March 7, 2022

U THE UBYSSEY

AMS ELECTIONS ISSUE 2022

MARCH 7, 2022 | VOLUME CIII | ISSUE XIV PART OF THE 6.9 PER CENT SINCE 1918

2 | MARCH 7, 2022

ADVERTISEMENT

MARCH 7, 2022 | 3

THE UBYSSEY MARCH 7, 2022 | VOLUME CIII | ISSUE XIV

EDITORIAL Coordinating Editor LUA PRESIDIO coordinating@ubyssey.ca

Video Editor JOSH MCKENNA video@ubyssey.ca

Visuals Editor MAHIN E ALAM visuals@ubyssey.ca

Opinion + Blog Editor THOMAS MCLEOD opinion@ubyssey.ca

News Editors CHARLOTTE ALDEN & NATHAN BAWAAN news@ubyssey.ca

Science Editor SOPHIA RUSSO science@ubyssey.ca Photo Editor ISABELLA FALSETTI photos@ubyssey.ca

Culture Editor TIANNE JENSEN-DESJARDINS culture@ubyssey.ca

Features Coordinator PALOMA GREEN features@ubyssey.ca

Sports + Rec Editor DIANA HONG sports@ubyssey.ca

BUSINESS Business Manager DOUGLAS BAIRD business@ubyssey.ca

Web Developer MEI CHI CHIN m.chin@ubyssey.ca

Account Manager FOREST SCARRWENER advertising@ubyssey.ca

President DANILO ANGULO-MOLINA president1@ubyssey.ca

Web Developer KEEGAN LANDRIGAN k.landrigan@ubyssey.ca

Social Media Coordinator MAHEEP CHAWLA social@ubyssey.ca

AMS ELECTIONS ISSUE 2022

STAFF Aadya Arora, Aafreen Siddiqui, Akanksha Pahargarh, Anabella McElroy, Andrew Ha, Bernice Wong, Bridget Meehan, Christina Park, Colby Payne, David Collings, Elif Kayali, Elizabeth McDonald, Farzeen Ather, Iman Janmohamed, Isabelle Dina, Jackson Dagger, Jasmine Cadeliña Manango, Jerry Wong, Kaila Johnson, Kevin Nan, Kyla Flynn, Kylla Castillo, Lauren Kasowski, Lynn Shibata, Manya Malhotra, Matt Asuncion, Melissa Li, Mike Liu, Miriam Celebiler, Nathalie Adriana Funes, Owen Gibbs, Polina Petlitsyna, Raina Cao, Regina Hipolito, Ryan Yip, Sam Laidlaw, Shanai Tanwar, Shane Atienza, Tait Gamble, Tina Yong, Tova Gaster, Winnie Ha, Z. Aazadeh Raja

CONTACT Editorial Office: NEST 2208 604.283.2023

Website: ubyssey.ca Twitter: @ubyssey Instagram: @ubyssey

Business Office:

Website: ubyssey.ca Twitter: @ubyssey Instagram: @ubyssey

NEST 2209 604.283.2024

Happy voting week!

Thanks for picking up this issue, which is meant to serve as a voting guide of sorts for this year’s AMS Elections.

We’ve talked to all the candidates, attended all of the debates and fact-checked all the platforms. While we couldn’t fit all of our coverage into this 24-page issue, we’ve included profiles of each candidate and the pros and cons for each of them, along with a brief rundown of this year’s referendum questions. For our full coverage, check out our website at ubyssey.ca/ news.

This year, there were 29 candidates, 14

debates and 1 (overturned) infraction. We couldn’t have done any of this without our incredible team of 15 writers.

If you’re picking this up just for information on who to vote for, skip to page 16, where we break down the pros and cons of each candidate. But we hope you stick around long enough to read the profiles of the candidates, our elections feature on how the AMS has tried to improve elections engagement this year or our op-ed on why you should care about elections this year.

Stay safe and remember to vote. U

The Nest 6133 University Boulevard Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1

Charlotte Alden and Nathan Bawaan News Editors

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT We wish to acknowledge that we work, learn and operate the paper upon the occupied, traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, including the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwxw̱ú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and səli̓ lwətaɁɬ/ Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh).

LEGAL The Ubyssey is the official student newspaper of the University of British Columbia (UBC).

It is published every other Tuesday by the Ubyssey Publications Society (UPS). We are an autonomous, democratically-run student organization and all students are encouraged to participate.

Editorials are chosen and written by The Ubyssey staff. They are the expressed opinion of the staff, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the UPS or UBC. All editorial content appearing in The Ubyssey is the property of the UPS. Stories, opinions, photographs and artwork contained herein cannot be reproduced without the expressed, written permission of the Ubyssey Publications Society.

The Ubyssey is a founding member of Canadian University Press (CUP) and adheres to CUP’s guiding principles.

The Ubyssey accepts opinion articles on any topic related to the UBC and/or topics relevant to students attending UBC. Submissions must be written by UBC students, professors, alumni or those in a suitable position (as determined by the opinions editor) to speak on UBC-related

matters. Submissions must not contain racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, harassment or discrimination. Authors and/ or submissions will not be precluded from publication based solely on association with particular ideologies or subject matter that some may find objectionable. Approval for publication is, however, dependent on the quality of the argument and The Ubyssey editorial board’s judgment of appropriate content. Submissions may be sent by email to opinion@ubyssey.ca. Please include your student number or other proof of identification. Anonymous submissions will be accepted on extremely rare occasions.

Requests for anonymity will be granted upon agreement from three-fifths of the editorial board. Full opinions policy may be found at ubyssey.ca/submit-an-opinion.

It is agreed by all persons placing display or classified advertising that if the UPS fails to publish an advertisement or if an error in the ad occurs the liability of the UPS will not be greater than the price paid for the ad.

The UPS shall not be responsible for slight changes or typographical errors that do not lessen the value or the impact of the ads.

WORDS Paloma Green Regina Hipolito Elif Kayali Elizabeth McDonald Anabella McElroy Khushi Patil Ava Peacock Sansian Tan Tina Yong

Charlotte Alden Aadya Arora Matthew Asuncion Farzeen Ather Nathan Bawaan Aisha Chaudhry Jackson Dagger Tova Gaster Owen Gibbs

PHOTOS AND DESIGN Mahin E Alam Raina Cao Kylla Castillo Isabella Falsetti Lua Presidio

4 | MARCH 7, 2022

CANDIDATE PROFILES

AMS ELECTIONS 2022

PRESIDENT ESHANA BHANGU

WESLEY CHOI

SYD N E Y HARAKAL

AMS VP Academic & University Affairs (VPAUA) Eshana Bhangu is running for president on a wide-ranging platform centred on fighting for student interests.

When asked to list her top three priorities, Bhangu listed five. These included advocating for affordable housing and education; centring social justice and equity in AMS operations; increasing mental health and harm reduction services; creating a culture of accountability; and supporting international students.

On equity, Bhangu said she would tackle the extractive nature of consultations with marginalized students by addressing the “manifestation” and root causes of inequities.

She also said she would make the AMS’s mental health coverage increase from $1,000 to $1,500 permanent.

Accountability was a common theme in Bhangu’s interview with The Ubyssey.

She said she wants to conduct a “no-limits governance review” — which would be separate from a governance review that incumbent President Cole Evans is undertaking.

Another thing Bhangu said she hopes to achieve is greater internal accountability within the AMS. Specifically, she would require financial reports to include both the expected and actual amount of money spent, along with an explanation of any potential gaps between the two.

In terms of external accountability, Bhangu said she would make herself available to hear student feedback.

Bhangu doesn’t see herself as an AMS insider despite serving as VPAUA this past year. She said that her path towards leadership within the student society was untraditional.

“I was an elected student senator. And then I went on to take on an established AMS insider staff member in what was the only contested [race last year],” she said.

“I think that after coming in from the outside, I’ve actually been able to see the disconnect with [the AMS’s] issues with accountability.”

She also acknowledged that her platform is ambitious, but that she has a track record of getting things done, like providing KN95 masks to students.

When asked why she was running, Bhangu spoke about representation — “I am the first female vice-president to put their name forward for president in six years” — and wanting to bring back “student-centric” advocacy across the AMS. U

Wesley Choi, a third-year student, is running for AMS president on a platform of transparency and student engagement.

Choi frequently talked about removing the “veil” between students and the AMS in an interview with The Ubyssey.

Choi said he would increase student engagement by instructing AMS execs to work in common spaces instead of their offices, holding meetings in public spaces and trying to talk to at least one new student each day.

Choi said he would continue to offer incentives for student attendance at the Annual General Meeting (AGM), but disagreed with the AMS’s current approach to offer VISA gift cards. This year’s AGM failed to meet quorum despite offering $4,000 in prizes.

“It’s almost like giving cash … it gives off the wrong message to people.”

He also said student affordability, particularly food insecurity, is a priority.

To address this issue, Choi said he wants to create a “big, centralized canteen” — similar to a first-year dining hall — on campus. He said he would either petition UBC or use the Nest to create this space.

Choi hopes to continue fostering a sense of community among students by hosting de-stress activities during the first week of the semester or final exams.

“One of them I propose is going to be renting a bouncy castle in front of the Nest,” he added.

He said he would also expand the AMS’s reach on social media — but didn’t say how — and send out a bi-weekly or monthly newsletter. The AMS has sent out at least one email to students each month since December 2021.

Choi admitted that his lack of relevant experience was a weak spot, but said he hopes students like that he is “not well established and [a] fresh candidate.”

This lack of experience was apparent when Choi couldn’t answer how a strategic plan — which incumbent Cole Evans is working on — would benefit the AMS and students.

Instead, he said he would create an executive-level position to be filled by an Indigenous student. This position would also be solely elected by Indigenous students.

He did not say how he would do this.

Still, Choi said, “I’m willing to learn.” U

Sydney Harakal, a third-year arts student, is running for AMS president with what they call an outsider’s perspective and a focus on “making things better for people.”

If elected, Harakal — who uses all pronouns — wants to increase the number of social and study spaces in the Nest and create more opportunities for students to meet one another outside of clubs and parties. They want to bring a Queer, Indigenous perspective to the AMS. Harakal also said they would oppose any increase in tuition by assessing what pressures they can place on the university’s Board of Governors and trying to increase the number of student representatives.

The latter would require changing the University Act which outlines the number of student, faculty, staff and provincially-appointed members on the Board. Section 19, which defines the composition of post-secondary institution boards, has not been amended since the act passed in 1996.

They said their biggest challenge will be overcoming UBC’s existing institutional problems — which they said make “it harder for student politicians to make any real changes that affect anything.”

Harakal doesn’t have prior experience in UBC governance — they are currently the head tournament organizer for the UBC Esports Association and served as a floor rep in their first-year residence — but they see this lack of experience as an asset.

“Because when you’re a student politician, you’re kind of being forced into that mindset and it prevents you from taking on any outside perspectives.”

Harakal will ensure that they are serving students’ interests by monitoring social media and by asking people for their opinions when talking to them around campus.

They also plan to communicate to students how much power the AMS has — by, for example, increasing conversations surrounding AMS budget transparency — to increase student engagement with the student society. In an interview with The Ubyssey, Harakal incorrectly stated that the AMS had a $25 million budget. This year’s budget topped out at $4.7 million.

Harakal said the AMS’s strategic plan will be important to ensure students continue being supported by the AMS. While Harakal said they have wanted to run for president since their first year, last year’s uncontested races for all but one AMS exec position gave them another reason to enter the race. U

MARCH 7, 2022 | 5

PRESIDENT TAT E K AU FMAN

THE PA N

REMY T H E R AT

SA AD S H OAI B

Tate Kaufman is running for president on a platform focused on slashing COVID-19 restrictions, cutting AMS “frills” and increasing the accessibility of resources to students.

“It’s time to end COVID[-19] measures. I understand that some people have personal health concerns and that some students who don’t have health concerns want stuff to stay online or hybridized,” said Kaufman. “UBC is an in-person school, always has been, always should be, always should have been.”

Before UBC discontinued its rapid testing program and vaccine declaration policy, Kaufman said he wanted to advocate against UBC’s COVID-19 rapid testing program for people who are unvaccinated or chose not to declare their status.

In a follow-up message to The Ubyssey, Kaufman said he would now shift his focus to making classes fully in-person and advocating to remove all COVID-19 measures by fall — many of which are outside of the AMS’s power.

