About JD Hutton

I’m a third-year International Development and Economics student, born and raised here in Halifax. All my life I’ve valued my friends and community, and am always thinking of ways to make it even better. I love my city, and I love my school. That’s what draws me to activism- the chance to make something good into something great. I see opportunities everywhere, and that’s why I’m running for Internal Vice President of the Dal Student Union.

           

I have a history of activism and involvement that I’m proud of:                                       

-I’ve been active with the Loaded Ladle to make good, local food easily available for Dal students.

-I’ve went not once, but twice to do volunteer anti-fraud work in El Salvador’s elections. I’ll be going again in March.

-I’ve been the co-president of the King’s Pride society, where I organized campaigns to lobby for queer and trans rights.

-I am the current representative on DSU council for the LGBTQ community.

-I’ve organized an academic symposium on economic cooperation in Latin America, featuring multiple ambassadors to Canada.

-I have a black belt in shotokan karate, and have been a volunteer instructor for children’s classes.

-I was a lead organizer for the 2012 Student Day of Action at Dalhousie to reduce tuition fees.

-I’ve been the co-chair of the Mayworks! Halifax Festival of Working People and the Arts.

I have a wide range of experiences that make me well-suited for a position on the DSU. I would bring fresh ideas, lots of energy, and considerable skill to the union. A vote for me is not a vote for the status quo. It is a vote for good food, for lower tuition fees, and greater student power on campus.

On February 14-16, vote for JD Hutton!

Platform Item 1: Reduce Tuition Fees

They Raise Fees, We Raise Hell!  -  Reduce Fees Now

Education is the best way to guarantee equality of opportunity in society. For this reason, I believe that it is a high priority that should be protected and extended. I believe that education is a right that should be accessible to all. There are many barriers in place that keep people away from a university education, and high tuition fees are one of the most significant barriers. For this reason, a student must campaign tirelessly to bring fees down.

How to do that is not always straightforward, but I have a lot of ideas. It requires effective and persistent activism. This includes holding protests, creative actions that garner media attention, producing research on education issues, lobbying, building coalitions with community groups, and more.

I believe that the Dalhousie Student has been misguided in its activism. Its approach has been to almost exclusively focus on lobbying politicians, who’ve made it clear that they’re not listening. I do not believe that if we were to just show the right powerpoint presentations to our MLAs that they would see the light and make the investments in education that we want. I really don’t. Lobbying is only useful if we can back up our demands with political consequences. The reason that Joe Ramia got a $59 million cheque from the government for a convention centre but we’re facing cuts is because there are political costs to rejecting big business. Without an active student movement, there are no consequences to saying no to student lobbyists. Again, collective actions are the difference between begging and bargaining.

Tuition fees need to go down. The average student in Nova Scotia is graduating with more than $30,000 of debt, putting strain on students for years after graduating. People from low-income backgrounds suffer the most from this. International students pay more than double everybody else’s fees because the government treats them like cash cows- this is wrong. The NDP government has made it clear that they will be pushing deeper cuts to the system each year, considering total deregulation of fees last year and partially implementing it this year for international, law, medicine, and dentistry students. Student action that can effectively challenge the politicians has never been more urgent.

I was a lead organizer for this year’s Student Day of Action, where 1000 students took the streets of Halifax and made our voices heard load and clear. The DSU did not help at any point in the process, which is troubling. There needs to be a cultural shift in the DSU towards a more activist-oriented politics, and I am the person to start that process.

If elected Internal Vice President on February 16th, I will innovate new tactics to build a stronger student movement. I will increase the visibility of student activism, and work to create as many outlets as possible for students to meaningfully engage in the process. Examples include hosting townhall discussions, holding actions outside MLA offices, and building a culture of solidarity between labour, local business, and community groups. I have a background in activism and would bring a wealth of experience and skill to my position.

Platform Item 2: Good Food

If you eat, or if you plan to eat at some point in the future, food is a relevant issue to you.

