All five referenda questions passed by significant margins tonight, with the most anticipated question regarding the Daily Publication Society fee renewal passing at an overwhelming 80 per cent affirmative vote.
"We expected to win-we didn't except it to be as big as it was," said DPS Board Member Jeremy Delman. "Before going into this, we were quite certain that we did have student support for both newspapers, but what this did show to us and the campus community was how much support there is out there."
According to Delman, a No vote on this question would have imperilled nearly half the funding for both the Daily and Le Délit, and prevented both papers from being distributed on campus.
"That was one of the problems with McGill forcing us to do this referenda," Delman said. "We shouldn't have to put an organization's existence on the line in order to make sure that students still support it."
The other two contentious questions involved student support for an online opt-out system for clubs and services, and SSMU support for clubs and services. Since McGill put opt-outable fees on Minerva last year, a coalition of affected student groups including CKUT, QPIRG and the Midnight Kitchen have been lobbying to make the system autonomous.
"We've been in negotiation with [McGill] since last July. In January, we had a meeting where all the groups had a representative. We laid out all the issues," said Yes committee Chairman Trevor Chow-Fraser. "Basically now, we're going to go back to the negotiating table, but we'll have the support of students."
The online opt-out system motion, which commits SSMU to lobby to end the current Minerva system, passed 65.6 per cent to 27.5 per cent. The clubs and services motion, which required SSMU to refrain from making decision that would endanger the existence of clubs and services, also passed 81.3 per cent to 11.5 per cent.
The two remaining motions concerning the Chief Electoral Officer name change and the required SSMU auditing firm passed with 72.2 per cent and 68.8 per cent support, respective.
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