Kaufman said he would address what he called the AMS’s “frill” expenses like having free food at Council, yearly executive retreats and the Dress Up for Drama event held by AMS Elections.

“These are all dollar bills coming out of students’ pockets that could be spent on other things,” said Kaufman.

Additionally, rather than increasing the number of resources available for international students, students of colour and low-income students, Kaufman wants to make the existing resources more accessible.

On his involvement with UBC Students For Freedom of Expression (SFE), a student group that’s been criticized heavily for inviting far-right speakers to campus, Kaufman said he believes in academic freedom.

“I believe that every student who is at UBC and indeed many incoming students to UBC deserve a place on campus and they deserve safety from physical violence and from harassment,” Kaufman said. “I would say inviting speakers to campus and having an open university dialogue, so long as that dialogue remains respectful, is not an infringement on safety.”

Most recently, the university cancelled an SFE event featuring Lauren Southern, a Canadian far-right pundit who has questioned the existence of genocide of Indigenous peoples at former residential schools.

If elected, Kaufman said he would resign from the SFE. U

The Pan, an inanimate object, is running for AMS president on a platform of affordability, sustainability, engagement and not wanting to get elected.

“I don’t want the job,” The Pan said. “I would be deeply ashamed of being president.”

On affordability, The Pan said it would organize workshops led by local entrepreneurs who will “tell you about the value of having rich parents [and] the value of shit coins.”

The Pan also said it wanted to make the AMS truly carbon neutral by reducing commuter emissions through “saving the Bike Kitchen” and ensuring the Nest can float to respond to rising sea levels.

“I also think that we need to re-naturalize the Nest thus increasing green spaces and ventilation by propping open the door to the Nest 24/7. That way we will have wildlife,” it added.

The Pan said it has a personal stake in the environment: “[I’m] worried about rusting to death.”

In terms of student engagement, The Pan said students view the AMS as a corporation instead of a student union.

It plans to change this attitude by “holding an [All General Meeting] fish fry” and standing outside the Nest for 24 hours a day for a week to collect negative feedback man-to-pan.

The Pan added that students don’t feel like they are having a university experience. To address this, it would make The Pit greasier and open more often to end the culture of students being forced to go to “chic, stupid bars.”

It also proposed having a guillotine week where a guillotine would be placed in front of Sauder and the engineering buildings to remind students that life is short and they shouldn’t exploit workers. It clarified that no one would be guillotined.

While The Pan doesn’t want to get elected, it hopes that its candidacy increases student interest in the election.

“If they don’t vote for me, but they heard about the elections or heard about the problems of their candidates because of me, I consider that a win,” it said. U

Remy the Rat wants to become the next AMS president after the abrupt ending to his residency at Open Kitchen in January.

The rodent is running on a platform focused on food security — because “Open Kitchen for all” — climate justice and advocating for students.

“Remy was kind of unceremoniously thrown out from his position in Open Kitchen. I guess he was looking to do something else, take a break from cooking and see how he could otherwise support the UBC community,” said Esmé Decker, Remy’s human representative.

Falling back on his experience with food, Remy wants to work on existing food security initiatives on campus, like the AMS Food Bank.

Decker added that Remy would consult with students on how to improve UBC’s food plans.

The AMS president does not have control of UBC’s meal plans, but could advocate on the issue.

When it comes to climate justice, Remy would focus on capacity building to create a new VP sustainability position, advocating to the university for “sustained, centralized funding” so the Climate Emergency Task Force recommendations can be put into place.

The AMS has an associate VP sustainability position under the VP administration’s portfolio.

Additionally, Remy wants to see increased student engagement and increased voter turnout for this year’s elections.

If elected, he would connect with students via social media but also in person, especially with students in residences and different clubs. But Decker said she’s not sure if Remy’s still living in Orchard Commons.

In terms of applicable skills, Remy is confident his experience “overseeing a team in the kitchen” will come in handy if he’s elected AMS president. Decker said that Remy is used to using a human puppet to communicate.

“In the kitchen, you have to be familiar with food and what people like, what people enjoy and also cleanliness, so lots of advocacy for those points too, from Remy,” said Decker.

Remy also thinks the strategic plan President Cole Evans has been developing can be useful to understand the organization’s vision, values and mission.

When asked how he would cope with the challenges of the position, Decker said Remy’s a “very flexible guy.” U

Saad Shoaib, the current AMS VP external, is running to be the student society’s president on a platform of expanding the number of amenities and support services available to students.

Shoaib said his top priority as president would be to work on capital projects. This includes increasing study space in the Nest and renovating Gallery and Norm Theatre. He plans to pay for these improvements using grants — which would be a continuation from the current AMS exec team — and collaborating with UBC. Shoaib also wants to create a new service called AMS Student Aid — which will provide yearround financial and employment opportunities for students.

On equity, Shoaib said he would create a process to implement the AMS Equity Plan’s recommendations and hold roundtable meetings with BIPOC students.

Lastly, Shoaib brought up the need to improve the AMS’s transparency and student engagement.

If elected, Shoaib said he would reform the quarterly spending report system from AMS execs — he didn’t specify how — hold quarterly town hall meetings and livestream AMS Council meetings. Council meetings are already public via Zoom.

If elected president, Shoaib said he will use his experience from working in the VP external office over the past two years.

As associate VP and VP external, Shoaib has lobbied all levels of government for things like permanently removing interest rates from student loans.

His term has involved some controversy.

His office spent $7,000 unsuccessfully to get students elected to the University Neighbourhoods Association Board last fall and he recently met with an independent MP who was previously charged with sexual assault while lobbying. Shoaib has apologized for the meeting.

When asked how this most recent controversy would impact his ability to work on updating the AMS Sexual Violence Policy (I-17), Shoaib said his record shows that he has prioritized advocacy on this issue.

He said he lobbied for minimum standards, as well as voiced public support for the AMS Sexual Assault Support Centre’s student fee increase referendum.

“I’ve done that work, and I will continue to do that work because that is a passion of mine.”

Shoaib is an active member of Delta Kappa Epsilon. U

The Pan’s human representative is Thomas McLeod, The Ubyssey’s Opinion & Blog Editor. He is not involved in this year’s election coverage.

6 | MARCH 7, 2022

VP ACADEMIC AND UNIVERSITY AFFAIRS A N U S H R E YA ARORA

KAMIL KANJI

ANISHA SANDHU

DA N A T U R DY

Anushreya Arora is a first-year Sauder student running to become the next VP academic and university affairs (VPAUA) on a platform of transparency and inclusivity.

One priority of Arora’s would be to make sure she’s available to students.

Arora commended incumbent VPAUA Eshana Bhangu on how she was available to answer questions for her when she called the number on the AMS website. However, Arora was unable to name any policies from Bhangu’s office she agreed with.

“I do love the way that she approaches things.”

Arora said she wants to “create a platform for [students] to actually speak up.” She suggested creating an anonymous way for students to voice concerns such as an “anonymous Instagram page.”

Compared to other candidates, Arora said that, as an international student herself, she will be able to “relate more” to other international students. She mentioned the unique challenges students from other countries and cultures face.

Arora said that she foresees difficulty being a first-year student and engaging with other students outside of her year.

“The VPAUA does not get you to just know like the first-, second-year students, they cater to the entire undergraduate community in general,” Arora said, neglecting to mention the VPAUA’s responsibility to graduate students.

Arora doesn’t have experience with student government at UBC, but she’s been in a leadership position before.

Before coming to UBC, Arora took part in and led initiatives at her high school to use technology and digital media to help disabled students. Arora has also served on the organizing committee of a commerce event at her previous school and won awards for her participation in Model United Nations.

When asked about open educational resources, Arora was initially unaware of the meaning of the term.

“There should be more resources for students” than there are right now, Arora said.

She highlighted an experience in one of her classes where not everybody bought the textbook because it was too expensive. She later emphasized that paid resources mean that not everybody will “get to gain that knowledge.” U

After serving a year as AMS councillor for the faculty of arts, second-year student Kamil Kanji is looking to become the next VP academic and university affairs (VPAUA).

In the past year, Kanji has served on the AMS’s Advocacy Committee which he said has “been a really unique experience to see the nuances of the policies and the nuances of the discourse and debate that goes on with being the VPAUA.” Kanji has divided his campaign into three priorities: student affordability, academic needs and equity.

To make life affordable for students, Kanji said he’ll push strongly for open education resources (OERs). Kanji commended the AMS’s OER champions program, but said he’d take AMS advocacy on the topic much further by “advocating that the university create a permanent grant and work program for university professors” who develop OERs. Kanji also stated that he’s in favour of UBC enacting a textbook grant or subsidy program with a “no-questions-asked policy that asks very non-invasive questions about how much money you spent on textbooks.”

To help tackle food insecurity, Kanji said he’d advocate for the continuation and expansion of the UBC Meal Share program.

The pilot program, which ends in April 2022, provides students experiencing food insecurity with funds to use on groceries or food at UBC. Kanji is also looking to advocate for hybrid course delivery when possible.

On the topic of equity, Kanji said that he would “hold the recommendations of groups like the [Black Caucus] to a higher esteem.”

Among the recommendations he wants to see implemented are better financial support for Black students and “having a Black student space on campus that is designed for and by Black students.”

Kanji also spoke of the need for greater engagement with Indigenous students.

“Currently, we see that there exists an Indigenous Strategic Plan Implementation Committee, but it has no student voice on the committee, no Indigenous student voice on that committee. And that is something that needs to be corrected and rectified.”

He did not elaborate on how he would get an Indigenous student on the committee. U

Anisha Sandhu is running to become VP academic and university affairs (VPAUA) on a platform of affordability and engagement.

Sandhu, who currently serves as the AMS’s sustainability projects coordinator and land and food systems faculty student senator, highlighted the ongoing creation of a student affordability plan and Campus Vision 2050, a review of UBC Vancouver’s land-use policies, as reasons why she chose to run this year.

She is also running for one of five student senator-at-large seats.

Sandhu said her platform “is grounded in a holistic approach to support student well-being now and for years to come.”

“We need to take a step back and look at what are some of these root causes that are contributing to students not being well, and a lot of that is rooted in the affordability of Vancouver and Metro Vancouver.”

Sandhu said she’d like to look at “affordability all across the board” including in housing, food and child care.

She said she has talked to graduate students living “just above the poverty line” on the current stipends. “What is that saying, if that’s how the university thinks of their grad students?” One solution Sandhu sees to this is the yearly indexing of grad student stipends.

Another priority for Sandhu would be to “reestablish this relationship between [the] AMS and students.” Sandhu said she would do this by building a team in the VPAUA office to engage with a wide variety of students.

Sandhu also talked about the importance of reaching out to underrepresented and unheard communities as VPAUA. Sandhu said her work as a project assistant to the associate dean of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in LFS has given her experience looking at things through an EDI lens.

Sandhu also highlighted the relationships she has built through her roles as a student senator and the AMS’s sustainability projects coordinator with the UBC Climate and Sustainability Hubs.

“I bring a unique level of meaningful engagement and understanding that, especially coming from the Senate, not everything happens so quickly. And when you want that meaningful engagement, a relationship needs to be built, you can’t just walk into a room and be like, ‘Tell me what you want.’” U

Dana Turdy is looking to build on her experience in the AMS as the next VP academic and university affairs (VPAUA). She’s running on a platform of student engagement, affordability and equity.

Turdy is currently the strategy and governance lead within the AMS where she has worked on the review of the student society’s Sexual Violence Policy (I-17) and Respectful Community Policy (I-18). She said this experience will be “very valuable” for her role as VPAUA in understanding what policies the AMS and UBC has.

The third-year political science student lamented “discontent” and “disconnection” between the AMS and the student body.

“This is the kind of moment that the AMS needs to step up and really support students, because that’s what we’re all about at the end of the day, that’s what we should be about,” she said.

To fullfil this commitment, Turdy said she would establish formal consultation guidelines since the AMS makes “huge decisions … regarding students all the time.” She did not specify what these decisions were.

She also emphasized the need for the process to not be “tokenizing or extractive for marginalized communities.”

Turdy is also promising to launch a student engagement campaign, calling the structure of the AMS, the Senate and the Board of Governors “a very bureaucratic and complicated system.”

