Out in Left-Centre Field

Further to my previous post, yes, the forum and the blogs and the CYA site are all back up and running.

What I hadn't noticed in the chaos of my past two weeks was a sizable ruckus -- flying fur and all -- that sprang up at the same time. Just the thing I love to come back to, right?

Essentially, what has been happening is that Tyler, and the rest of the CYA administration, are proposing an update of the CYA Bylaws in conjunction with the website and forum renewal. Since the forum and blogs went down at about the same time as this proposition was about to be enacted, at least one prominent member of the Assembly took it badly.

You may wish to read both sides of the issue for yourself, before I get any further (and fall into my bias):

Max Naylor's comments on Facebook

Tyler Sommers' comments in response

In short, the announcement by Tyler and the administration regarding the proposed bylaw changes, in conjunction with the technical difficulties, led Max to conclude that the CYA had instituted a unilateral "coup" and were seeking to, allegedly, take power away from the elected Youth Representatives who form one pillar of the CYA. In response, Tyler denounced Max's comments as "a personal attack" that signified that Max cares for no one but himself. (Hilarity ensued.)

Now, no matter what I might think of these two men, no matter the specifics of the argument at hand, what I do know is that this is precisely the kind of counterproductive B.S. that the CYA doesn't need right now. There are good people trying to build a good organization -- on all sides -- and even if our visions differ, even if we all make mistakes from time to time, we have no business trying to tear it apart in the name of petty quests for dominance.

I will admit, straight up, that I'm not 100% comfortable with what is being done in a comprehensive makeover of the CYA. I don't know the specifics and my life has been highly chaotic for the past few weeks. True, Tyler has charged me with updating the Code of Conduct, and I intend to do that and I hope it will be posted for everyone to see and to offer their opinion. But if this is what I'm going to get for my troubles, is it all really worth it?

Max would have you believe that this is a "coup", that Tyler and his staff have some agenda to take power and authority away from the elected YRs. Considering that power seems to be all that matters to Max, it does not surprise me that this is where his complaints would begin. It's true, the CYA administration does not want a singular focus on the youth parliament aspect of the Assembly, probably less than we would all expect or like; that being said, having a focus on one area to the exclusion of all others is no way to grow an organization. If a federal party obsessed over their caucus meetings and neglected their riding associations, the party would die, would it not?

The real debate here is, how much power and authority should the YRs have? What sort of responsibilities should they be required to live up to? Was it settled fairly in the beginning? I wasn't around for the creation of the original bylaws -- I'd love to have a voice in them. But I didn't. Maybe they need to be updated?

Max also rages about the alleged shutting-down of the CYA forums, blogs and chat as a means of committing a "power grab" against the Youth Representatives and, by extension, all the youth of Canada. Notwithstanding the fact that all three are up and running thanks to Steven Heidel's prompt attention, this rings all kinds of hollow when you follow Max's track record and find that, time and time again, he has actively railed against the central (and neutral) media that the CYA provides, spurning the forums and chat and blogs in favour of private channels, closed-door consultation (if that is even happening), and notes posted on his Facebook page. He calls these public media; instead, they are closed to all but the LYPC faithful and/or anyone he deigns to have as a "friend" on Facebook. They are not central or neutral and he can hide or remove anything which comes across as critical of his own actions. In essence, Max wants all of the public discourse to happen where he, and he alone, calls the shots.

Is that fair? Is that open? Is that democratic? You decide.

In his note, Max also insinuates that this "power grab" is due to the actions of myself and Nathan Allen. Slander notwithstanding, this is pure invention; Max has disgusted Nathan in ways I can barely fathom, and my own actions with respect to Max as of late have been to alert the CYA administration to his abuse of the democratic process in the Assembly. I have never suggested an update of the bylaws. I never nominated myself as a candidate for YR because my studies at Waterloo demand my time and attention. Instead, I dared to defy Max, and that makes him want to hit me back. How predictable.

