Editor's note : It has been brought to my attention that although Terry Christodoulou wrote an anti-SRA article, he ran for a seat in the assembly twice and lost both times.
The Club Reserved for a Select Few
In my first year of university, I discovered my love of writing. Like any good freshman, I began to contend with the writing of liberals like John Stuart Mill, Rousseau, and Locke. Excited by the chance to continue the royal lineage of writers that this world had provided us, I eagerly approached the office of The Silhouette, McMaster’s student paper. Quickly, I realized that this was a club reserved for a select few at McMaster, something I will expand on in this essay. However, it would be a disservice not to be honest about two things. First, Afraid0fAsteroids was created in direct defiance of this organization. This is not something the essay will deeply explore, but it is context the reader must know. Second, yesterday The Silhouette published an article titled “In the wake of the March scandal, ‘SRA 67ers’ finally passed a new code of conduct,” which serves as a great document to show how The Silhouette truly acts. Through investigating this document, the reader will be able to clearly understand why The Silhouette acts as a hand of the status quo, not of the people, as it pretends to be.
The Scandal That Wasn’t
To provide needed context: last March, members of the Student Representative Assembly (henceforth referred to as the SRA) were caught in a scandal. A scandal of grave consequences, much deeper than anything Doug Ford has ever done: they didn’t try to open the Greenbelt, they didn’t attack our education, and they didn’t take away our OSAP. No, much worse, they were caught making jokes in a private group chat. The misconduct does not end there, however. According to an article titled “Allegations of misconduct emerge following McMaster Student Union VP elections” by Declan Withers and Andrew Mrozowski, more disgusting behaviour was conducted by SRA members. A direct quote from the article paints a picture of some of the misconduct: “I saw a lot of members giggling, laughing, looking at their phones and looking at each other. It was pretty clear that they were discussing candidates or discussing myself . . . it impacted my confidence and my ability to stay present,” they said. “It almost felt like I was being made fun of in a way, or that what I was saying wasn’t important” (Withers and Mrozowski, 2026). Although I can understand the frustration of the anonymous participant, I also truly hope, for their sake, that they never enter politics. This “misconduct” from the SRA is one of the most tame examples of a political meeting I have ever heard of. For a democratic institution to work, you should not expect to be pampered and told your ideas are perfect. Instead, your ideas must be directly attacked, laughed at, and fought with, so that eventually, as a society, as a university, and as a student body, we can reach a point where we are in agreement and can take direct action. For The Silhouette to publish this and criticize the SRA is to play right into the hands of Doug Ford’s corrupt government: to act as a mouthpiece for them and to cast doubt on our democratic institutions. The Silhouette can give itself a pat on the back and tell us naive students to shake our heads, much like Doug Ford recently did.
What Students Actually Need
To continue with another quote from the same article, Withers and Mrozowski interviewed yet another anonymous person, who said the following: “I feel like I had to say ‘I am fully in support of [a strike policy],’ because I knew if I didn’t, they would immediately target me for that. Not just that, but I felt like I had to say that . . . I’m going to give [certain SRA members] the freedom to make this look what it looks like. Because I know if I say that ‘I’m going to step in’ . . . that that would become a huge issue,” said the second candidate (Withers and Mrozowski, 2026). Returning to very liberal talk, The Silhouette reprimands the SRA for making a candidate feel like they had to participate in “groupthink,” yet again trying to paint the SRA as an undemocratic institution. However, I truly disagree with this position. The SRA members had been democratically elected by their peers, while the person complaining had not, and yet the SRA is painted as undemocratic for not agreeing with them? Interesting rhetoric from The Silhouette. The most important thing is the fact that the candidate feels they “must” declare their allegiance to the strike policy. It is a very interesting stance from a student leader to feel skittish about endorsing something that their fellow students clearly need. To show a statistic of how much stress students are currently under: “According to the second annual DrinkSmart Campus Pulse Survey released Nov. 2, 66 per cent of Ontario post-secondary students surveyed had experienced financial challenges related to their education, while 58 per cent reported experiencing stress or anxiety frequently or constantly. This is up six percentage points from 2025. The survey involved more than 3,000 Ontario University and college students” (Gynan, 2026). Moreover, unlike The Silhouette, this essay will use real people. I will provide a summary of what one of my best friends, Emma, texted me yesterday: “I am already working 35 hours a week just to afford gas for my car and food to eat. Since September, I have had only two days off. I worry that OSAP could be taken away entirely on the grounds that I am employed. I despise Doug Ford, and I wish I could tell him so myself.” Yet The Silhouette does not have the time to talk about these issues, instead being too busy fighting the only democratic force we have.