She said she supports “increased communication with students on all fronts, social media, town halls” aided by “really advertising the fact that the executives are open to students.”

On affordability, Turdy said she supports “better tuition consultation.”

Turdy specifically highlighted the role of open educational resources in the fight for affordability, saying, “I will continue to advocate for them and continue the work that’s already been done by the portfolio currently.”

With regards to the Student Affordability Task Force (SATF) — which incumbent VPAUA Eshana Bhangu sits on — Turdy said, “‘I’ll be honest that I was a little disappointed by the lack of substance to a lot of the recommendations.” Turdy said she wanted to see a more robust plan and will advocate for one if elected. U Turdy wrote four articles for The Ubyssey between January and April 2021.

MARCH 7, 2022 | 7

VP FINANCE ANGAD SINGH GILL

N OAH JASS MAN N

R I TA JIN

Angad Singh Gill is running to be the AMS’s next VP finance on a platform focused on changing the AMS’s health and dental plan, introducing a social equity fund and increasing transparency.

If elected, his top priority would be to replace the AMS’s “one-size-fits-all” health and dental coverage with something more flexible for individual students.

He cited plans at other BC universities in which students could mix and match coverage and avoid paying for services that they don’t use as good alternatives. He did not specify which universities currently have these plans.

If elected, Gill also vowed to introduce a social equity fund that would provide funding to student campaigns relating to affordable housing, education and environmental justice. He believes that such a fund would empower student movements across a wide range of issues.

The third-year science student is entering this race with an outsider’s perspective, but Gill believes this would help fix perceived culture problems within the organization.

“From what I have gathered, people think that the AMS is not doing a good job, that it is a toxic work environment,” he said. “I just wanted to get in myself and see where’s that gap?

And if I can help bridge that gap, that’d be great.”

Gill is not a product of the finance world either. His only experience in finance is a stint bookkeeping as part of an office assistant role at Three Links Care Centre in Vancouver.

However, he said he has served in numerous human resources and financial administrative roles that have wellequipped him for the role of VP finance.

Gill added that his position outside the finance world would not hinder his ability to do his job if elected.

“The VP finance work, I believe it’s not heavily based on their knowledge about finance … we have well-qualified CPA professionals that help,” he said. “The work of the VP finance is rather the understanding of the structure and the process of the financial procedures [and] being able to communicate with the staff, students and counselors.” U

Noah Jassmann has thrown his hat into the ring to be the AMS’ next VP finance, running on a platform of improved student engagement and increased funds for sustainable initiatives.

The fourth-year Sauder student has served as the president of the Interfraternity Council (IFC) for the past year, representing UBC fraternities. He cited a desire to have an impact on the broader UBC community as his reason for running. Jassmann sees taking part in “the biggest UBC club” as a good way to do so.

Jassmann said he has a background in handling large financial portfolios. He said his experience working at Deloitte as a Campus Ambassador and a US Tax Analyst gave him experience providing financial advice to multi-million dollar companies.

“In terms of hard skills, I can definitely handle working with the AMS budget because I’ve dealt with budgets and companies with larger revenues and larger budgets before,” he said.

During the first debate, Jassmann said he did not see his affiliation with the IFC as a conflict of interest, even after his term as president ends in April.

Jassmann hopes to prioritize communicating information about AMS resources to students if elected. He said that financial information has not been effectively communicated to students under sitting VP Finance Mary Gan. Jassmann also voiced his intention to increase mental health coverage even further, from $1,500 to possibly $2,000 per student.

He believes this is a realistic number to fit within the AMS’s budget, although he did not specify where this extra money would come from.

Other policies that Jassmann wants to enact include the reallocation of funds to sustainability initiatives and underrepresented communities, as well as an improved club reimbursement program.

He did not provide specifics on how he would achieve these goals.

Jassmann understands that providing services that benefit UBC’s entire population will be challenging, but he thinks that he is up to the task.

“If you’re making a decision for 60,000 students, not everyone is going to be benefited or happy with your decision,” Jassmann said.

“I think picking solutions and implementing ideas that benefit the largest number of people is imperative.” U

Rita Jin, a second-year science student, is running to be the AMS’s next VP finance on a platform focused on making clubs more accessible to students and streamlining the club reimbursement process.

Jin said that her experience as associate VP finance (AVP) this year makes her the best candidate to replace current VP Finance Mary Gan. Through her AVP finance role, Jin said she has become very familiar with the AMS’s inner workings and has multiple ideas for how to benefit students. She has also served as treasurer for the UBC Business Technology club.

Jin is also a member of Alpha Gamma Delta, although she said she isn’t heavily involved.

Her top priority, if elected, would be to create a subsidy to help students pay entry fees for clubs and student societies. She said students will be able to apply for this subsidy and that the funds would come from the Clubs Benefit Fund — which has been operating at a surplus for quite some time, according to Jin. The fund currently has a reserve of $699,338.

Jin’s other priorities include an increase in AMS/GSS Health and Dental coverage — similar to the increase in mental health coverage this past year — as well as a financial system upgrade to improve the reimbursement process for club treasurers.

The AMS is already undergoing a transition to a new financial system, which would also address the AMS’s reimbursement system.

“In the past year when I was working with treasurers, working with a lot of the staff, I’ve noticed that our current reimbursement process is a bit tedious for both sides,” Jin said.

“It’ll be easier for treasurers to see exactly what the statuses on reimbursements are, and it will make it easier for our staff to be able to see it and approve it as quickly as possible.”

Jin also said she intends to stay “ahead of everything.”

“Whether that be getting the information from the other offices or just being able to communicate that and adjust accordingly would be a really important thing to keep in mind to be a good VP finance.” U

U

Join us for The Ubyssey’s annual general meeting on March 24 at 5 p.m. through our Discord.

8 | MARCH 7, 2022

VP ADMIN

VP EXTERNAL

BEN DU

JAM ES CABAN G O N

ERIN CO

S A N C H AY JAI N

Ben Du is running for VP administration on a platform focused on helping clubs grow their membership and improving club executives’ orientations.

“The cornerstone of my platform for this year is something called the Clubs Growth and Expansion Benefits,” said the current associate VP administration.

Du intends the initiative to succeed the Clubs Recovery Benefit (CRB), a new three-part support plan created to assist AMS clubs financially and operationally. The target launch for Du’s initiative is September 2022.

“Initial plans include support for producing marketing and promotional content, holding higher quality events to attract productive club members and also financial assistance for large external event venues and facilities,” said Du. Additionally, Du wants to improve club exec orientations by implementing best practices for sustainability, equity and inclusion in training. He added that the orientations would be asynchronous and formatted as a Canvas course, same as this year.

While Du hopes to carry what he called incumbent Lauren Benson’s “ability to connect with students” into his term, he said he felt “partial dissatisfaction” with the delayed rollout of the CRB and the first exhibition at the Hatch Art Gallery.

Du — who is running in the only uncontested race this year — said his experience working with the portfolio would help him to solve the problems executives generally notice later in their terms if he’s elected.

Some examples of these “under the surface” issues include the logistics of table allocations for Clubs Days or seeing a pattern of Canvas-based login issues — things Du said people who don’t know the portfolio well might struggle to address.

On the Operations Committee’s upcoming review of UBC Sororities’ club status, Du thinks caution is the best way forward when discussing deconstitution.

When asked about the proposed pause on the resource groups student fee collection, Du said the fund is accumulating faster than it’s being spent.

He added that students want to benefit from the fund during their time at UBC. “We have to revisit communicating with the resource groups how they can best use that fee,” said Du. Du was formerly in a fraternity, but is no longer an active member. U

James Cabangon, a fourth-year political science student, is running for VP external to continue the work he started as associate VP (AVP) external this year.

One focus of Cabangon’s platform is student affordability. Cabangon said his personal experience with financial hardship motivated him to work for the AMS and would contribute to his advocacy on the subject.

In his role as AVP external this year, Cabangon lobbied for the removal of interest rates on federal student loans and to increase the loan repayment assistance threshold alongside VP External Saad Shoaib.

If elected, Cabangon wants to continue that lobbying work and push for eliminating more student debt and doubling the Canada Student Grant maximum.

Cabangon believes the AMS needs to improve its advocacy on climate policy. If elected, he would pursue partnerships with green corporations to make the AMS an effective federal lobbying body on that front.

On the subject of student safety, Cabangon lobbied the provincial government to establish minimum standards on sexual violence policies with Shoaib, and said he would like to see these measures implemented equally across universities.

Cabangon also wants the AMS to take a stronger harm reduction approach to the toxic drug crisis. He believes naloxone kits “should be as accessible as condoms” through increased AMS partnerships.

On the related topic of mental health, Cabangon is concerned by the low percentage of students who find the provincially administered Here2Talk program helpful. He wants to “facilitate consultation” to try and improve the program.

Cabangon sees barriers to students understanding what the VP external does, and if elected would try to increase the portfolio’s visibility.

He also wants to provide more channels for students to reach the VP external office.

“I want to ensure that students are able to book meetings with me, and I want to do workshops so if students have questions, concerns or advocacy points that they want to do, they’re always brought up in discussion.”

Cabangon was previously associated with the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity chapter at UBC, along with Shaoib. Cabangon is no longer an active member. U

Erin Co, a third-year international economics student, is running for VP external to help students stay “focused on being a student.”

In her role as associate VP campaigns and community engagement in the VP external office this year, Co said she learned about diverse student experiences and gained lobbying training which would help her advocate for students, if elected.

Co said she would make student affordability a top federal lobbying priority.

She wants to advocate for student debt cancellation through an expansion of the repayment assistance plan, which begins to cover principal loan debt after 60 months under the plan or 10 years of repayment.

Co also wants to lobby for an increased maximum amount for the Canada Student Grant federally and the BC Access Grant provincially.

On housing affordability, Co would lobby for an increase in the student living allowance, a standard used by Student Aid BC to determine financial need separate from tuition.

On the subject of student safety, Co wants to “concretize” the minimum standards on sexual violence policy laid out in the BC Sexual Violence and Misconduct Policy Act — something that VP External Saad Shaoib successfully lobbied for this past year.

Co also wants the AMS to allocate more funding for the Sexual Assault Support Centre (SASC) and UBC’s Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office (SVPRO). Funding does not fall under the purview of the VP external, and SVPRO is a UBC service.

To improve mental health support, Co wants to lobby to expand and raise awareness around the Here2Talk program. As AVP, she lobbied the provincial government to improve Here2Talk alongside Shoaib.

Co said that one challenge the VP external faces is “that people don’t really know what the external office does.” Because of her experience in the office, Co said she would be “well equipped to connect with students” if elected.

On the topic of rapid transit to UBC, Co said she would lobby the Mayor’s Council and work with UBC’s rapid transit team to secure the remaining 20 per cent of funding needed for the SkyTrain to UBC business case.

Co is an active member of Alpha Gamma Delta. U

Content warning: This article contains mention of racialized violence.

Sanchay Jain, a first-year Sauder student, is running for VP external to fight for equality on campus.

Jain said one of his friends “got beaten up” outside a club downtown in a fight Jain believes was started because his friend is Indian. “[A few white people] came up to my friend, they were like ‘You are a brown guy and you’re standing ahead of us, and we are not getting in because of you guys,’” he said.

This event motivated Jain to run for office.

“I will try to convince the government to put up some campaigns or surveys … so that there would be some sort of awareness among people that this is not correct.”

Jain believes that such a campaign would reduce violence by showing people the consequences of hate crimes on victims.

Jain said he also wants to focus on social and financial support for international students. He did not specify what these policies might look like past government “financial aid.”

On the topic of mental health, Jain said he sees a lack of guidance for students on how to deal with mental health problems. He wants to lobby for the creation of a “platform” that students could access to find more accessible support.

It is unclear if this platform would be different from the resources assembled by the BC government or the BC Partners for Health and Substance Use’s Here to Help platform.

On bringing student voices into advocacy, Jain said he would “try to conduct surveys” at UBC to inform his work.

Jain also wants to speak personally with as many students as possible before government lobbying to understand what problems they are facing.

While he emphasized he would be a fast learner, Jain showed a lack of understanding of the scope of the VP external’s role, including a grasp of the time commitment.

