Blair Shumlich wants to see his position removed from future University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union executives.

The current vice president external affairs proposed his position’s removal at the Feb. 3 meeting of students’ council and his suggestion is being taken seriously by all members of the executive. A special general meeting will be held Mar. 3 at 6pm in Arts 143 for undergraduate students to vote on whether or not to keep the position.

Shumlich argues that his position is a waste of money. *see amendment below

“What I do is important, but do they need an entire position to do it?” he asked. “I look at this in a business sense: If my position isn’t relevant, let’s go down to a smaller executive and save money — getting rid of my position would free up $30,000.”

He believes that his duties — which include lobbying and establishing relationships with federal, provincial and municipal governments — can be performed by the other members of the executive without interfering with their current responsibilities.

“We’ll still be able to lobby, it will just be somebody else doing it,” he said.

“I’m really struggling to find relevant work: I’ve met with various government officials from the minister through assistant deputy ministers and I’ve presented the student view to them, but I’ve found that the meetings did not take that long,” outlined Shumlich.

“It’s just simply there isn’t enough work to do.”

He referenced the resignation of the 2008-09 VP external Nicole Kenney halfway through the year, stating that when she left, the executive’s operations were not hindered.

“They had a VP external for six months and then their VP external quit and they went six months without,” he said. “A few months in they realized, ”˜Wow, we aren’t any busier. We actually feel [the executive] works better without [the VP external].’ ”

Josie Steeves, the 2008-09 USSU president, confirmed Shumlich’s statement.

“We did run well without the position and we were in favour of removing the position,” she said, but students voted to keep the position at an SGM that year.

Shumlich believes that a four person executive would work much better than a five person executive.
“A four person executive is more open to collaboration and compromise, whereas with a five person executive, there is always one view that knows it is going to win,” he said.

“In the event that an issue is so contentious that four people can’t agree on it, the issue would be taken to University Student Councill.”

Current USSU president Chris Stoicheff, who was VP external last year, believes the position is valuable but that its value is completely dependant on what the executive member views as a student issue — he took a more activist approach to student issues than Shumlich does and, therefore, found himself busier in the position.

“I think it all depends on the person and what their interests are,” Stoicheff said.

He said that the VP external’s duties could be interpreted as government relations representative for the USSU.

He said that if the president were to absorb a majority of the VP external’s duties, he should receive a pay raise.

“I think it would be unreasonable to give the same amount of money to a president who has double the workload,” he said, noting that he is not running for president again next year.
It is not clear at the moment how the duties would be divided if the position were removed.

One problem that Stoicheff did admit was the poor office dynamics and that overlapping public roles create tension between the president and the VP external.

“For years it seems like there has been some sort of a conflict between the role of the VP external and the president,” he said. “Last year the individual who was in the president’s position was not really letting me fulfill my job requirements.”

He said that “this year I’ve stepped away completely from external affairs issues,” but acknowledged that removing the position could lead to benefits within the office environment.

The timing of the removal of the position may seem rather late, given that had Shumlich stepped down in July when he realized that his job wasn’t vital, it would have saved students his salary for the year.

But Shumlich wants the position permanently eliminated.

“I felt the only way I could get rid of the position was by staying on the executive,” he explained.

He said that had he stepped down, he would not have been able to adequately argue for the position’s removal.

“I don’t think the problem is me,” said Shumlich. “I think the problem is the position.”

If it is voted to remove the position, Shumlich would stay on until May 1.

*Amendment: An earlier version of this article gave the impression that Blair Shumlich felt the USSU should not have access to any student funds. In fact, he was only commenting on the savings that would result from eliminating the VP external position.