The New Article
Having established the grave scandal that the SRA found itself in, and the valiant journalists of The Silhouette and their ability to break the news, one must read their new article, the one mentioned in the introduction. Last night, Terry Christodoulou wrote an article celebrating the fact that the SRA was held accountable and forced to vote against itself: “Most members hardly looked up from their phones as they heard how various MSU stakeholders were consulted during its development. When they opened the floor to discussion, a dull silence prevailed as the voting members continued bumming a scroll. Voting time came, and they sluggishly raised their placards, unanimously voting in favor of the new policy” (Christodoulou, 2026). Hitherto, the article shows no direct bias. The next part explains how the new policy is set to work very well, however. The basic understanding is that the MSU will now take over complaints. That is not the important part of this article; the next part is.
“Barely Elected”
Christodoulou says out loud what The Silhouette has implied for so long: “15 barely-elected SRA members set the jurisprudence which will ultimately have binding authority over who becomes judge, jury and executioner with this new policy” (Christodoulou, 2026). In classic Doug Ford fashion, his mouthpiece The Silhouette says the quiet part out loud: that it does not believe the SRA is democratic, that its members are “barely elected.” Yet they are democratically elected. Everyone gets the thousands of emails in their Outlook reminding them to vote, and anyone can meet members of the SRA in classes. Every student has the right to vote for the SRA, so to call its members barely elected is a direct attack on our democracy. Christodoulou goes even further, creating fake headlines such as “SRA investigates SRA and finds SRA not guilty,” “SRA finds verbal warning the only legitimate form of valid disciplinary action following appeal vote,” and “In a landmark ruling, SRA provides written warning following rapier duel in council chambers.” Gladly, this essay can write the same about The Silhouette: “The Silhouette accepts Doug Ford dissolving the SRA.” “The Silhouette is proud to endorse Doug Ford’s investments in our universities, which may take control over our arts.” “The Silhouette is happy to reject students’ voices, as long as the provincial government continues to fund us.”
Bill 33 and the Opt-Out Argument
“And while it’s no longer making headlines, Bill 33 still casts a spectre over our union and its services. Doug Ford’s campaign team wouldn’t have to work hard to make the case to an otherwise indifferent voter base that his opt-out program is a more democratic initiative than anything the MSU currently provides its members” (Christodoulou, 2026). This is the most jeering part of the article; it sounds like it came straight from the office of Doug Ford. Christodoulou explains why Doug Ford would find it easy to shut down the SRA. However, I must ask Christodoulou: why would indifferent members choose to opt out? It is not the SRA that is doing a disservice by running a student strike and passing motions for student accommodations and a soup kitchen. No, it is The Silhouette’s constant attack on our democratic bodies that would make students want to opt out. So I ask The Silhouette, since you are so good at writing and criticizing: when is the last time you attended a march? When is the last time you heard what students are suffering through? Or is it just using your words as a “larp,” where you act all high and mighty while being Doug Ford’s mouthpiece? To use Ford’s favourite catchphrase: “give your head a shake, kids.”
References
Christodoulou, T. (2026, November 12). In the wake of March scandal ‘SRA 67ers’ finally pass newcode ofconduct. TheSilhouette.https://www.thesil.ca/opinion/in-the-wake-of-march-scandal-sra-67ers-finally-pass-new-code-of-conduct/article_75e136f1-ec08-4047-aee2-d7c6a5a81923.html
MacDonald, M. (2026, March 5). Students protest cuts to OSAP grants. UniversityAffairs.https://universityaffairs.ca/news/students-protest-cuts-to-osap-grants/
Withers, D., & Mrozowski, A. (2026, April 17). Allegations of SRA misconduct emerge followingMSU VPelections. TheSilhouette.https://www.thesil.ca/news/allegations-of-misconduct-emerge-following-msu-vp-elections/article_cc791196-fd59-4c91-8536-85e97eef2a4c.html