He said that, if elected, he would contact the previous VP external to ask “how things work” as well as speak with other AMS executives and his counterparts at other universities to ask if he was doing his job well. U

MARCH 7, 2022 | 9

SENATE DA NTE AGOSTI -M O RO

ESHANA BHANGU

ROMINA HAJIZADEH

KAMIL KANJI

Fourth-year commerce student Dante Agosti-Moro is running for reelection to the UBC Vancouver Senate as a student senator-at-large.

If reelected, Agosti-Moro said he will continue to push the Senate to improve the academic appeals process, to establish term limits and to implement equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) initiatives.

He previously served as commerce faculty student senator for two years before being elected to a senator-at-large last year.

Although Agosti-Moro said he wants to advocate for term limits for both students and faculty, he hopes that by running for reelection, he’ll be able to continue work in addressing structural issues within the Senate and pass down his institutional knowledge about UBC. Additionally, he said that his involvement in the Elections Committee gives him an advantage in ensuring term limits are at the “forefront” of discussions.

During his time in the Senate, Agosti-Moro — along with other student senators — was able to restrict the use of remote invigilation tools during exams as well as extend the drop deadline earlier this term.

However, Agosti-Moro acknowledged that there is still work to be done when it comes to the Senate’s transparency, especially when it comes to ensuring that policy changes are being properly communicated to students.

Personally, Agosti-Moro said he hopes to be more transparent through the development of a Student Senate Caucus website — a place where students can keep in contact with student senators, access vital information and changes in academic policies.

Agosti-Moro said he would prioritize EDI initiatives if reelected.

On reviewing honorary degrees following backlash to honorary degree recipient Bishop John O’Grady, a former residential school principal, Agosti-Moro said he wants “to push for an expedited process” when it comes to degree revocation.

He hopes to bring attention to the urgency of the issue by supporting the Tributes Committee in its review, and to eventually look into other controversial recipients who have received honorary degrees. He plans to do this by consulting affected communities through the Student Senate Caucus website and social media.

Agosti-Moro said he is committed to the creation of a distinct standing EDI committee. He also expressed his support for prioritizing EDI in respect to the actions of decisions of each Senate committee. U

Eshana Bhangu, a third-year international relations student, is running for a third year on the UBC Vancouver Senate as a student senator-at-large.

If reelected, she said she hopes to continue her work in reducing the cost of learning materials, drafting a more lenient course withdrawal policy and improving experience-based education for students entering the workforce after graduation.

Bhangu said that “unfinished business” pushed her to run for reelection. As one of the authors of Senate 2023, she wants to use her platform to support the implementation of the goals and strategies outlined in the document by pushing student priorities “in every way that [she] can.”

Bhangu said she wants to push for greater Senate transparency and a centralized student focus — specifically, she wants to reduce bureaucracy when it comes to passing motions and identify barriers in remote learning environments.

She also hopes to improve the structural format of the Senate, particularly the way student senators are viewed by other senate members, which she plans on seeing through with the use of the Senate triennium review.

“We also need to develop a code of conduct and conflict of interest rules for senators,” she said.

Bhangu said that her experience in the Senate differentiates her from other candidates. She “drafted and put into [motion]” the extension of the drop deadline to February 6, supported the restriction of remote invigilation tools and is the only student on the experiential education roundtable.

In her role as AMS VP academic and university affairs, she wrote a correspondence to push the university to “conduct a review” for honorary degrees, not just for revoking Bishop O’Grady’s honorary degree, but also of the process and criteria of granting honorary degrees.

According to Bhangu, there has been “a lot of progress” in the Tributes Committee — the committee in charge of honorary degrees — as there is now a “subcommittee to review the process on how they give out honorary degrees.” However, little progress has been made in the rescission of O’Grady’s degree.

“I’ll continue holding them accountable to what [UBC has] committed to doing.”

Bhangu is also running for AMS president. U

Second-year arts student Romina Hajizadeh is running to be a senator-at-large on a platform of improving student engagement, advocating for recorded lectures and increasing transparency within the Senate.

Hajizadeh is currently the chief AMS representative for the Arts Undergraduate Society and the chair of the AMS HR Committee.

As for what has gone well in the Senate over the last year, Hajizadeh said she appreciated Student Senate Caucus’s drafting of the Senate 2023 document and the drop deadline extension this term.

However, Hajizadeh said she’s been disappointed by some student senators not putting enough into the role, not attending committee meetings often enough or going against the Student Senate Caucus.

“We’re always more powerful when we stand together,” said Hajizadeh. “Sometimes people have not entirely supported motions as strongly as [they] should have, or maybe not gone out there and actually been very passionate about something.”

Hajizadeh said she would focus on COVID-19 recovery if elected. In her advocacy, she said she wants to put international students and immunocompromised students at the forefront.

“There are many international students I know in my classes that cannot come back to Canada and yet some professors are not recording their lectures,” said Hajizadeh.

In terms of student engagement, Hajizadeh said she’ll post regular updates about the Senate on Reddit or the UBC Student Senate Caucus website. She said that she would potentially host events, Zoom Q&As or in-person coffee chats to get feedback from students.

But Hajizadeh admitted she’s new to the Senate. “I had to do a lot of research to figure out what to put on my platform. I’m still learning as I go,” she said.

Hajizadeh said she supports the need for a standing Equity, Diversity and Inclusion committee, and the integration of the Indigenous Strategic Plan into Senate committees, but did not specify how.

“We need to have [EDI] in our curriculum and make sure that we are integrating this not just in a committee itself but this should actually be something that is at the core of every single committee on the Senate.” U

Kamil Kanji wants to bring his experiences with policy-making and youth advocacy to the role of student senator-at-large.

Kanji’s platform focuses primarily on academic policy and spaces.

He emphasized the importance of reforming curriculum in line with the suggestions of Black and Indigenous people and creating new Senate committees that will ensure these commitments are met.

He also noted the lack of quiet, accessible student spaces, and intends to work with the Academic Building Needs Committee to plan, develop or reallocate spaces where students can gather and collaborate.

Kanji also advocated for increased Senate transparency — particularly using social media.

He said that, if elected, he would work with the rest of the student caucus to unify the Senate social media accounts and expand them to platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

“I know I personally would try my best to be as omnipresent, to be as fun and engaging and a little bit lighter and making sure that those walls are brought down between our academic institutions and our student body.”

The second-year political science student said that he had “a lot of experience” communicating with peers and translating their needs and interests into policy. In 2020, Kanji chaired the inaugural Youth Advisory Council for Children First Canada, and co-founded Flatten the Curve Canada, a youth advocacy organization responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

When asked about the struggles facing his position in the upcoming year, Kanji criticized the pace of Senate projects. He stressed the need to lobby for term limits, especially in light of the high turnover rate of student senator positions.

“It’s just some of the old guard that persists in the Senate … And because they sit on the Senate for decades, or for years at a time, it’s very difficult to make progressive action.”

Ultimately, however, he regards further governance review and the presence of student voices to be the keys to change.

“It’s probably better if we move forward with innovating this and making it something that is more fluid and something that is more flexible and something that changes often.”

Kanji is also running for VP academic and university affairs. U

10 | MARCH 7, 2022

SENATE TAT E K AU FMAN

ANISHA SANDHU

DA N A T U R DY

GEORGIA YEE

Third-year student Tate Kaufman is running to be a senator-at-large on a platform of prioritizing student academics and freedom of choice.

Currently serving as vice-president of Students for Freedom of Expression (SFE), Kaufman said he will advocate for “lessening the impacts that Senate regulations have on students,” particularly on those who are unvaccinated or choose not to disclose their vaccination status.

SFE faced criticism last fall for inviting far-right pundit Lauren Southern, who has questioned the existence of genocide at residential schools, to an event. UBC later cancelled the event.

Kaufman said he disagrees with the policy calling for deregistration of students who do not comply with the UBC COVID-19 safety rules and vaccination policy. The university discontinued its rapid testing program and vaccine declaration policy on March 1, making this policy defunct.

In a follow-up message to The Ubyssey, Kaufman said he would shift his focus to making classes fully in-person and advocating to remove all COVID-19 measures by fall.

Kaufman also highlighted the financial impact that students, particularly international students, faced during the pandemic.

He said he would ensure that international students would not have extra financial burdens placed upon them. He did not specify how this would be accomplished. The Senate does not control the university’s finances.

On student engagement, Kaufman said he said there should be one-on-one sessions where students can speak with student senators.

His ultimate goal as a student senator is to represent “the genuine will of students.”

Kaufman said one thing that motivated him to run for Senate this term is representing “the reality of what the valuable academic pursuit is.”

For example, he argued that in-person examinations are necessary for subjects that are objectively measured.

When asked how he would respond to students’ health concerns in regard to in-person exams, Kaufman said that there has to be a distinction between those with documented, serious illnesses and those that are “paranoid or hypochondriac.”

For the former, he would advocate for alternative accommodations.

For the rest of the student body, however, Kaufman emphasized that UBC is an in-person school.

Kaufman is also running for AMS president and the Board of Governors. U

Current faculty of land and food systems (LFS) student senator Anisha Sandhu is running for one of five student senator-at-large positions on a platform of increased accessibility, student engagement and action within student government.

The two-time elected student representative for LFS ran unsuccessfully for student senator-at-large in last year’s election. Sandhu is also running for VP academic and university affairs.

Sandhu said that her experience in the Senate will be beneficial in contributing to the upcoming triennium review, which is an internal review completed by faculty and student senators in the Nominating Committee at the end of every three-year cycle. The next review will be in 2023.

Sandhu aims to use her experience to inform changes in the terms of references for certain committees.

“The terms of references [are] rather narrow in terms of what the committee can do. It’s a lot of making recommendations to the Senate but not a lot of ‘doing’ currently,” she said.

From this, she wants the Academic Building Needs Committee — where she serves as vice-chair — to be able to create a standard for academic buildings to accommodate for accessible learning.

As a returning senator, Sandhu has an interest in the Academic Policy Committee. When asked about Policy V-102 on Examination Hardships and Clashes, which was approved by the Senate last April, she expressed that the conditions of the policy were too tight.

“It needs some refining to understand what academic hardship [is], because I think [even] with this policy, there is still some [unadressed] hardship[s].”

Sandhu said that there needs to be greater effort towards representing student voices.

In a follow-up interview, she said the Student Senate Caucus — a group that includes all 18 student senators — created a website to inform students about the Senate and enable them to get involved.

Apart from accessing information, she said students are also able to leave anonymous comments on the site, which is “a great feature to get a temperature check on how students feel about a certain topic.”

She did not detail how the website would encourage student engagement, however. U

Dana Turdy is running for one of the five student senator-at-large positions to bridge the gap between the student body and UBC leadership.

Turdy, a third-year arts student who is also running for VP academic & university affairs, wants to see changes in the transparency of the UBC Senate, accessibility of UBC’s campus and teaching and more accountability for those in leadership roles.

She said her experience as the AMS’s Strategy and Governance Lead and her current role as the first-ever Diversity Equity Coordinator with UBC Improv will be assets in achieving these goals.

In the Senate, she plans to advocate for equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI), including pushing for the creation of an EDI committee. The Senate sent a motion to establish an EDI committee back to the Nominating Committee during its October 20 meeting last year.

Turdy also wants to see action taken on reconciliation.

“If we want to work towards decolonization, if you want to work towards reconciliation … we should have a Senate committee that is completely devoted to that,” Turdy added.

Regarding the pending Senate decision on auditing honorary degrees, Turdy believes it’s a discussion “worth having.” “[We need to ask] who are we awarding? And what is this process? Who’s involved in these decisions? Are they representative of the UBC community?” she said.

Turdy is also focused on both course and campus accessibility. She argued that the approach to accessibility needs to be done “holistically” and not only with regard for the campus buildings themselves.

“It’s not just physical spaces, but also learning spaces. We’ve seen with COVID-19, students who are immunocompromised or … live with at-risk family members … can be scared to enter a huge lecture hall … we should be able to accommodate those students.”

Turdy wants more transparency around both Senate and UBC leadership decisions.

During her first two years at UBC, Turdy found the governing bodies “confusing” and wants to make it easier for students to be involved in Senate decisions.

“One of my priorities will be to push for a formal consultation process or guidelines for Senate decisions that … largely impact the UBC community and UBC students,” Turdy said. U

Georgia Yee is running for reelection to the Senate on a platform that encompasses Indigenous issues, affordability and both student and climate health.