 

I have been active in the food movement on campus, supporting and assisting the Loaded Ladle and the King’s Alternative Food Co-op Association too. I’ve developed a political stance that I call “Good food,” which is the idea that the food we eat should be sustainable, healthy, ethical, affordable, local whenever possible, organic, and always delicious. Good food is essential to living well, so we shouldn’t think of having that whole list as pie in the sky. I think it’s a very basic thing to expect.

 

But there’s a lot to do at Dalhousie.

 

Food services at Dal are run by Sodexo in the SUB and Aramark everywhere else, and they operate under an exclusivity contract. That means that you need Sodexo’s permission to hold a bake sale because they have all rights to food on campus. These companies make most of their money catering at prisons, where they serve better food. Healthy options are limited and expensive, vegetarian/vegan options are even more so. Don’t ask about halal or kosher options, there’s next to nothing. All space for food goes to these companies, but we don’t know what we’re getting in return because these exclusivity contracts that we’re all bound by are not available to the public.

 

Something needs to change.

 

If elected Internal Vice President, I will oversee the process of switching to self-operation in the Student Union Building so that food services are always under the direct and democratic control of students. I will work with local businesses and Nova Scotian farmers so that students can get the freshest, tastiest, healthiest meals possible and have their money support the local economy. Additionally, I would work with other union executives to ban the sale of bottled water in the SUB while pushing for it campus-wide. There are models of student-run food services in other universities such as King’s College that we can learn from, although the goal is to inspire other universities to copy us! It is exciting to note that switching to local and healthy-but-delicious will still mean affordable food. I have been pushing for better food on campus for some time and would bring unmatched passion to this issue.

 

If you’re hungry for change, you should vote for JD Hutton to be the Internal Vice President on February 13-16.

Platform Item 3: Student Power

Participatory Democracy is the centre of all my political values. Democracy is rule by and for the people, and so we should be looking for ways to meaningfully involve as many people as possible in the process. Leadership and governance styles that are top-heavy become too distant from the interests of those they represent. I feel the DSU has too many layers of bureaucracy for students to meaningfully plug into it, which is part of the reason that 4/5 students don’t even bother voting. Effective student unionism creates more public spaces for students to voice their concerns and ideas. I don’t think of myself as running to be a student leader, I am running as a student for certain tasks in a broader movement.

 

If elected Internal Vice President, you would see more student power in the union’s affairs. You would see the union itself push for more student involvement in the operation of the university itself. Students make Dalhousie possible. We should expect and demand more than to be consumers of education. We should be engaging directly in the university’s operation.

 

-If elected, I will regularly engage students in public consultations, such as townhalls.

 

-I will foster a culture of activism on campus, starting by making the DSU more accessible. Contact information for DSU executives and councillors will be posted publicly in the SUB and students encouraged to communicate with them.

 

-Upon hearing student input, I will work with the union executive, faculty, and unions representing Dal workers to produce an alternative budget for the university. If students and faculty ran the school, how different would things be? What is possible but not being done? These are the questions that need to be asked.

 

-I will push to make the DSU itself more democratic. I think its very problematic that the Vice President of Finance + Operations is not directly elected by students. Our money should be directly accountable to us. Most universities elect their council as well- science students elect the science representative, etc. At Dalhousie we do not do this. I will push to make these positions elected directly by students.

 

-The Internal Vice President is responsible for union communications. I will use it to raise awareness on campus of the outrageous mis-spending that takes place on Dal while they hike tuition. For example, did you know that president Tom Traves makes $100,000 more than Stephen Harper? Most students don’t, but they should. If students knew what was going on behind closed doors, I think that there’d be higher participation in student actions. The student union has a responsibility to get the word out, and I would tirelessly work to bring awareness up on campus.

 

-I would create a weekly e-newsletter containing society and community events and union communications. The DSU dispatch exists but it too infrequently used.

 

When voting takes place on February 14-16, think about who will be the most accessible, transparent, empowering person in the position. Vote for JD Hutton, because I have a clear vision for greater student power at Dalhousie.