Kelsie Jones and the $610 U-Pass sting
p2pnet view Off Topic:- “I’ve been speaking with a law professor at Carleton and he’s going to help me get a court date, and I’m going to fight this thing.”
That’s an angry Kelsie Jones (right) after being caught in an Ottawa transit system sting aimed at trapping students trying to sell their U-Pass cards.
The U-Pass program is a “one-year pilot project for Carleton and University of Ottawa students that was passed by city council in January after lobbying by student associations, and approved by referendums on both campuses this spring”, says the Ottawa Citizen.
Under it, a $290 fee is tacked on the tuition of all full-time students who then get a bus pass that’s valid from September 2010 until April 2011 —-
—- whether they want it or not, and whether they’ll use it, or not.
OC Transpo initially opposed the U-Pass plan, says the story, quoting OC Transpo’s chief special constable and manager of transit-law enforcement, Kim Weston-Martin, as stating, “This wasn’t an OC-Transpo-initiated thing. This came straight from the universities. A student annual pass prior to this was somewhere in the vicinity of $920. A U-Pass is $290. So there’s a substantial savings.”
But “Jones, who lives downtown and takes a free shuttle from the University of Ottawa campus to her classes at Carleton, said she doesn’t use OC Transpo and was surprised by the mandatory U-Pass charge when she went to pay her tuition fees in August”, according to the post.
Other students were selling their U-Passes on Kijiji, “and she didn’t realize that she was doing anything wrong when she decided at the beginning of October to do the same”, it says.
She was trying to recoup the $290, but instead wound up having to pay $610.
Ottawa mayoral candidate and councillor Clive Doucet, who championed the U-Pass, believes Jones shouldn’t have tried to sell hers, says the Ottawa Citizen.
“Either you’re a student with student benefits, or you’re not a student with student benefits. It’s the same as medicare,” he says in the story. “You’re not allowed to sell your medicare to another person if you don’t need it.”
“It took 10 years to get it, and we really want to keep it”, Doucet states, adding, “This is playing right into the hands of those who don’t want to keep it.”
(Cheers, RW)
Ottawa Citizen – U-Pass seller feels thrown under the bus, October 21, 2010
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It`s really easy!
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.
October 22nd, 2010 at 11:41 am
Since when are special constables allowed to do this type of string operation? What exactly was their mandate when they got the SC status from the police services board? AFAIK, the OCT special constables are there to patrol the transit system ONLY, not have stake-outs and “stings” off property. These guys are a micro-step above a meter-maid.
She should not have given her name and walked the other way. Just because someone flashes a toy badge doesn’t mean you have to comply with everything they tell you. And if they step outside the law and get physical, call 911, the police would concern themselves with the more serious crime of assault than some flimsy bylaw violation.
Ottawa is the capital of out-of-control power-tripping bureaucrats so it would seem. I’m glad I carry animal repellent and a few other surprises in case some rent-a-cop wants to tangle. But, they never pick fights with people like me, they always target the weak ones, like this girl, because they are chicken-shits.
October 22nd, 2010 at 11:44 am
I have an idea for those uni students.
Sell your passes in Gatineau, Quebec. 5 minutes from Ottawa. Tell any fake Ontario bus cop to take a hike.
October 22nd, 2010 at 2:01 pm
bad advice, the specials have the same powers of arrest that the police do. They are in fact, one step away from being the police, not one step away from being a meter maid. Go ahead, refuse to identify yourself and then turn around and walk away. You’ll be whining in the media about what comes next.
October 22nd, 2010 at 2:11 pm
In Montreal they bring you to underground rooms.
They are paid security goons with some sort of transport power backing them.
But, they should sell them in Quebec, 5-min from ottawa where OC transpo isn’t their turf.
October 22nd, 2010 at 5:24 pm
In Toronto they took away the TTC security goon’s special constables status for abusing their ‘authority’ off TTC property. This Ottawa stuff with stings and so forth looks like the same thing to me.
October 24th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
Vancouver has the same scheme. U-Pass gets full time university students a deeply discounted transit pass in exchange for a compulsory fee. And yes, some people try and sell them on craigslist.
I find it very hard to believe that someone could check out the university, make the decision to go there and then sign up for courses without knowing that the university is a member of the U-Pass scheme and so they’re going to get hit with a compulsory charge for a transit pass. The passes have your photograph and identity on them & are labelled “Not Transferable” – as though this wasn’t obvious.
All in all, I believe she knew she was going to get charged for the pass and she knew she wasn’t allowed to sell it. She should have swallowed the $600 fine quietly instead of turning to the press and complaining about the injustice. Now there’s an internet record of her name that, depends on which part of her story you believe, makes her look ignorant or a scofflaw. She’s going to have to explain that to potential employers when she gets out of university.
October 24th, 2010 at 9:48 pm
What an embarrasing story for the female given a ticket for selling her bus pass. What is she thinking running to the media when she got a ticket. Isn’t it expected when you do something illegal that you get in trouble for it? When you get caught, own up to your mistake and move on. I learned that when I was a kid. Just because your in criminology at university it doesn’t make you right. You may want to read up on the law before you go to court.
October 25th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
The irony is that the student in question is a 4th year criminology student. In failing to follow the law, based on popular referendum at her school the year before, I must ask what she was doing the other three years?
November 1st, 2010 at 10:18 pm
The Carleton (and Ottawa ) University Corporations obtained student’s photos for valid ID cards (to use campus facilities) but then GAVE them to the pretend student “union” organizations which were playing at being make-believe “governments.”
THIS was “WRONG!”
Then, said kiddies GAVE away individual’s Photo IDs to a fourth-party corporation, OC Transpo. THIS WAS “ILLEGAL.”
OC then ACCEPTED THESE STOLEN GOODS, and took these student’s property and disseminated it (reproduced, manufactured and distributed their personal photographs, obtained under duress and false pretences without their EXPRESS Consent).
These three corporate entities are guilty criminals and accessories to crimes – NOT THE STUDENTS who tried to get their own, extorted funds back!
Selling ALL the students’ non-transferrable student IDs to OC Transpo WAS ILLEGAL for both the student unions & the university corporations!