Yee’s platform is summarized into five points which she calls her “ABCDEs”: approaching affordability holistically; bringing better student health, safety and career services; creating a climate-resilient UBC; developing digital UBC; and enacting equitable, just and accessible communities and systems.

One of Yee’s main goals within this platform is to continue developing courses that focus on Indigenous peoples.

She said that the aim is to “… ensur[e] that all academic programs include at least one course which will explore Indigenous histories and issues and how they intersect with [the] major field of study.”

Yee also wants to push for Senate involvement in COVID-19 policy going forward and for UBC to act “in a more proactive manner rather than a reactive manner.”

“I am currently working on establish[ing] more processes … so that the Senate is consulted on COVID-19 policy decisions, as well as COVID-19 matters,” Yee said.

Providing aid related to the mental well-being of both UBC students and staff is also a priority for Yee. “I will be creating a follow-through and plan for the implementation of the Senate Mental Health Framework, especially under these circumstances where COVID-19 has really … created such an impact on student and faculty mental health,” she said.

There have not been any changes relating to her previous platform regarding the creation of more open education materials, but she said that she’s been working with AMS VP academic & university affairs and fellow student senator Eshana Bhangu on this and has been in discussion with the Academic Policy Committee — although Yee does not sit on this committee.

Yee said she will work on making student politics more accessible. In the past year, she has been creating meeting summaries for the committees she sits on and posting them on Reddit, but she hopes to expand her reach.

“I’m exploring current initiatives to make this more widespread whether it’s, you know, one centralized … summary and then I can then disseminate that out on different social media platforms,” she said. U

Turdy wrote four articles for The Ubyssey between January and April 2021.

MARCH 7, 2022 | 11

BOARD OF GOVERNORS MAX HOLMES

TAT E K AU FMAN

GEORGIA YEE

Max Holmes is running for a fourth year on the UBC Board of Governors to see the Student Affordability Plan through and work on Campus Vision 2050.

The sixth-year geography student wants to advocate for better housing, transit and child care in the Campus Vision 2050 planning process, fight for funding on climate action and continue his work on affordability.

Holmes said his past experience working on UBC’s Housing Action Plan makes him the right student advocate to work on Campus Vision, the planning process to update the Land Use Plan and the Vancouver Campus Plan. “[I want to] transform our campus planning so that we can get out of this profit mindset and move towards mutual community benefit,” Holmes said.

On climate justice, Holmes said he wants to champion Climate Justice UBC’s funding asks and tackle the “tough questions” on what UBC is missing in its climate action.

In specific, he expressed concern that UBC neighbourhoods are not included in Climate Action Plan 2030 targets and emissions targets.

“If we’re going to have these ambitious goals for the university, we have to recognize that when it comes to the Board, we’re responsible for the neighbourhoods too,” he said.

On the Student Affordability Task Force, Holmes said he wants to see this task force through and make sure it has proper metrics embedded. Holmes also spoke to the need for intersectionality when it comes to the affordability plan.

If reelected, this would be Holmes’s fourth year on the Board. His bid for a lengthy term does have precedent — former student governor Jeanie Malone sat on the Board for four years.

But last year, students criticized Holmes for running for a third year on the Board.

Holmes pointed to his work on the academic concessions policy review and fall reading break when he was a senator.

Holmes spoke of the need for an affordability plan in his candidate interview with The Ubyssey in 2020 and 2021 — and now the Student Affordability Task Force is working on developing that plan.

“I do think that I’m somebody who has shown uniquely through the time that I’ve been here that I can get results,” he said. U

Third-year political science and English student Tate Kaufman is running for one of two student seats on the Board of Governors (BoG) to make UBC more affordable for students.

Kaufman, who is the vice-president of UBC Students for Freedom of Expression (SFE), said his background working with insurance policies and his persistent attitude will help him to advocate against tuition increases and for better housing support at the BoG. International student affordability, specifically in regard to tuition hikes, was Kaufman’s main talking point in an interview with The Ubyssey.

“It boggles my mind how over the past three or so years now, international students have been pushed around,” Kaufman said.

He was not able to speak in detail at the time of the interview about the work presented at the February Finance Committee meeting by the Student Affordability Task Force.

Student engagement also emerged as an important topic for Kaufman. “I’m someone who’s not afraid to go up and talk to people I don’t know already,” he said.

Kaufman pointed to his work as a research and reporting assistant at Policy Reporter, where he analyzed insurance policies for pharmaceutical and medical products. He said this taught him how to analyze and understand policies.

However, Kaufman was not able to point to a specific BoG policy he’s seen issues with.

While Kaufman said he plans to advocate more for academic freedom if elected to the Senate, he said he would advocate to change the bookings policy at the Board.

SFE came under fire last fall for hosting an event with farright pundit Lauren Southern who has questioned the genocide of Indigenous peoples at residential schools. UBC cancelled SFE’s room booking for the event. Kaufman said he disagrees with most of Southern’s political stances.

Kaufman said he’s a “liberal who believes in freedom of expression.”

“If you’re someone who believes in free expression, but is a generally liberal person who believes in other sorts of freedoms as well, I would say I’m your best guy to be advocating for you,” he said.

“If you want censorship, don’t vote for me.”

Kaufman is also running for AMS president and for a seat on the UBC Vancouver Senate. U

Incumbent Georgia Yee is seeking a second term on UBC’s Board of Governors (BoG) to push for holistic affordability, equity and better student health, safety and career services.

The fifth-year biology student was elected to the Board last year. Previously, Yee was the AMS’s VP academic & university affairs. She’s also running for a second term in the Senate.

Yee highlighted her work on disability at the Board this year as something she wants to see through to completion and an example of her commitment to equity work. She said she’s been consulting student advocates and those with disabilities on the creation of the Disability Task Force.

On affordability, Yee expressed interest in the Policy LR10 review — the financial aid policy — and in supporting the proposal for a multi-level tuition framework from the Student Affordability Task Force.

Conversations about the pandemic at BoG have been opaque over the last year, and Yee agreed that the Board should have been more transparent.

“Students have absolutely every right to be concerned about the lack of transparency that has been shown by the Board,” she said. Yee added that she and current BoG member Max Holmes have been continually raising concerns about the lack of transparency in the Board’s role.

However, she pointed to the development of the vaccine declaration program as a big win for the Board, despite the transparency concerns that led up to that announcement.

On her own personal engagement with students, Yee said she has tried to engage students through Reddit and social media, but acknowledged that she could do more. Last year, Yee criticized the former BoG reps for not properly communicating with students about what was happening on the Board.

“I didn’t necessarily see as many engagements necessarily [with those posts] as I had hoped, but there’s always room for improvement,” she said.

Yee said she’s running for reelection to continue the work she started this year.

“Seeing the Student Affordability Plan through, seeing the Disability Task Force work through, supporting the work of the Climate Emergency Task Force Recommendations as well, being able to also have that institutional knowledge [is why I am running],” she said. U

THE UBYSSEY’S BOARD OF DIRECTORS CANDIDATES JOSH UA KI M

JA L E N BAC H R A

L AU RE N B E N SO N

D A N I E L A N E N E - A KO S A

BEN MORRISON

M I L ADA DZ E VITS KI

12 | MARCH 7, 2022

The AMS said it would increa enough? written by NATHAN BAWAAN & PALOMA GREEN

This year’s AMS Elections seem to be returning to (a pre-pandemic) normal. The Board of Governors (BoG), Senate and all but one AMS executive race are contested, and referendum questions have returned to the ballot.

Though it is hard to say exactly what increases voter turnout, more contested races and more referenda — particularly surrounding student fees or the U-Pass — are often correlated with more participation according to past election cycles.

However, with voter turnout on the decline over the past two years and last year’s election seeing the lowest voter turnout in over a decade, turnout is not guaranteed to return to pre-pandemic levels, even with some of those indicators.

While the AMS has expressed an interest in boosting students’ electoral engagement, its efforts this past year, coupled alongside issues with the Elections Committee and its confusing messaging, don’t seem likely to help this ongoing student engagement problem.

Wasn’t there a committee for that?

After last year’s elections, AMS Council created a committee to look into election engagement.

The Elections Engagement Committee was intended to look into the reasons for last year’s low turnout, recruit and develop candidates to run and make sure there was a low barrier of entry to run. A report of its findings was set to be presented in September 2021.

But by the time September rolled around, members still had not met.

In a September interview with The Ubyssey, AMS President Cole Evans cited organizational challenges of getting proper representation on the committee as the reason for the lack of meetings.

There was also the problem of finding a chair. Initially, the committee was meant to be chaired by the chief electoral officer (CEO), but on August 25, Max Holmes, who had previously served as CEO in 2017, was selected to chair the committee.

In September, Holmes said he hoped the report would be completed by December.

But, after the committee met later that month, it decided it didn’t see a point in itself, according to Evans.

“I think there was a decision that was made at that point that was like, ‘You know, we are already in the fall, the elections team is going to be hired soon. Is this committee potentially just duplicating work that the Elections Committee should be doing?’”

Evans told The Ubyssey in January.

Council voted to disband the Elections Engagement Committee late last fall and passed off the report to the Elections Committee.

In November 2021, The Ubyssey reported that a report was expected in January of this year — but it never came.

A hard year for the Elections Committee A last-minute staffing change also presented a challenge for this year’s Elections Committee and its ability to discuss voter engagement strategies.

Late last November, the AMS’s then-CEO, Olivia Yu, was terminated upon her request following what she perceived as improper employee treatment.

At the time of her termination, Yu told The Ubyssey that she was given a transition report but little other support in entering her role.

Yu’s termination gave the AMS little time to find a new CEO. At its December 1 meeting, AMS Council gave the HR Committee power to select a new officer without Council approval.

By early January, the committee had hired first year Shania Muthu.

Muthu had only had one month to familiarize herself with the AMS and elections code before the start of the nomination period. Typically, the CEO has nine months.

She was also disadvantaged by not having an opportunity to run the fall constituency elections — which can be viewed as a trial run for the CEO. This lack of experience and time to familiarize herself with code has gotten Muthu and the whole Elections Committee into trouble.

First, it was the All-Candidates Meeting, where candidates said the Candidates’ Handbook contained incorrect dates. The Elections Committee sent candidates a follow-up email with the corrected dates, but that email stated the debates would be held in December, prompting another correction.

Then it was the ban on elections candidates consulting with student groups prior to the campaigning period, breaking an election standard. This ban appears to directly contradict Section IX, Subsection A, Article 2, Paragraph 6 of AMS code which allows candidates to have private communication about election plans. Muthu declined to comment on this ban.

Last week, the Elections Committee made the controversial decision to suspend the campaigns of presidential candidate Saad Shoaib and VP external candidate Erin Co for 24 hours, including the Great Debate, for similarities between the two candidates’ websites that amounted, in Muthu’s opinion, to “slate-like behaviour.”

The suspension was shortened to 12 hours to exclude the debate after the Elections Committee learned that AMS code allows all candidates to participate in election debates.

Shoaib and Co later appealed the decision, which the Elections Appeals Committee granted.

Muthu’s decision led to online criticism — including from Yu — that primarily centred around Muthu being a first year and perhaps an unfit CEO. But there have been many first year CEOs. “It was my first year when I was elections

administrator, and we increased turnout up to 20 per cent,” said Holmes, who was CEO during his first year. “So, you know, I had just as little or just as much experience.”

Holmes also serves as a student representative on the Board of Governors and is seeking reelection to a fourth term this year.

The Elections Committee released a statement on the online criticism, saying that “any sort of bullying and harassment at this time will not be tolerated toward the committee.”

“It’s very important for people to remember that these people running the elections and people running in elections are human beings too. It’s important that, while it’s okay to ask questions and be constructive, it’s not acceptable to attack people personally [or …] call people’s competencies into question,” Evans told The Ubyssey following the incident.

Evans clarified that the CEO is also expected to be respectful. Muthu responded to one of the online comments calling out a former exec for being disrespectful toward her.

Muthu told The Ubyssey she does not regret her response and feels it was justified.

In a recent interview with The Ubyssey, Evans said he helped Muthu with her onboarding process and has made himself available — as much as an AMS president can since AMS Elections are run independently from the AMS executives.

“There’s still ways that we can improve how we onboard the election staff, I’ve noticed this year. There are definitely some gaps in making sure that they are adequately supported,” said Evans.

