The President (1)

Here it is. The long awaited Presidential post. I am going to do these in the order in which I think they will finish (and a little hope as well!) in reverse order (last-to-first)

Marc Kelly
What? Does he even think he has a chance? His performance in the debates was marked with laughter at some of his outlandish statements. I think he needs to realize that most students like Allan Rock. He has kids in university right now, he is in Uganda this very moment doing humanitarian work. He is not an evil monster. Even Kelly's platform is bunk. Having students choose what they are going to do for their classes by voting on a syllabus or getting to choose it themselves is not a good thing. He continually claims that the syllabus is a contract, while it is in effect a COURSE OUTLINE! There are only three actually candidates running in this election.

Tyler Steeves
While he is my second choice for President, I do not think he will be a contender. There are a few reasons for this, one is that he is a management student, which means that he belongs to only the 5th largest faculty. Less than half the size of Social Sciences and smaller even that the science faculty. Beyond this obstacle, which can be quickly overcome, he lacks a commonality. By this I mean he has an air of arrogance around him. While I think he is a nice guy, and had an extended conversation with him post-debate, I think he is over-confident. His platform is decent, but lacks actual practical idea, and he is just spouting rhetoric (although rhetoric I agree with). He also knows a good idea when he sees it, saying that if elected, he would enact some of the ideas from other candidates as well.

Seamus Wolfe
Where do I begin? Seamus rubs me the wrong way. Whether it is using our money to campaign for things that are not in our best interests, or continually participating and creating events that are nothing more that SFUO masturbatory efforts to make themselves feel good. He may be considered the "front runner" due to name recognition, but let's remember that you may recognize the name, but why? A major part of his campaign this year has been to tell students what he has accomplished, and while these may be honorable feats, if students truly cared about these things then they would already know he did them (or that these things even existed!). When he is asked about the SFUO abandoning its members in favour of another union, he rests on his claim that the SFUO got busses for the students during exams, and doesn't own up to the actual question.

Seamus has not been a full-time student at uOttawa since (at least) 2006-07, which means that he also hasn't paid any tuition since then. As a member of the Exec, you can only take up to 7 credits per semester, and the costs from those credits is absorbed by the SFUO, so it’s a benefit/perk. How can he pretend to know what it is like to be a full-time student if he hasn't been one since 2006/07? Here is the quote from the fulcrum from Seamus: “It is time that the SFUO really actively outreach to students who are not involved and students who are not seeing all the benefits they can from the student federation.”

I ask you this: shouldn't he already have been doing this in his 2 years on the exec?It is time for a change, it is time for a new face, it is time for:

Renaud-Phillippe Garner (RPG)

Let's just ask ourselves what matters to us. Is it tuition fees or finals? A code of conduct or that paper we have yet to start? RPG wants to have the library open 24 hours during exams. RPG wants to change scholarships so they work on a sliding scale. If you marks go down, so does your scholarship, not like now, where if you marks go down you lose it all. These are things that affect a majority of students. While tuition fees and the code of conduct also affect us all, they do so in different ways.The SFUO has a huge mandate, and don't you want the person in charge of it to be approachable and accessible to you? I had a couple of extended conversation with Renaud, and the only thing he lacks is a sense of entitlement.

He will be receiving my vote, and he should also be getting yours.