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Of the six student associations and organizations who held a General Assembly last week to vote on a five day extendable strike against the Quebec government’s proposed tuition hikes, the Political Science Student Association has had the most confusion regarding a strike mandate. 

At this point, the PSSA will technically be on strike, but its executive along with the CSU recommend that students go to their classes until another GA takes place. 

At Thursday's vote, 59 members of the PSSA voted in favour of a strike with 14 opposed and one abstention. Immediately following the meeting, complaints and contestations were made towards the PSSA executive demanding that the vote be annulled since it represented only a small fraction of the 1600 students in the department. The Arts and Science Federation of Associations stipulates that each member association have a quorum of 2.5% or 15 people to enforce binding decisions in a GA. The PSSA achieved quorum with 74 students in attendance.

Early Monday morning, Concordia Student Union President Lex Gill, who is at the forefront of the pro-strike movement at Concordia, proposed on the PSSA Facebook group that the strike be delayed until a GA is held to discuss a strike. “I think it is inappropriate to ask people not to go to class with this amount of confusion,” said Gill. “I support the strike but I think we need to have an information meeting that all political science students receive notice by email for before going forward.”

On Tuesday morning, PSSA President Pier-Luc Therrien sent an email to its members announcing the cancellation of the strike until further notice.

At approximately 2:00pm, PSSA VP Internal Eric Moses Gashirabake denounced Therrien’s email. He said, “The PSSA Executive Team has no power to unilaterally void that result.” Gashirabake also suggested that Political Science students honour the vote and go on strike tomorrow as planned.

Shortly after Gashirabake denounced Therrien's announcement, political science student and pro-strike activist Nadim Kobeissi created a petition online to impeach the PSSA president for “illegally” cancelling the strike. The petition also states that Therrien has a conflict of interest because he does not support the strikes.

By about 9:00pm, Therrien retracted his statement. He said that he was mistaken to believe that he had the power to cancel a binding GA motion.

A meeting has been organized for 8:00am Wednesday in the LB Atrium to discuss how to proceed. Students are invited to attend. 

In other strike news, Tuesday saw the Graduate Students Association, Urban Planning Association, and Sociology and Anthropology Student Union all vote to join the strike as well.

Photo by Joel Balsam on Thursday Mach 1, 2012 at PSSA GA. 

People with reduced mobility will finally be able to use terrasses in the Plateau.

According to CTV, the borough passes a bylaw requiring terrasses to be wheelchair accessible.

The new law comes after a complaint made to the Human Rights Commission in 2009.

People with disabilities and visual impairment were upset that they could not get around Mont Royal Ave. easily.

The borough previously authorized elevated terrasses without access ramps after saying that accessible terrasses were technically impossible.

Flickr photo: 35mmMonkey

Canada has closed its embassy in Syria amid security concerns.

According to the Montreal Gazette, all of the diplomats have already left the embassy located in Damascus.

Despite the closure, the Foreign Affairs Department stated that 1500 Canadians who registered with the embassy are still in the country, with many more unregistered.

The move follows similar action taken by the United States, Britain and France.

Yet many in the Syrian community in Canada are upset that the government has not removed the Syrian ambassador to Canada and close the embassy in Ottawa.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird stated that Canada will continue to place pressure on Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to end the violence that has left over 7500 dead.

Baird stated that Canada have widened its sanctions against Syria, including sanctions on the Syrian central bank and the assets of seven government ministers.

Flickr photo: SamueleGhilardi

Rush Limbaugh’s radio show lost nine sponsors over his name-calling of a woman lobbying for greater access to birth control.

According to the BBC Limbaugh called law student Sandra Fluke on-air a slut and a prostitute for testifying before Democrats that employers offering health insurance should cover contraception.

Since companies including AOL have pulled their advertisements from Limbaugh’s right-wing radio show that reaches fifteen million viewers a week.

Limbaugh apologized for his choice of words telling his viewers he fell sway to leftist tactics.  Fluke has since rejected that apology with advertisers following suit.