2011 Student union campaign kickoff at Concordia University

Action slate animals shout rally slogan

Last night at 23h45 the chief electoral officers allowed student union election candidates to start their campaign by sticking posters on all the billboards at Concordia University.

Every years this is a show of student running around, painting their faces as warriors, and stepping on each other to the point of almost being violent. As I was taking pictures I saw a girl who was standing aside with her poster in her hands. "These guys really scare the shit out of me" she confessed as others were almost fighting to get to put their posters on the billboards. 

Slate Action, Your Concordia and Yes CJLO fight to cover the allocated billboards with posters

This campaigning method is often criticized as being undemocratic as it's up to the stronger to cover with posters the allocated billboards, leaving little room for others. This is specially true as some slates organize themselves as if they were waging a war. Third slates have almost no chance to be advertised for the elections.

Concordia University's student union politics is widely known to be plagued with corruption. A few years ago some CSU allegedly stole around half a million dollars! It easier to understand why there is so much corruption in student politics when knowing that the amount of the CSU's annual budget reaches between 1 and 2 million dollars!