Indeed, Max's posturing on behalf of the democratic rights of the Youth Representatives and against the "unilateral" actions of Tyler and the CYA administration smacks of incredible hypocrisy when you examine Max's track record in the Assembly. Posted on his Facebook page are no less than four motions supposedly passed by the elected Assembly. Bear in mind that the Assembly has no standing orders, no presiding officer, no set medium or place to meet, and no record of any votes or debates whatsoever. Yet, Max claims the right to pass motions on his own as faits accomplis because his LYPC caucus comprises a majority of the sitting YRs after the March election. According to him, votes and debates (and therefore the entire parliamentary process) are pointless simply because he had a large margin of victory. That looks like unilateralism to me -- and so Max is a hypocrite, plain and simple. To him, democracy is clearly important only when it serves his own purposes.

In a similar vein, Tyler Sommers states that he attempted to put the proposed amendments up for consultation ahead of being adopted. Certainly, it could and should have been better publicized. The primary place that Tyler posted his proposal was the central CYA forums. This is not out of a desire to hide them, as Max claimed in his note; rather, this was done because the forums are the public discussion place for the CYA, and they have served many past and present members well time and again. It was where the bylaws and governing documents were originally drafted, so why not bring forth amendments there? Instead, for some unknown reason -- perhaps his desire for a more favourable playing field, I'm not really sure -- Max continually derides the forums as "dead" or "dying". This is a self-fulfilling attitude; if Max's capabilities as leader of the LYPC are as great as he claims, he could easily reinvigorate the forums by directing his colleagues and subordinates there. Instead, he focuses his energies in keeping the LYPC members away from the CYA forums, choking them in the process. Again, a prime example of hypocrisy in action.

Tyler and the CYA administration are making efforts to keep the organization democratic and all developments open for consultation. Certainly, those efforts are nowhere near perfect. However, there is not much that they can do when the membership either fails to grow the CYA (as I admittedly have, along with the YGP and the LANs) or else actively discourages their party members from participating fully (as Max and the LYPC have, along with the CYPC).

This is a situation that never should have come to pass, but for the attitudes of Max and those similar to him who persist in placing their own goals above the good of the whole community. This is not a battle for the youth of Canada, as Max insists in his rhetoric -- by and large, young Canadians most likely have no idea about the CYA at this embryonic point in its development. No, this is a battle over the perceived power of one man who doesn't care who or what he tramples to keep his throne.

No one is irredeemable, but we can only better ourselves if we choose to grow and learn. Mr. Naylor needs to learn that his own advancement, and that of his party, cannot trump the needs of the CYA community as a whole. Yes, democracy is hard, and messy, and inexpedient; it also demands that those who participate must learn to collaborate instead of fight and to build instead of destroy.

Sorry, I was just channeling Dr. Frankenstein there for a second. Just roll with it, okay?

Firstly, my massive thanks to Steven, Tyler, and all the others who worked on the website. The new design looks (and, to my knowledge, works) great. Thank you for your excellent work on troubleshooting and I look forward to the future site and forum updates!

Secondly, my apologies to anyone reading this for my being absent for a while. My co-op job (which is now done) was keeping me pretty tired in the evenings, and I was often away camping on the weekends with my family. Then, as if that weren't enough, about two weekends ago, my laptop contracted a rather nasty problem wherein my Norton Antivirus began thinking that "explorer.exe" (that's the Windows shell) was a viral file -- and when I tried to replace said file, my computer got stuck in a loop wherein it would boot up to the login screen, then kick me out and reboot. (As you may have guessed, it is now fixed.) None of the above is particularly conducive to getting work done for the CYA.

... which brings me to my third point. Work for the CYA. A couple of weeks ago, Tyler passed me a copy of the existing Code of Conduct with instructions to update and add onto it. For the reasons stated above, I have not made much progress; for that, Tyler and his staff have my apologies. However, I will be moving back to school (i.e. Waterloo) shortly and so I will have a fair amount of open time at the start of term (before it gets nuts) to go through it and get back a draft for review. So I will.

If anyone has suggestions for the new Code of Conduct, the original document can be found at the CYA's documents page (http://cya-ajc.ca/about/documents) and you can send me suggestions either by commenting on this blog post or via email at schneidera(at)cya-ajc.ca (replace "(at)" with "@").

Anyways, that's about all I have time for at the moment -- back to packing!

See you out there,

Adam