I’m a big fan of balancing out coverage of the elections, and while it’s fine and well to analyze soundbites and award points, sometimes it’s necessary to post photos of people bearing facial expressions that only appear between words, and for us to come together as a community in laughing at the people who are putting so much of themselves out there in the hopes of serving their fellow students.
Ale Coates and Tom Dvorak, our VP Finance Candidates.
Fire was sadly unable to ignite the crowd’s interest; although there was plenty of kindling (especially with all the plants), the jokes just seemed to sputter.
Here’s Rory Green, Tim Chu’s painfully loud campaign manager. I found myself distracted by her a number of times, which did affect my opinions of Tim.
Serious VPX Candidates Iggy and Tim. Tim stood up when he spoke which really only served to highlight how he was a wisp of a man next to the Iggy.
Bruce Krayenhoff, electoral reform nerd (this is a term of endearment around here) asks a question about BC-STV.
The Kings Head sips tequila through a straw. I’m not sure why the joke candidates aren’t spread out over multiple races; doubling up as they have will only make it harder to get their 10% of the vote.
After Iggy’s opening gambit about protest politics, current VPX Stef Ratjen delineated all the ways in which protests, demonstrations, and student initiatives had been successful over the past year (especially in the case of the Aquatic Centre, which went from “closing the free gym” to “free for students almost all the time”) and asked if/how the candidates would continue.
The answers were interesting, but I’ll leave it up to Maria to examine them in depth.
From left to right:
- Blake Frederick — current AVP External, former Insiders writer, Presidential candidate
- Michael Duncan — current AMS President, former SUS President, often seen shirtless and painted blue
- Tristan Markle — current VP Admin, VP Admin candidate, former owner of awesome dreadlocks
- Bijan Ahmadian — current BoG rep, former AMS Ombudsman, somehow on campus for 11 years.
Mike’s the only one who seemed to watch the crowd while the other people spoke; he also ended up looking at any cameras pointed at him, which really does work in his favor.
Debate Moderator and AUS President Avneet Johal. AJ is living in a tent in the Ike Barber Learning Centre at the moment to raise awareness and funds for schools in India. He gets five minutes an hour away from said tent to do whatever he needs to do outside the tent and so ended up staying in the tent for eighteen hours (!) to bank up the time to moderate the debate. That’s dedication, folks. Or insanity. Your call.
This is just a picture I like, but again, note that Mike is looking at the camera.
If you don’t watch SNL, you won’t understand this.
Ok, now it is time for REALLY?! With Rory Green.
Me cheering made you think less of Tim? Really? Someone who has been active in journalism for, what seems like quite a while is judging candidates based on how loud my “woo-hoos” are? ReallyR? This is how your opinions are formed? Realy??
And, Iggy’s cheer section at the back, who chanted “IGGY IGGY IGGY” didn’t also affect your opinion of Iggy? Really? When an Iggy supported held up a large Bristol board sign saying “TIM CHU NOT FOR YOU” you had no problem with that? Really?!?! Members of Iggy’s campaign team interrupting current V.P. External when she tried to ask a question didn’t bother you, but me cheering for a friend did…. Really!?
Really! Really? Really.
I’m very curious as to why the actual substance of the ‘debates’ are not relayed here. Maybe there was no real substance, and no real debate. Therefore, we must make sure everyone looks nice in their pretty picture for this year’s terribly run and horribly attended elections and so-called debates. Students main complaint when they see my videos of the debates or show up for a little bit is how people don’t actually care about what is going on. The question that is not being asked is ‘whose job is it that’s not being done to promote the fact that there are elections happening, and that they are actually pretty important’? Why did the AMS pull off so many resources together to promote the referendum, and yet, when it comes to their own elections, somehow the resources are not there at all, people are barely aware, if they are at all, that elections are actually going on? And what’s at stake here is not little or easily dismissed… SUB renewal is a huge project, the security of the farm, and the most underrated and ignored issue – the lack of funding for the arts and the cut of funding from Women’s and Gender Studies that has so far gone unaddressed… the buzzwords are all present, bus loop, farm, childcare, lower tuition…
What is most bizarre, I found, was that, without much to say and in need of a target, people tried to put Tristan Markle on the spot for having some elements of the administration being not very happy about what he’s been doing in his negotiations with the administration. Just to set the record straight, if it were not for Tristan and involved students who care, basically the UBC administration would have taken over student funds and the SUB renewal project altogether. The administration would be hiring their own architects, and their own developers and project managers to make sure that the new SUB used student money to serve big corporations and developers, and ensuring that a shopping mall would be implanted on top of the knoll and the bus bunker. People have to understand that Tristan has been influential not only in starting the campaign against the shopping mall and the bus loop, but also in educating people like Mike Duncan on such issues, and ensuring that the SUB Renewal consultation process was actually the best this university has ever seen in terms of development that caters to students’ wants and needs.
Like Mike Duncan said, students have to draw the line and make their investment count, and not simply turn around and let it be taken over by an administration that has a proven record of siding with developers, Properties Trust, and members of the Board of Governors who shouldn’t be there in the first place because of an obvious conflict of interest, sprouting from the fact that they are not even elected, but appointed for the most part. The issue of aboriginal representation at the BoG has not come up yet, and that is shameful for this campus and for students. This university should be student driven and not development and industry driven, and having a couple of largely ineffective and poorly articulated student board members has been a curse this past year. Students on the board did nothing to ensure that other students can attend open board meetings, they have not listened not even to the AMS resolutions against the bus loop, which led to a discussion in the AMS council that ended up with Tim (BoG) claiming that his voting record in the board does not matter, whereas Bijan was never around to update the AMS council on what the board has been up to… Students on the board this year have proven to be, compared to last year, complete fumbling amateurs, who don’t have an opinion, cannot relay students’ opinions, and who have to be constantly overseen by the AMS in order not to screw up every single time.
Many students are tired of this selling out from students to the board on account of prestige and lack of accountability with students. More real commentary on actual issues and the proposals facing us will be posted soon at ubcstudentmedia.wordpress.com
Rory: I will be clearer with my sarcasm in future. Apologies. Good reference, though.
Rodrigo: we’ve had this discussion before: comments are for commenting on the posts, not for an offhand mention before springing into a rant ending with a plug for your site.