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In a turn of events, Concordia’s Judicial Board has reversed the disqualification of Your Concordia from the CSU election. The team is now able to act as Concordia’s Student Union next year and is no longer banned from running for or holding office for two years, as prescribed in Chief Electoral Officer Oliver Cohen’s ruling. Action, however, was not so lucky. The board upheld their disqualification.

Both Action and Your Concordia appealed their disqualification Wednesday. Issues regarding postering and campaigning were discussed in both cases. Action was accused of campaigning during the polling period and Your Concordia was accused of fliering after the campaign period was over. For the most part, both teams used lack of evidence and unclear rules as their defence. Both teams also complained about lack of communication with Cohen, saying they were never informed of any of their violations during the action election. Cohen argued that both Khallil Haddad and Lex Gill, Presidential candidates, signed a form stating they knew the rules.

The two team’s election expenses became the focus of both hearings. In the end, neither team will have their election expenses reimbursed. There was some discrepancy over whether Action filed theirs in time. Cohen maintained he waited around all day and never heard from either team so he left his office around the time of the 5:00 deadline, but couldn’t be sure he was there until the last minute. Action President candidate Khalil Haddad said he was there before the deadline but Cohen wasn’t there. He says he slipped it under his office’s door, and that’s how it was found Monday morning. 

As for Your Concordia, Cohen cited multiple problems with their expenses. They did not submit them on the proper form, although Gill argued that it was not included in the election package. During his rebuttal, when Cohen reached the topic of Your Concordia’s election expenses, he began to get irate, even swearing at one point, saying candidates seem to think filing them is just a “mere formality” like, “Who cares about his regulations? We do what we want”. Cohen continued to accuse Your Concordia of filing false receipts, citing prices for printing that don’t match those of quotes he got, as well as incorrect taxes and accused the team of forging signatures because of apparently mismatching handwriting. Cohen also brought up the team’s “sophisticated” website and videos. Your Concordia did not make a claim for making these, as they said it was done for free. Cohen could not believe this and insisted they should have declared the costs. He called their expenses report the “worst [I’ve] ever seen in elections history”. 

Despite Cohen calling their behaviour “disgusting”, the elected Your Concordia candidates will take office as scheduled this summer. There will be a bi-election in the fall to fill the seats that Action candidates were elected to. These include all of the JMSB councillor seats, as well as a senate and ENCS seat. Action candidates will be allowed to run. It is possible that the current CSU will overturn the decision to disqualify Action at their next council meeting. A 4/5 majority vote is required. 

Although the hearings lasted well over eight hours, the proceedings run fairly smoothly. A petition asking the board to honour the results of the election was denied by the JB as they wanted to rule based on the facts, not the opinion of students. However, in a surprise twist, one of the board members, Yuri Kuczer, was forced to walk out after it was pointed out that he was no longer a student, since he did not register for any classes in the Spring semester. Members of the Judicial Board must be students.

In federal election news, the Liberal and NDP parties may need to consider merging the centre left, according to one Liberal senator. Sen. Larry Campbell told reporters in Vancouver Tuesday that this may be the only solution to beating conservative leader Stephen Harper.

Campbell said that when the Conservative party merged with the Canadian Alliance in 2003, they had little in common. However, he suggested that there is a lot of agreement in the major points of both Liberal and NDP parties.

While sen. Campbell's leader, Michael Ignatieff, calls the Liberal party the only party that can be a governing alternative to Harper,  recent polls show otherwise. A surge in NDP support shows the federal elections have turned into a three-way race. Without a merger, it's unsure if the Liberals can get the majority of the votes cast against Stephen Harper.

The new pay-your-own-way highway will be opened to traffic a month before an earlier target on May 20th.

It’s the highway 25 extension to highway 440, from Henri-Bourassa Boulevard East in the Rivieres-des-Prairies district of Montreal to the Duvernay district in Laval.

The public-private partnership of Concession A25 says the new road link will greatly improve the Quebec roads network and smooth the displacement of thousands of users.

A one-way trip across the bridge in a normal car will cost two dollars and forty cents. Passage will be free for pedestrians and cyclists.

Despite the long protests, Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh is still resistant to step down. This comes after accepting a plan where his resignation would keep him from being prosecuted. While other parliament parties agree with the plan, protesters want him to step down immediately.

But Saleh says protesters can’t simply take over, and power has to change hands constitutionally. He says this would involve ballot boxes, referendums, and international authorities to watch over the process. He calls the protests a coup and says their demands have been turned down because they just create chaos. He also claims Al-Qaeda has made its way into the protest camps.

With the plan Saleh accepted, the vice-president would have power a month after an agreement with other parties. Then a month later, presidential elections would take place. Protesters say they will step up their game until Saleh resigns.