“But again, the president can’t necessarily overly involve themselves in running the election.”

At the March 2 AMS Council meeting, councillor Katherine Feng asked Evans what training was provided for the Elections Committee ahead of this year’s elections, but he declined to comment.

Muthu agreed that the AMS has tried its best to onboard her during elections but said there is still room for improved support.

“I’d say that is just because of the given circumstances, how abrupt everything was left, and just … how difficult that kind of became because the election was obviously upcoming,” said Muthu.

Holmes also echoed this in a recent interview.

“I will say, as somebody who did come in as new, [I] 100 per cent agree that resourcing is a problem. I think that the AMS is really going to have to look at that, because this isn’t the first year that this has been a problem,” Holmes said.

A more money, fewer problems mindset Without a report on electoral engagement, the Elections Committee has budgeted more on promotional events than in recent memory to increase voter turnout and engagement.

Combined, the budget for this year’s elections and referenda is $63,558; elections

MARCH 7, 2022 | 13

ase election engament. Has it done

individually have a budget of $46,000.

For promotions and advertising, the AMS has allocated $7,000 — primarily for in-person events.

This figure was originally $5,000, but the Finance Committee added an additional $2,000 to the budget after the Elections Committee requested more money to hold promotional events.

The AMS tends to budget around $45,000 for elections each year, but in recent years, the actual amount spent has come to about $40,000. Last year was an exception; the student society only spent $27,043, likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the 2016/17 elections, the AMS ended up spending just under $4,982 of its $6,000 budget on advertising and promotions.

Since then, the AMS has not spent more than $3,000 promoting and advertising an election.

The Elections Committee and Evans hope the new AMS initiative Elect Change will help boost voter turnout.

Through Elect Change the AMS will donate $2 for every ballot cast to UNICEF Canada’s COVID-19 Fund.

The student society said it would donate up to $30,000 for this initiative, which translates to 15,000 ballots, or about 25 per cent voter turnout. Elect Change is not included in the elections budget and is instead funded by the internal projects fund.

According to budgets and elections records between 2010 and 2021 sent to The Ubyssey, it’s hard to say whether spending more on elections results in higher contestation or turnout.

Turnout has always fluctuated and the number of contested races has been somewhat constant since 2010 — barring last year’s election.

New year, new engagement strategy The Elections Committee has spent most of its allocated $7,000 for promotions on in-person events — which is unprecedented in recent memory.

The first of these events, Dress Up for Drama, took place on February 11 and has drawn criticism from some attendees.

The semi-formal event — which was hosted in The Gallery — cost $4,000, based on minutes from the February 4 Finance Committee meeting.

It aimed to increase student interest in the upcoming election via a Q&A panel with Muthu, Evans, VP Admin Lauren Benson and Student Senator-at-Large Dante Agosti-Moro. Free food and one free drink were also offered.

Promotion for the event included posts on the AMS Elections Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. But, according to those in attendance, many who were at the event seemed to already be people in the AMS or people who did not know what the event was about.

“I met these four girls who had no idea what the elections were about ... I was like,

‘Oh, are you guys interested in the elections?’

And they’re like, ‘No, we’re just here for the free food,’” said Sydney Harakal, an AMS presidential candidate this year.

“They weren’t listening to what the elections people had to say. They just ate the food and they were disappointed they couldn’t dance. There wasn’t a dance floor so they left.”

Harakal said they had to strain to hear the panel discussion on elections because the DJ continued to play over the panel. They said overall it was not particularly helpful.

“I know people that went to The Gallery that day and were told that there was a private event going on, and they couldn’t come in,” said Noah Jassmann, a VP finance candidate. “I don’t think having a private event for elections is the best [idea].”

Tickets for Dress Up for Drama did “sell out” — the event was free but required students to sign up to attend — according to the AMS Elections Instagram.

Feng requested that the Elections Committee create a report on the Dress Up for Drama event, along with a report on the lack of nominations for faculty student senators, at the March 2 Council meeting.

Both reports are due by April 6.

The Elections Committee is also planning a gala in the Great Hall in the Nest for results night on March 11. Although the event is happening after voting closes, the committee hopes requiring attendees to show that they voted will increase student engagement.

According to the February 4 Finance Committee meeting minutes, the elections team anticipates that the gala will cost a little more than the Dress Up for Drama event.

The Ubyssey asked Muthu for the exact budget, but she declined to comment before confirming it would be about $4,000.

The Elections Committee has yet to promote this second event on its social media.

Varsha Gangadharan, the chief returning officer for AMS Elections, told the Finance

Committee the team planned to use sponsored Facebook posts to advertise the event, but Muthu told The Ubyssey that they will not pay for any Facebook or Instagram advertisements for this year’s elections in general.

Holmes, who credited paid promotions as one of the reasons for the high turnout for the election he ran in 2017, said that while paid promtions are helpful, not to discount email blast effectiveness.

“When you look at past elections, and you actually see the big bumps in turnout, they always are associated with the email blasts that come from the [Elections] Committee,” he said.

AMS says it’s doing better According to Evans, the AMS as a whole has been promoting elections more than it did last year — something he promised to do during his reelection campaign.

The AMS has posted twice on its Instagram this year on elections: once on January 17 promoting a guide to elections created

by Evans and a March 2 post promoting the referendum questions.

Evans said he received positive feedback from some candidates on his guide to candidates, which was also sent out to clubs and student leaders.

However, Harakal said, as an outsider, they had a hard time finding information and had to put in a lot of work on their end.

“Before the election, I didn’t follow the AMS accounts, or the AMS Elections accounts … I got zero information from anything like [nominations], except for when I personally looked for it myself,” they said.

“So I think I can definitely see why it’s tough

to get students engaged, because you just got to trust that they’re gonna find you in the first place.”

Still, Holmes noted that this year’s elections have a diverse set of candidates, with both AMS insiders and outsiders running.

“I think [the diversity in candidates] does show that there’s been greater mentorship within the AMS this year and encouraging people to run, which is, a great thing to see,” said Holmes.

The jury is still out There is no way to really predict if voter turnout will return to ‘the pre-pandemic norm’ of 20 per cent before students head to the polls this week.

Voter turnout is a complex, multifaceted problem. While this election does have the normal indicators of an election headed for a decent turnout — contested races and referendum questions, particularly ones around student fees — Evans cautioned that the AMS will need to wait to see if it has done enough to engage with students.

“The thing about elections is that you really won’t be able to get a good answer [about if we had good engagement] until five years down the road, where you can sort of compare 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and see what the trends are,” said Evans.

— With files from Jackson Dagger and Charlotte Alden

14 | MARCH 7, 2022

Here’s what you need to know about this year’s

referendum questions written by AISHA CHAUDHRY, ELIZABETH MCDONALD & TINA YONG

Election season involves more than just voting for candidates: referenda are another way to have your say about what happens within the AMS. This election cycle has four referenda on the ballot. The AMS has put forward three questions, while the Bike Kitchen put forward one to increase its student fee.

Do you support an increase of $6.42 in the fee for the Sexual Assault Support Services Fund ($9.58 to $16) for the academic year 202223?

The last referendum on the SASC passed in 2019 and almost tripled its funding.

Since then, the SASC has seen the number of people who use its services nearly triple, according to its manager, Aashna Josh. This spike is consistent with a rise in sexual violence during the pandemic.

Josh said funds from the proposed increase will be put toward making the service more stable and accessible.

This would include adding several support staff members, hiring a fulltime educator and establishing a supplementary counselling fund and emergency fund to meet immediate needs like transportation and housing for survivors.

The SASC reduced its hours from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. to a new schedule of 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays because it is “quite over capacity,” said Josh.

“It was a change we had to make because we were so swamped,” Josh said.

If the funding increases are not approved, Josh said that students would experience long wait times, which is “[unideal] when someone is dealing with crisis or trauma.”

In addition to these support services, AMS President Cole Evans emphasized the educational and advocacy work done by the SASC. “This asset is incredibly important, arguably the most important service we offer at the AMS,” he said.

To pass, referenda must reach quorum. Quorum is reached when a referendum receives 4,762 ‘yes’ votes, and a majority ‘yes’ votes.

Referenda often fail, even when they receive more ‘yes’ votes than ‘no’ votes, simply due to not reaching quorum.

Here’s why you should care enough to vote on the referendum questions this year.

Do you support a fee increase of $3.86 for The Bike Kitchen?

The UBC Bike Kitchen put forward a referendum to increase its student fee from $1.14 to $5, which would help the bike shop stabilize its financial situation.

Currently, the Bike Kitchen is in a deficit of $30,000. The shop manager Alex Alvarez said the shop began facing financial issues in 2016.

In 2020, the shop’s situation worsened with the COVID-19 pandemic. The Bike Kitchen was closed for four months before reopening to an empty campus.

For a year, the shop’s main customers were gone, and Alvarez said the shop was paying bills but “not generating revenue ... and our inventory was collecting dust.”

Now, most students and staff have returned to campus. However, without stable finances, Alvarez said the shop has been unable to buy parts in advance and has been experiencing delays in receiving parts due to disruptions in the global supply chain.

The Bike Kitchen has spent the last few years “hemorrhaging money out of every possible way,” said Alvarez.

According to him, the extra $3.86 “would provide [the shop] with immense financial stability” and allow it to return to functioning at pre-COVID-19 levels.

AMS VP Finance Mary Gan said the AMS also supports the fee increase.

She said she believes it’s necessary as, without it, the Bike Kitchen would have difficulty ensuring things “are consistently running and sustainable for the next couple of years.”

AMS Council officially endorsed a ‘yes’ position on the referendum at its February 16 meeting.

If passed, the increase would commence during the 2022 winter session.

Do you support and approve the following changes and reductions to the AMS student fees?

1. Requiring all opt-outable fees to be opt-outable by digital means.

2. Eliminating the $1.18 fee for the Childcare Bursary Fund.

3. Reducing the fee for the Clubs Benefit Fund from $1.78 to $0.75.

4. Renaming the Lighter Footprint/ Sustainable Projects Fee as the Climate Action Fee and reducing it from $2.66 to $1.50.

The digital opt-out allows students to opt out of any AMS fees digitally. It remains unclear which fees this change would apply to specifically, given that some groups collect fees through the AMS, but are not AMS organizations.

Evans said that if there are sitting groups “that run a fee and ... it’s opt outable and it’s an AMS referenda-based fee ... if [this] referendum passes, you will have to provide digital opt-out options if you would like to keep that fee ... opt out-able.”

Student groups affected by this change will have a year to implement a process for the provision.

In addition, if this referendum passes, the $1.18 Childcare Bursary Fund fee would be eliminated. The fund currently has $320,000 in reserve, and this money would continue to be distributed as needed.

The Clubs Benefit Fund fee would be reduced to $0.75 — a reduction of $1.03.

The fund has $700,000 in reserve.

Finally, the Lighter Footprint/ Sustainable Projects Fee is slated to be renamed the Climate Action Fee and be reduced by $1.16. The fund has $580,000 currently in reserve.

The reduced fees will continue to be indexed to the BC Consumer Price Index.

MARCH 7, 2022 | 15

Do you support and approve amending the AMS Bylaws and Constitution in accordance with the changes presented in the documents entitled Proposed Changes to AMS Bylaws and the AMS Constitution?

Most of the 16 changes proposed for the AMS bylaws and three changes to the constitution are relatively straightforward. For example, one of them would ban proxies — when a representative allows a designated individual to vote on their behalf — to align with updates to the BC Societies Act. However, other proposals are more impactful. One would allow the Finance Committee to approve budget amendments under $5,000 if two-thirds are in agreement without AMS Council approval.

President Cole Evans said that “change is really about efficiency.”

He said that allowing the Finance Committee to approve budget amendments under $5,000 would allow Council to focus on issues that are of “a high-level and larger scale.”

Evans stated that small budget amendments that are “worth less than 0.1 per cent of our budget are not really a great use of our time.”

He noted the Council would still have to create the procedures and code for the power to go to the Finance Committee, and they could change policies if need be. Council could decide to limit the power of the Finance Committee to budget amendments from $1,000 or $2,000.

