To the membership,

On February 9th, a petition was submitted to the TCSA Elections Committee requesting a referendum question be included in the TCSA Spring Elections to determine if The Trent Arthur Newspaper's current levy fee should be changed from non-refundable to refundable. This petition was presented for notice at the March 12th Board of Directors Meeting.

A motion was put forward for a third party to review the petition. Despite this motion failing, the petition was submitted to Trent’s Office of Student Affairs to ensure all signatures were deemed valid prior to the Spring Election beginning on March 17th.

For a petition to be deemed valid, 10% of the TCSA membership must be in support; this would require the petition to have received 995 signatures. After submitting the signatures for third-party review, the petition received a total of 988 signatures, falling short by 7 signatures to reach the 10% threshold.

As the threshold has not been met, the referendum question has been removed from the Spring 2023 ballot, and the petition has been deemed invalid.

If you have any questions regarding the TCSA’s referendum process, please email boardresource@trentcentral.ca.

Wendy Walker

Chief Electoral Officer