Why are you running independently as opposed to in a team?
It’s something that I really strongly considered before beginning my campaign itself. I did reach out to a few individuals that I thought would make positive team members, that I would be comfortable running with and believed would be suitable for the roles. Unfortunately, the time commitment that Feds does ask of their executives was a bit too much for some of them. Others had other involvements that they already had. Based on that I decided I would run as an independent candidate and I think it was a good choice in the end. I was able to focus on my campaign.
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; background-color: transparent;">As I was reading the platform, I realized that the main task for VPIN, mainly supervising Feds services, UW clubs and student societies, in your platform, they were really at the bottom, near the end of the additional plans. These main functions of your role were only touched upon in the additional plans. In the other points you highlighted transparency talking with, I believe you highlighted the website as well. What are your reasons for putting these in the additional plans as opposed to in its own section? Are you not prioritizing them?</span></p>
In reality [the VP internal responsibilities] are, for every other plan, the key focus. What they end up being is that because [the responsibilities] are so involved in every other platform point, it seemed false somehow to put them in as their own platform point because they really were involved in every other aspect of my platform. Open communication is to allow all of the clubs and services to actively connect with students, for students to actively connect with them and their federation of students as well… Definitely with the Feds website is a huge part for where I want to support to the clubs and services because they aren’t able to do their jobs to the maximum efficiency if they can’t rely on consistent online support.
Under the health Services and Counselling Services section of your platform, you mentioned hiring more staff. Can you elaborate on that? Would that be campaigning for more staff to be hired by health services and counselling services or would this be staff hired by Feds?
Absolutely with Health services and Counselling. It’s something I’ve seen time and again, and it’s something I know the staff there is just as upset about because they don’t like making students wait any more than students like to wait… They don’t have the staff to be able to keep up with the demand that students have on their tie… We definitely just need to face the facts that we need more councilors on campus. We need more staff in health service for it to be successful. It’s something that I want to see and I want to give my background information and knowledge and give that to the VP of education, the VP of finance, and help them to talk to the university to lobby them to saying that this needs to change.
One of the platform points was bi-weekly blog updates from the Feds executives. I know they do post sometimes Feds news releases, what is your plan for these blog updates?
We see them from time to time sort of come up … it's something I’d like to see be a more consistent thing. That the individual execs are being much more accountable to their positions. It also ties in really closely with my intention to bring forward an end of term summary report.
Say a student comes up to you, knows nothing about you, nothing about your platform, how would you convince them to vote for you?
Basically what I want to say to anyone who’s asking me for the first time why should I vote for you, because I care about Feds and I care about students caring about Feds. I believe that what I can bring to the table is a much clearer, more open feds, that students can feel proud of their student union, which I don’t think a lot of students feel that way right now… majority [of students] are kind of apathetic.… I want to be the person who tells them, this is what feds does for you. It’s clear. It’s easy to understand.