Concerning a potential lack of oversight of AMS funds, Evans said that the Finance Committee is made of councillors, “so there definitely is really strong oversight from the Fi-

ADVERTISEMENT

nance Committee on how the budget is being spent.” Minutes from the committee are also publicly available, but are sometimes delayed.

Another bylaw change would allow mandatory business to continue at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) if quorum is lost. The 2021 AGM resulted in five different motions that couldn’t be put forward for a vote.

During an AGM of a special general meeting, quorum is met when either one per cent or 500 active members are present.

Currently, the bylaw stipulates that if no quorum is achieved in the first half-hour of an AGM, the members present shall be deemed a quorum. The amendment would add that “if at any later time during the meeting a quorum is not present, those present shall be deemed to be a quorum.” This would ensure quorum can continue even if people leave the AGM after the first half-hour.

Evans gave examples of necessary business such as “approving the auditor’s statement, appointing the auditors, approving the report from the president [and] managing directors.”

The proposed changes also include altering the VP academic and university affairs’ responsibilities to put them in line with current practices. The role has evolved since its initial secretarial role. These new codified responsibilities would include the VP focusing on lobbying the university and liaising with Senate and the Board of Governors, among other duties.

Another proposed change includes entrenching a ban on running in slates in the bylaws. While already banned since 2004, according to the AMS Handbook, entrenchment would result in difficulty for future Councils to reverse the decision.

Slates are groups of candidates that run for office using a similar platform, resulting in mutual advantage.

Evans said entrenching slates is important because slates “tend to favour heavily established candidates.”

“We don’t really believe that slates create fair and accessible elections.”

There’s also a minor change to the society’s bylaws around records requests. The change simply adds “and activities” to a line designating certain records confidential: “plans and activities that relate to the management of personnel that have not yet been implemented, made public, or could result in financial harm to the Society.”

Evans said this is “clarifying language.”

He used the example of a “personnel investigation” as an “activity” that the society would want to keep confidential.

“We just wanted to clarify in our bylaws that includes all that could potentially include personnel activities ... to make sure that we’re protecting employee information that we are legally required to protect.”

Included in this referendum is a proposal to add a land acknowledgement to the constitution’s preamble. The 2020 AGM involved the AMS proposing an addition of a land acknowledgement but it failed to reach quorum.

Land acknowledgements are common practice at UBC, which is located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Musqueam people.

The constitutional amendments proposed also include adding language that includes AMS members from affiliated institutions and a section noting just and equitable treatment of members. U

16 | MARCH 7, 2022

The Ubyssey’s guide to all the 2022 AMS ELECTIONS CANDIDATES

WHO SHOULD YOU VOTE FOR IN THIS YEAR’S AMS ELECTIONS? All year, we’ve been attending governance meetings and keeping an eye on what’s going on in the AMS, Senate and Board of Governors. We’re familiar with the issues and the pressures of each position in student government. This elections season, we talked to all the candidates, attended all the debates and fact-checked their claims and platforms. Here’s the result.

We’re not here to tell you who to vote for, but we will be honest about each candidates’ strengths and weaknesses.

Behold, The Ubyssey’s guide to all of the 2022 AMS Elections candidates.

MARCH 7, 2022 | 17

President

Tate Kaufman Kaufman wants to remove all COVID-19 measures on campus, cut AMS frill expenses and make financial resources for BIPOC and low-income students more accessible as AMS president. Although Kaufman says he’ll advocate against COVID-19 restrictions like vaccination requirements for gyms, he might be overestimating the president’s role in lobbying the provincial government. His debate performance also showed that he’s not very familiar with the society’s policies. Kaufman is the VP of Students for Freedom of Expression (SFE), a student group heavily criticized for attempting to bring controversial speakers to campus, like far-right pundit Lauren Southern. He said he would resign from SFE if elected.

The Pan Eshana Bhangu

The Pan is an inanimate object. It also doesn’t want to get elected. It’s funny — although it did call learning about the Equity Action Plan ahead of the election “unpaid labour” — and has some good ideas on creating a more spirited community. However, if students are upset at the current AMS administration for its lack of effectiveness, an AMS under The Pan would be worse. Again, it’s an inanimate object. Maybe students are so fed up with the AMS that they believe a cooking utensil is their only option. But if students want to see actual change, they should look outside the kitchen.

Bhangu is one of two highly-qualified candidates running for AMS president in this year’s crowded field. She is part of the AMS establishment, but she seems to genuinely care about students. Through her work as VP academic & university affairs and a student senator-at-large, she has championed student interests by acquiring KN95 masks, extending the drop deadline for term two and pushing UBC to enact stronger vaccination and mask policies. But her personal attacks against a fellow exec during debates call into question her ability to play nice with execs — a trait that could hinder her ability to fulfill her many promises.

The Pan’s human representative is Thomas McLeod, The Ubyssey’s Opinion & Blog Editor. He is not involved in this year’s election coverage.

Wesley Choi

Remy the Rat

Choi said it himself: “I am so unqualified.” While he said he will read up on AMS policies and rules if elected, the learning curve will be steep. Still, Choi’s heart is in the right place. His interest in fostering a community for students coming out of the pandemic is rooted in his personal experiences — he feels disconnected from campus after transferring from UBC Okanagan into online classes last year. He is also arguably the most approachable and genuine of this year’s presidential candidates. The question is: how far does approachable get you?

Remy is literally a rodent. Although he has questionable hygiene – because he’s a rat – Remy has seemingly good platform points like climate justice, food security and student engagement. But, his performance during the debates has shown that he doesn’t know AMS policy well, potentially indicating that he wouldn’t be able to follow through on platform promises. Also, he can’t read. After being kicked out of Open Kitchen, Remy’s looking for a new home, but he might not be able to handle the heat in the kitchen if elected president.

Sydney Harakal

Saad Shoaib

Of the newcomers, Harakal is the most qualified, but they still don’t have a good understanding of how the society functions. They performed well at the debates, and would bring an important voice as a Queer, Indigenous person to an organization that has historically lacked this perspective. Their goals of creating more study spaces and social opportunities seem achievable, but their desire to oppose tuition increases by adding more students to the Board of Governors is unrealistic. Harakal has some good ideas, and has potential to represent students well, but they would need to read up more on what an AMS president can actually do.

Shoaib is another highly-qualified candidate in this year’s presidential race. After serving as associate VP external and VP external, he can point to his successful campaigns to permanently end student loan interest and to set minimum standards within post-secondary sexual violence policies. But, as has been brought up often, he recently met with an independent MP whose previous sexual assault charge was highly publicized. Shoaib also knew about the charge ahead of time — but said he didn’t know the “extent” of it. He has apologized, but this controversy reflects an error in judgement that some students might not be able to easily forgive.

VP External

Erin Co

James Cabangon As this year’s associate VP external, Cabangon already has some experience advocating for students at the highest levels of government. Through the campaign, he displayed knowledge about every aspect of the portfolio, and was aware of his predecessor’s shortcomings. He brings some new ideas to the table, namely his focus on lobbying for climate action. Cabangon is certainly a qualified candidate, but may have overemphasized that fact. His focus on the inexperience of other candidates during the debates brings into question whether he would be interested in giving others the chance to gain the knowledge needed to succeed him.

Co maximized her time in the VP external office, gaining lobbying and policy drafting experience, despite officially being associate VP campaigns and community engagement commissioner. She showed a passion for helping other students, and has specific ideas on how to do so on a broad range of issues. She is no AMS outsider, and her platform is trying to move forward on accomplishments the office has made in years past. What sets Co apart is her experience working on campaigns and student engagement, both in and out of the AMS. With that, she seems best equipped to change the VP external’s reputation as being disconnected from students.

Sanchay Jain Jain came into this race with a personal angle, wanting to respond to racially-charged hate crimes and international student issues. While being a newcomer to the AMS can help bring in innovative ideas, Jain brought general plans but not enough policy knowledge. Jain had difficulty articulating how he wants to accomplish his goals, often falling back on saying he would speak to as many students as possible to find out what their concerns are.

He says he would give the position his all if elected, but the steep learning curve might make it difficult for him to be an effective advocate.

18 | MARCH 7, 2022

VP Finance

Noah Jassmann Having worked for a major financial firm in the past, Jassmann has experience in finance but seems to lack long-term vision. His pitch to increase mental health subsidies to $2,000 per student — while admirable — is likely unaffordable without a referendum to increase student fees. Jassmann has misunderstood the AMS’s relationship to the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office — which is UBC-funded — on multiple occasions, and could not speak on the basics of the new financial system at debate. Both these details demonstrate a lack of research, with Jassmann instead falling back on transparency and consultation talking points. Like Gill, Jassmann will need to do more research.

Angad Singh Gill

Rita Jin

Gill has many big ideas for the VP finance role, but those ideas may not be feasible. His promise to eliminate the AMS’s one-size-fits-all health and dental plan involves significant negotiation with the organization’s insurers, a task that would take longer than Gill’s term and would likely extend beyond the VP finance’s scope. Similarly, his promised participatory budgeting would extend the budget process significantly. Gill also lacks the financial background and knowledge of AMS systems and processes. He views the VP Finance role as a learning experience, but he’ll need to learn quickly to keep afloat if elected.

Jin currently works within the VP finance office. As associate VP Finance, she is clearly very familiar with the AMS’s financial systems. This experience makes Jin a qualified and prepared candidate for the VP finance role.

However, this leaves her complicit in any financial issues faced over the past year. She also seems significantly less interested in transparency compared to her opponents. Jin is certainly the AMS establishment candidate, and she seems confident that this fact will carry her to victory. Time will tell how this confidence, and potential lack of interest in student engagement, will affect her capacity to effect change.

VP Academic and University Affairs Anushreya Arora

Anisha Sandhu

First year Arora seems excited to help students but doesn’t appear to have done much background research or have clear goals. In her interview, she was unfamiliar with open educational resources, something previous VP Academic have focussed on in their advocacy. While it’s expected that newcomers won’t have the knowledge that comes from in-depth experience in student government, Arora could have filled a lot of the gaps with a cursory look through the AMS and Senate websites. However, as the only international student running for VPAUA, Arora does provide a perspective that other candidates may not have.

Sandhu’s passion for making UBC students’ lives better is clear. As a twotime senator and the AMS sustainability coordinator, her resume is strong.

However, her responses at the debates were often lacking in substance.

The VPAUA needs to stand up for students in tense situations with top university admin and her debate performance didn’t make it clear she’d be able to do that. She does stand out as the only candidate to mention graduate student stipends in her platform and her focus on affordability and wellbeing could lead to real changes for UBC students. Overall, Sandhu is a passionate candidate with relevant experience, but might not be the most effective advocate for students

Kamil Kanji

Dana Turdy

Kanji has a wealth of experience in the AMS and with the office of the VPAUA through his work on the Advocacy Committee. Kanji’s proposals and stances span much of the VPAUA portfolio and show an aspiration to deliver for students while being tempered by real-world experience. Fellow candidate Dana Turdy did make a solid point when she mentioned in the debates that he had no mention of sexual violence prevention in his platform. But if Kanji is able to achieve his goals with regards to OERs, lecture-capture technology and Black student support, he’ll be able to improve the lives of virtually every UBC student.

While many candidates promise to better engage students, Turdy is one of the few who has a solid plan: she wants to introduce formal consultation guidelines. Furthermore, Turdy came off well at the debates and she’d undoubtedly be just as quick on her feet when lobbying the university as VPAUA. But after keeping her hands clean for most of the two debates, she sprang some (mostly valid) attacks on her fellow candidates near the end, denying them a chance to respond if she had criticized them earlier in debate. Still, Turdy is clearly passionate about making life better for UBC students and has plans to make it happen.

VP Administration

Ben Du Du has extensive experience with the VP admin portfolio from his time as associate VP. He also has specific plans for how he’ll achieve his platform which is focused on helping clubs return to pre-pandemic membership levels and activity, increasing transparency and improving communications with clubs and constituencies. But during the debates, Du showed a lack of knowledge on some specific policies that impact the portfolio, specifically I-17, the AMS’s Sexual Violence Policy. Du also expressed a blasé attitude to being uncontested, which is concerning given this is the second year in a row the VP admin race has been uncontested.

