All over the country, there’s no comparison for the Langara Students’ Union

News of the Langara Students’ Union’s changes to their bylaws has now been picked up by various North American media outlets.

It follows a pattern of behaviour by the LSU, that the Voice has relentlessly documented, that should make students stand up and take notice.

The problem is that student governments at smaller post-secondary institutions exist in the perfect environment to have complete freedom. They have money with no oversight. If the youth vote and general voter apathy is waning at the federal and provincial levels, imagine their level of connection with student government, especially at an institution most use as a short-term jumping point to a higher institution.

Over at the University of Western Ontario, The Western Gazette is currently trying to prevent their University Students’ Council from taking over their offices and turning them into a multi-faith prayer centre. This is the same body that wanted to sit in on their editorial meetings and once was caught throwing large quantities of the paper into the recycling bin after The Gazette had the gall to give the USC a B- in a report card style review.

WATCH: In 2006 the Douglas College Student Union was embroiled in a corruption scandal 

Locally, Kwantlen University College was famously embroiled in a high-level scandal just a few years ago, involving a president who referred to himself as Diddy Birdman. Meanwhile, the University of Victoria Students’ Society last year went through a messy divorce with the Canadian Federation of Students. This is after their strange battle with those who wanted to implement officially recognized fraternities and sororities on campus.

Yet the LSU is a different beast because it’s hard to pinpoint what exactly they’re up to. The need to bar students and reporters from simple board meetings is an extreme action a governing body usually wouldn’t take unless something needed to be hidden. Problem is, it’s been impossible to peer through the smoke and mirrors.

Positions are created and shuffled, nominees are barred from election, and sometimes people disappear in a huff. Adam Giesbrecht, queer liason, is now seemingly gone. His office is empty and an LSU secretary informed a reporter that Giesbrecht had resigned and the union might not replace him.

It begs the question: what are they doing behind closed doors that they have to keep secret from everyone else?