find the right balance between leadership and listening to input, and the ever-updated platform brings to mind the political slur, “flip-flopper.”

Another questionable aspect is Ross’s idea for upper-year Frost Week events. While it’s nice to see some of the soph inclusiveness spirit, the reality is that most upper students would probably have no interest in attending USC-sponsored events when they can just go to bars on their own time.

The Good

Several of Silver’s platform points are easy to achieve, require small budgets and are well within the purview of the USC. It’s clear he’s looking to solve small students problems, while still having some lofty goals.

The first of these is the creation of a transit hub webpage. While the USC may not have the budget for another website overhaul, adding a page linking students to the multitude of shuttles going through campus should be a snap. Also in regards to transit, Silver promises to get the London Transit Commission’s live arrival times on screens in the UCC and Weldon. The USC controls the content on the TVs in the UCC and the LTC has already modernized several of its sites to include live arrivals.

Some of Silver’s other attainable goals include Ally gear for sophs, art in the UCC and even his Spoke Brew. Soph uniforms can easily be adjusted, and the new lounge—with its empty walls—is clearly begging for student art. As long as Spoke Brew sells, it should be around for a long time as well.

The Bad

Silver really wants you to go to the Spoke and Wave. Really badly. So badly, in fact, he might just put their bottom line in jeopardy. Silver presents many ideas for improvements to the operations, however, these operations only became regularly profitable at the end of last year.

Silver proposes a “Starving Student Burger” sold at cost, coupons, and food and alcoholic drink combos. Currently, the Spoke does sell the CLT at cost, but other items have a profit margin. Lowering pricing of any of these items for a long period of time would start to eat into the bottom lines of these operations, and eventually the bottom line of the USC. These operations are necessary because, to some degree, they fund the services the USC offers.

Even buying kegs of Spoke brew could have an impact on these operations if they don’t sell, so meddling in the operations’ affairs is typically a bad idea.

The Ugly

Silver has some big goals in his platform that could turn into big failures.

The changes he wants to make to the current peer support line will likely be costly and unsustainable. He wants to see a 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. helpline run by trained volunteers and supervised by mental health professionals. Professionals come with big salaries and while Silver has proposed applying for grants and appealing to the university for help, neither of these are long-term alternatives. Grant funding is not guaranteed and the university is already dealing with a long waitlist for these services, so they are unlikely to lend any staff.

Silver also explained his desire to see more academic counselling offered. He has noted the lobbying efforts required, and explained part of the work lies in educating students on what academic counselling actually does—however, at the end of the day it’s up to the university what counseling they want to provide students, and how much of it is provided.

Anyone who thought the previous presidential debates too tame likely had a great time Thursday night during the annual Huron debate. Moderated by our always amicable vice-president university affairs, Pat Searle, the event was definitely the most passionate of the three major debates.

While the Media Forum was arguably a breakout success for Logan Ross, the Huron debate showed how important home field advantage can be. Fearnall, previously the president of the Huron University College Students’ Council, was in his element and it showed. He seemed the most at ease speaking at the front of the crowded room, and deftly handled questions regarding all things affiliate. When asked about the affiliates’ role at Western, he presented himself as “the HBK candidate” when he promised that if elected, he would take the affiliates into account before he made any decision as president. He also brought up the hot topic of affiliate accessibility to USC services, the only of the four candidates to do so.

The playing field was more even when it came to other topics that weren’t as squarely in Fearnall’s wheelhouse. Ross shone when it came to platform feasibility, and definitely came off as the candidate most sure of the feasibility of her ideas, particularly her path behind Talbot. She seemed to really be trying to live up to her promise to be a student, not a student politician—the least rhetoric of the four candidates came from the one in turquoise. She also handled herself well when her experience was brought up for roughly the thousandth time, characterizing her lack of USC experience as a strength allowing her to better connect with students, again for the thousandth time. I’d say it’s time we put this dance to rest, because it doesn’t seem to be getting her competition anywhere. On the other hand, when she listed off being in charge of student events at her high school as part of her relevant experience it made her look like she was grasping at straws—let’s stick to post-secondary achievements, shall we?

Surprisingly, it was Jon Silver who had the most to answer for when it came to questions of experience. McArthur, backed up by Fearnall and Ross, called Silver out for not effectively representing students during his two year tenure as a Board of Governors representative. To his credit, Silver defended himself well, despite being interrupted on numerous occasions by the other candidates, usually McArthur. The most baffling point was when Silver was castigated for missing the last BoG meeting. When Silver explained he couldn’t attend because he had to go to class, Fearnall and Ross quickly quieted down, though McArthur raged until she was cut off by Searle. A fairly obvious blunder by McArthur, especially considering she is trying to come off as the “average student” candidate—what do students do if not go to class?

This was only one of McArthur’s many gaffes throughout the debate. While she did reasonably well at the Media Forum, McArthur did not bring her A-game to Thursday’s debate. She talked about herself well enough, but constantly interrupted the other candidates with snarky and occasionally outright rude remarks, such as when she interrupted Silver to characterize one of Fearnall’s points as “cute”—but not it a good way. She even made a number of quite basic mistakes. When questioned as to whether the USC needs Premier Life to put on a successful concert, McArthur claimed the USC needed to learn from Premier Life before they could put on their big boy shoes and organize one independently. Point of information—didn’t the USC’s independent Arkells concert make over $2,000 while Premier Life’s Kardinal Offishall lost over $3,000? Her biggest blunder came when she told Fearnall she wouldn’t trust an a candidate with an affiliate background to make decisions in the best interest of main campus, which sent the room into quite a titter.

By the end of the debate, the candidates had mostly devolved into rhetoric and interruptions, despite Searle’s noble attempts to keep things civil. Unfortunately, this happened during the open forum section of the debate, when Searle asked questions sent in by students. This dragged down the overall quality of the answers and caused some eye rolling amongst the audience. Next time, the candidates, especially McArthur, should remember the old Churchill adage “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”