Ask Bangladesh Canadian Association of Calgary (BCAOC) to revoke the unconstitutional two year extension of the current Executive Committee.

Background:

- In January 2020, a general election for the Executive Committee was conducted after a long time; most of the prior committees were based on "drawing room" arrangements. The election itself was flawed due to the weaknesses in the By Laws but was accepted by most Bangladeshi Calgarians. 
- Since then in November 2021, BCAOC took an initiative to amend the By Laws and we spontaneously provided some crucial revisions in an in-person meeting that had brought 6 major changes to benefit the community in the years to come:
1. making students Associate Members to ensure their participation in the association and be entitled to the benefits
2. removing immediate Ex-President as a voting member of the Executive Committee to avoid influence from an non-elected official 
3. limiting President's power to co-opt non-elected executive committee members from 4 to 2 to avoid biased decisions
4. increasing quorum of Executive Committee meetings from 35% to 45% to ensure engagement and crate balance of power
5. reforming Election Commission by adding the provision of selecting 2+ Election Commissioners from General Members instead of their own advisers only to ensure a free and fair election
6. broadening eligibility of  President and General Secretary candidates from experience of services in BCAOC only to any registered association in Canada 
- On Dec 4th, 2021 the General Meeting to amend the By Laws started with a good note and all the proposed amendments were passed with overwhelming majority including changing the BCAOC Executive Committee's term from Feb 1-Jan 31 to July 1-Jun 30 to allow election to be held in the springtime and in order to do so a six month extension was approved
- But, suddenly at the last moment of the meeting, a motion for extending the current Executive Committee's term for two years was proposed again by an interested group violating the By Laws and the norms of a formal meeting. Instead of the moderator expunging the motion, it was put through a vote and was passed against the objections from several attendees.

Here are the By Law violations:

1. Article 13.1.4, BCAOC Election Commission was supposed to declare the election schedule for 2022 by Nov 30th,  2021 and it was never declared, which is a violation of the Bylaw; rather the motion for extending the current committee's term for two years was processed inappropriately to dis-allow Calgarians to elect their representative for long two and half years
2. Article 12.1, BCAOC is required to send a complete agenda before the meeting and the two year extension proposal wasn't in the agenda.
3. Article 12.4, the meeting didn't meet quorum. This article states that 40% of members are required to be present and 125 members of 311 listed members weren't present but the moderator proceeded with the meeting stating "quorum has been met"

What we did about it so far:

We reached out to BCAOC requesting to revoke this extension with 72 hours of notice on 6 Dec 2021 and BCAOC didn't even bother to respond.

Conclusion:

All the above demonstrates the years of irregularity and the mentality of keeping the control over BCAOC within a certain interested group by means of breaking the By Laws and disregarding the free and fair participation of all Bangladeshi Canadians in Calgary.

Request: 

We sincerely request all to sign this petition ask BCAOC to:

1.  revoke the unconstitutional two year extension of the current Executive Committee immediately and

2. declare election in May 2022 and allow the community to contribute to their beloved association's activities.

Let’s make the change that is good for ALL.