Recapping what happened at the most recent meetings of the year.
Your board of directors (BOD) represent you, the students of George Brown College (GBC).
Oct. 6, 2025 – Emergency meeting of the Board
With the upcoming Annual General Meeting (AGM) – taking place Oct. 29, at the St. James Campus – and a deadline of Oct. 7 to finalize the agenda for the meeting, an emergency meeting of the board was held on Oct. 6.
The purpose of this meeting: to vote on whether to add an item to the upcoming AGM agenda. The item in question: bylaw changes, which if approved by the membership, would disqualify those who have been found guilty of serious misconduct from running for a position on the BOD.
At the meeting, Ben Millard, legal counsel for the SA, spoke about the appendix item and gave a breakdown of why this was an important item to consider.
“The idea of this provision is that if someone has engaged in serious misconduct, so think about, stealing from the Student Association, threats or violence in the workplace, sexual harassment of staff or other board members, election fraud, really serious misconduct, things of that nature,” said Millard. “People who’ve been found guilty of that type of misconduct should not be eligible to run for leadership positions on the board. My advice to you as legal counsel is that this is a basic requirement of good governance. It’s something that most organizations have.”
Having worked on the provision in question for some time, Millard noted that the item was brought before the executive committee as well as the policies and procedures committee, with both groups discussing and making recommendations before bringing it to the larger group.
In addition to ensuring that those found guilty of misconduct can not run for office, other protections such as not allowing those disqualified from a previous election to run, are also contained within.
After Millard finished sharing details about the item in question, Ajani Miller, director of operations, spoke up in favour of the motion while noting the importance of having strong bylaws
“As I’ve said before, this bylaw change is the gate. The gate is flawed, and we’ve seen that the gate has been flawed. Ben exposes all of things that could happen. We don’t want anyone to run again, all of those things I’m sure everyone can agree on, that matter,” said Miller.
Toby Lew, director of education & equity notes that he will be promoting this at the AGM as he sees it as necessary.
“I will definitely be motivating on this matter at the AGM…because I recognize it as something essential,” said Lew. “I’ll be working my best with the chairperson and the staff to really find the best way forward to show students what that kind of process would look like And what that what it really means when we’re presenting this by law change to them, and what it really affects.”
This ended discussion and asked each member during roll call to vote on the matter.
The motion to add this to the AGM agenda passed by a vote of six in favour four against, and one abstention.
The four members who voted against this measure, which would add protections to the bylaws, includes:
- Nikita Yadav, director of communications & internal
- NavinKumar Meena, arts, design & IT representative
- Jeetu Patel, construction & engineering technologies representative
- Alitzel Martinez Hortelano, hospitality & culinary arts representative
Sept. 15, 2025
Twice a year the Student Association (SA) runs elections for students to vote in those they wish to represent them and the next class. This is a standard process with very stringent bylaws that must be followed. For years there was never an issue, with members of the board voting on election dates and ensuring a timely democratic process was continuously carried out.
Last year marked the first deviation from a smooth process, with the board refusing to approve the election dates. This forced then CRO, Charles Wilson, to use his extraordinary powers under Section 10(a) (b) of bylaw 12 to order the election take place.
At the Sept. 15 meeting, the BOD meeting ended with a majority abstaining from a vote on the upcoming elections.
During the course of discussion, there was disagreement among the members regarding the proposed election dates and overall process. Others like Yadav were upset at not being included in the discussions of the elections committee, believing that members should be privy to discussions.
This misplaced ire is not the case, as the elections committee is closed and most discussions are to be kept within the confines of those who sit on the committee.
“Members of the elections committee are only free to discuss matters pertaining to the public sessions of the committee and public proceedings of the Board of Directors. They are not empowered to disclose matters which comes before them as a member of the committee, since due to the nature of the committee it is private. There is a necessity of the elections committee to function in private, especially when dealing with personal matters hearing appeals,” said Wilson speaking on the matter of disclosure in 2024.
Other members like Patel suggested that having one election a year – the spring election – would help save costs, while Muhaddesa Atlas, health sciences representative, said that term limits were too short, citing an incorrect six month term that only pertains to the currently sitting director of communications and director of operations.
Meanwhile Lew, who championed this item to pass at the meeting, was visibly upset with his fellow members.
“I think what folks are struggling with is that they do not necessarily always think ahead, and that has caused a lot of breakdown in terms of communication and understanding. The election committee, we work with the understanding that student numbers are dropping. There is a huge change with how our academic divisions are being run. You know, there are a lot of internal changes with the college. How do we deal with that, and how do we accommodate for that when it comes to our student body? So, there are a lot of moving parts, and I think when we try to communicate that to individuals and board members who are so focused and so narrow vision on one particular thing, it’s going to be hard, and it was hard, and I think that was the reason for my frustration,” Lew said.
While four members did vote in favour the item did not pass, as the matter was referred to Ansar Ali, newly appointed CRO. Rosalyn Miller, GM, also noted that Gervan Fearon, GBC president, would be notified of this development.
Despite the roadblock thrown up by some members of the BOD, the elections are set to kick off on Nov. 10.