MARCH 7, 2022 | 19

Board of Governors Max Holmes Holmes says this year would be his last if he is reelected to the Board. The sixth-year student is running for a fourth year on the Board after a lengthy stint in student governance. He has proven himself to be an effective advocate for students. Most recently, the university finally made progress on a Student Affordability Plan, something Holmes has championed for years. He also spoke in detail about his plans for advocacy for Campus Vision 2050 — something his competitors didn’t do. He has the relationships, the knowledge and the drive. While many may think Holmes has overstayed his welcome (and maybe he has!), he wouldn’t be a lame duck in his supposed last year in student governance.

Tate Kaufman Students for Freedom of Expression vice-president Kaufman walks the line on most Board issues but often provides fewer specifics than someone who truly understands the policy. Kaufman is also running for AMS president, and if he wins, he would often be prevented from voting on any Board motions the student society was consulted on due to conflict of interest rules. This would mean there could be one less student vote on student-facing issues. Additionally, Kaufman’s focus on freedom of expression doesn’t necessarily align with the work the Board does, and could alienate himself from governor allies and actual student interests.

Georgia Yee Yee is seeking a second year on the Board. She’s made her commitment to equity, climate action and transparency clear, and has strong community ties. However, it is a bit unclear what she’s accomplished on the Board over the last year. In interviews, she highlighted her work in bringing voices of disabled students to the Board, but in open Board meetings, Yee often doesn’t speak up or bring up specific concerns. However, Yee is a returning governor, so she would be able to get right back to work on the formation of a Disability Task Force, something that would benefit many.

Senate Dante Agosti-Moro

Tate Kaufman

Incumbent Agosti-Moro is a passionate advocate for students. He has tangible goals centring around seeing through structural and systemic change in the Senate, implementing a permanent standing committee for equity, diversity and inclusion and the appeals committees’ processes. Out of all the candidates, he appears to be the most involved and knowledgeable on the administrative side of the Senate. During his time in the Senate, he co-chaired the Student Senate Caucus and chaired the Elections Committee. He’s also one of two Senate candidates only running for one position. His passion for structural change and his experience in leadership make him a strong candidate.

Kaufman, a newcomer to UBC governance, is committed to advocating for “freedom” and representing the “genuine student voice,” though it’s unclear which students he’s referring to with this statement. His advocacy includes returning fully to in-person, holding in-person examinations and lifting COVID-19 measures. He did propose alternative accommodations for immunocompromised students, but also displayed a lack of compassion towards concerned students, telling them to attend a different university if they don’t want to attend in-person classes. As a member of Senate, Kaufman also says he’ll fight for international students and those from conflict-ridden countries, but set out no specific plans to do so.

Eshana Bhangu

Anisha Sandhu

Incumbent Bhangu is running for reelection as a student senator-at-large, and has a good track record. Although her goals are ambitious, her time in the Senate proves her ability to deliver. One of her biggest successes was when she drafted and pushed for the drop date extension to February 6. Additionally, as the primary author of Senate 2023, she is well-versed in policy and emphasizes the importance of fighting for students in committee meetings, where student senators are a minority. All-inall, Bhangu shows that students are at the forefront of her platform, and that she delivers on her promises. Bhangu is also running for AMS president.

Sandhu has two years of experience on Senate, which can be a huge asset as a senator-at-large. She’s approachable and said she has good relationships with other senators. Her platform, however, was based largely on ambiguously-phrased goals that most of the candidates also promised, such as increased student engagement and improved accessibility on campus. With the triennial review coming up, Sandhu wants to drive change within the Senate through rewriting committee terms of references and creating a code of conduct. However, she hasn’t been a prominent student advocate in the Senate in the past, raising the question of how she’s going to accomplish these lofty goals.

Romina Hajizadeh Hajizadeh is friendly and confident. She has done her research and has adequate knowledge of the Senate. Her experience is in the AUS and AMS — she is currently an AMS councillor and the chair of the AMS Human Resources Committee. She’s also one of two Senate candidates only running for one position. She has a strong platform, but it might be too ambitious for how focused senators have to be to get anything done in a slow-moving body. Hajizadeh’s focus on transparency and student engagement is admirable, and she has experience in it — she organized AMS town hall on Instagram recently, albeit “town hall” is a loose term for the result. If elected, Hajizadeh will have to narrow her focus.

Dana Turdy Despite being a newcomer, Turdy is well-versed in Senate policy and has been paying close attention to past meetings. Her passion for advocacy will likely help her achieve her goals, even if she may have a difficult time doing everything she has set out to do within the body’s restrictive bureaucracy. She also lacked some specificity at times, particularly around her interest in creating a task force on accessibility. As she is running for AMS VP academic and university affairs, it would make sense for her to also be a member of the Senate where she would have more opportunities to advocate for student interests.

Kamil Kanji

Georgia Yee

Kanji has a lot to say and his drive clearly comes from a good place. He articulated his platform well during the debates, showing awareness of both pressing student concerns and the Senate’s previous policies. Kanji managed to ground his open education resources and lecture capture promises in the administrative and technical steps needed to achieve them. As well, his goal of creating dedicated spaces for Black students shows he’s been paying attention to what the Black Caucus has been requesting. Also running for VP academic and university affairs, a seat on Senate would be useful if he wins. While his plans are ambitious, Kanji has done his research and can likely use his previous experience in governance to pull them off.

Yee has an accessible platform focused on equity and Indigenous consultation that proposes some great ideas. Her push to include more voices from marginalized communities makes her a good bet to help create a standing Equity, Diversity and Inclusion committee. Yee has an agreeable personality that makes her likely to form connections and bonds easily, but she can have a difficult time getting to the point in her answers, making her a little unclear at times.

As an incumbent senator, she has the advantage of understanding the Senate body, but it’s unclear what changes she’s personally effected since becoming a member.

20 | MARCH 7, 2022

Referenda SASC fee increase The Sexual Assault Support Centre’s (SASC) usage has tripled in the time since its last referendum in 2019. SASC’s fee currently sits at $9.58, and the SASC team wants to bump it up to $16. This is a biggish ask — an increase of $6.42 — but we think that’s a small price to pay for such a valuable service. SASC has been asking for another increase for a while now, and this change would allow it to hire more staff to meet the growing demand students have for its service. SASC provides survivor support, hospital accompaniments, educational workshops and much more for free to UBC students and their family or friends. Even if you haven’t personally used SASC’s services, you probably know someone who has. Paying the price of a bubble tea is worth it to support survivors.

Bylaw and constitution amendments This referendum is a whole swath of bylaw and constitution changes stuck into one question. Most of these are fairly straightforward and understandable — some of them are basic asks such as aligning the society’s bylaws with amendments to the Societies Act and updating the VP academic and university affairs’s responsibilities to match their real-life duties. But there are a few changes to flag: first, this referendum would allow the Finance Committee to pass budget amendments under $5,000 without Council approval, potentially lessening financial transparency. The society is also asking to add personnel “activities” to its bylaw on requesting records — meaning that any activities of staff deemed harmful to the society to release, such as a personnel investigation, cannot be requested.

The president said this change is minor, and simply to ensure the society is protecting employee confidentiality, but it’s worth a deeper look into this one before you vote.

Digital opt-outs and fee reductions This referendum includes fee reductions and an amendment to require digital opt-outs for all opt-outable fees. We support the fee reductions, given the large amounts currently in the funds. Voting on this referendum won’t save students a lot — if the referendum passes, students will only save a total of $3.37 — but every bit counts! On the digital opt-outs part of this referendum, we support it in principle because allowing people easier access to opt-out of fees is important, especially in a pandemic. But, we’re concerned the AMS didn’t properly consult with affected groups. When asked at a recent Council meeting whether the president has talked to those groups, President Cole Evans said he hadn’t. It’s also still unclear which groups will be impacted. The Ubyssey could be impacted, but we’re unsure due to a lack of communication from the AMS. If this referendum passes, we urge you to research the fee or service you’re opting out of. Many of them, including The Ubyssey if we are impacted, depend on these fees to function.

Bike Kitchen fee increase The Bike Kitchen is a beloved community service. It’s been struggling financially for years, a challenge that has only been made worse by the pandemic. The bike shop is asking for a modest increase of $3.86, which would raise the tiny fee from $1.14 to $5.

We think this is worth a ‘yes’ vote, as it would be a shame to see this valuable service disappear. The Bike Kitchen services bikes for an affordable price, and has a community-based environment in which people can learn to fix bikes. It also gets a gold star on sustainability — what’s more sustainable than encouraging people to ride their bikes? However, if this passes, we urge the AMS to keep a closer eye on the shop’s finances going forward. The financial troubles stretch back a few years, and it’s important to ensure that going forward, the Bike Kitchen doesn’t return to the same dire financial situation it’s in right now. U

MARCH 7, 2022 | 21

Op-Ed from the News Editors: Voting in this year’s election is more important than ever.

Here’s why

Last year, only 6.9 per cent of the UBC Vancouver student body voted.

Ha-ha, but seriously.

That’s only 4,233 students out of the more than 60,000 student body. That means that despite being elected, your current representatives don’t represent most of you — they represent the seven per cent of you that gave enough of a damn to vote last year.

This is not intended to shame you in any way — the last two years have been overwhelming, scary and sad. Finding time to vote for your student government representatives when navigating a global pandemic or coping with an onslaught of racial and climate injustices is not a priority for most people. We get that.

But this year is different. Most people are back on campus. The whole world seems to be trying to return to normal while a pandemic is still raging and people are still dying every day from COVID-19.

That makes your vote all the more important.

Last year showed, more than any other year that we’ve been at UBC, that student government matters. In the last year, your AMS, the student senators on the UBC Vancouver Senate and the student representatives on the Board of Governors have pushed hard for students.

They’re the reason why Proctorio was restricted across the university, why the drop date deadline was extended earlier this term, why some finals moved online at the end of the exam period in December, why students now have access to free KN95 masks, why you have $500 more for mental health cover-

age… we could go on. Whether you agreed with these decisions or not, it’s hard to deny that students had an impact.

This is not to be a celebratory piece for all the incumbents running this year — many of them have flaws and have made mistakes, and we aren’t afraid to point those out. But this year showed that what the student government does have a direct impact on students.

There are also this year’s referendum questions. If you happened to forget about them, we wouldn’t blame you — there weren’t any last year and the year before then feels like a lifetime ago.

Nevertheless, referenda are just as important to vote in as the other races on your ballot. If you care about how much you pay in fees, a few of the referendum questions this year allow you to decide on specific fee increases and fee reductions, as well as whether you can opt-out of certain fees digitally.

There is also a question on some bylaw and constitution changes which could have an impact on the AMS’s financial transparency.

If you didn’t vote last year, we get it. Not many people care as much as we do about all of this.

After all, it’s our job to keep up and keep you informed. So it’s also our duty to tell you to vote.

Less than seven per cent of the student body voting does not result in a representative democracy.

And there’s no benefit to not being properly represented.

So this year, find the time to vote. Take the time to translate your angry Reddit comments and venting sessions with your friends about the AMS and UBC into action. U

22 | MARCH 7, 2022

THE

GREAT DEBATE

MARCH 7, 2022 | 23

AMS

ELECTIONS BINGO “Engagement”

Joke candidates have better platforms than serious candidates

Candidates talk over each other

Someone mentions slate-like behaviour

Candidate gives a non-answer

You see Eshana Bhangu and Max Holmes talking smack

A candidate is someone you hooked up with in first year

You get a Facebook friend request from every candidate

“SkyTrain to UBC” even though it’s likely happening

You remember execs make $39,000 plus benefits

Candidate gets penalty box’d

“Stakeholders”

VO TE

You take a selfie with each joke candidate

You keep up to date with elections facts through @UbysseyNews

“As the incumbent (or associate VP)…”

Candidate claims someone endorsed them, even though they didn’t

You see Cole Evans lurking

A BoG candidate has no idea what BoG is

You fall asleep during the Great Debate

“Free speech”

Someone mentions “quorum” and you Google what that means

Candidate drops out of the race right before voting starts

You match with a candidate on Tinder

Candidate argues with the moderator

24 | MARCH 7, 2022

ADVERTISEMENT

e ston k c a Bl r? hat Is t Porte

aye

$

4 PINTS

Y!!

GREEN BEER ALL DA

no

$

5

PINTS

BLACKSTONE

NITRO

$

onti

rs me till the wee hou

St. PADDY’S DAY

5 SHOTS “JAMESON”

M P 1 1 O T M P 8 C I BVP LIVE MUS