The question that the governors need to ask is, "Is it reasonable to take $250 out of Eric Hansen's pocket and another $250 out of Aman Hambleton's pocket to give to someone else through the Pugi fund?" That would have been the effect of this motion if it were in place for the last World Junior.
There is a tendency in some quarters to want to regulate anything and everything about chess played in Canada and by Canadians. This regulation is definitely better than some of the regulations that were bandied about but I am not sure that it is better than the current status quo which is relatively fewer regulations. It seems to me that we are penalizing the strong players that want to play chess internationally with this new set of rules. The $250 cost is only a small part of the cost of playing in the world junior but it is an amount that could tip the balance between playing and not playing. As the masters representative, I think that I have to vote against this motion on that basis alone.
Another concern I have is that some of the thresholds for women are so high that members of the last few womens olympiad teams would not qualify. If someone in the top half dozen girls in the country would not qualify under these rules then we probably need to refine them. In Windsor, there does not seem to be any significant difference in chess play between boys and girls. Having girls adopt chess in the same numbers that boys do could certainly almost double our numbers overnight. Having the opportunity to play in a tournament where norms are possible is something that we shouldn't lightly deny to the few young women who might want to take advantage of the opportunity.