Race: VP External

The External Office of the AMS is responsible for lobbying the municipal, provincial, and federal governments on behalf of the students at UBC Vancouver. The vice president external also represents students to external organizations, such as Translink, and student unions at other schools. The nature of the external office is innately political, but never partisan, advocating on behalf of the student body as a whole.

The AMS external office deals with:
1.) The U-Pass Program and Translink:
- Ensuring affordable, sustainable access to high quality transportation
- Ensuring the voices of the largest transit demographic are heard.
2.) Different levels of government pertaining to student issues:
- Ensuring tuition fees are maintained at reasonable, affordable levels
- Making sure student financial assistance (loans, bursaries, government scholarships) is available
- Advocating for sustained post-secondary education funding
- Creating a unified student voice in BC and in Canada with other provincial and federal student organizations

Name: Kyle Warwick
Age: 23
Year: 4/5
Faculty and program: Arts, (Honours) Political Science
Years on campus: 5
Past campus involvement:
Arts Undergraduate Society VP External: 2009 – 2010
Faculty of Arts Killam Teaching Award Committee, Undergraduate Representative: 2009
Chair, AMS University and External Relations Committee: 2011
Chair, AMS Legislative Procedures Committee: 2011 – 2012
AMS Arts Representative: November 2008 – Present
UBC Political Science Students Association Executive: 2007-2009
UBC Rec Ball Hockey: 2007 – 2011
Past non-campus involvement: Universities Model Parliament Society: 2008 – 2011 | Experience with multiple political parties as riding executive, organizer, policy writer, and candidate: 2004 – Present

How will you partner with other student unions across BC and Canada to lobby for student financial aid reform?

I will not be abandoning federal lobbying, but my primary focus will be to strengthen our advocacy within our province. The first step in this process is to support the “Where is the Funding” campaign, which the AMS will be launching to coincide with the release of the Throne Speech. This campaign, which is being spearheaded by the current VP External and President, has already succeeded in obtaining cooperation from a wide range of student societies, including UVIC, SFU, UNBC, BCIT, UFV and more. I would like to see cooperation on this campaign as the first step towards building a grassroots provincial student advocacy group.

Previous attempts at creating a provincial lobbying group failed, because the attempted to create a perfect set of bylaws, which was unachievable given the rapid rate of turnover in student societies. I feel it is better for student societies to learn to cooperate by actually practicing hands on cooperation with each other.The “Where is the Funding” campaign is a strong first step in this direction, and one that I am excited to build on.

By strengthening cooperation with other BC student societies, we can deliver better results for UBC students on a wide range of issues, including transit improvements and student loan reform.

Given the high cost of a rapid-transit system into UBC (ie. Skytrain technology), Translink deficits, and Translink’s push for a Surrey transit system, how will you ensure that the UBC Line is at the forefront of Translink planners’ minds?

First, I would emphasize the long term economic benefits of a Broadway Rapid Transit line. While capital costs would indeed be steep, in the long term, businesses and consumers along the Broadway corridor would benefit significantly from a rapid transit line. I would also emphasize the rapid rate of population growth at UBC, and the fact that Broadway currently has higher traffic than Cambie Street did prior to the construction of the Canada Line.

Fundamentally, I will be making the case that this line is not only in the interests of UBC students, but of the Metro Vancouver region as a whole. Surrey has stated that they would prefer to develop light rail technology, rather than an expanded Skytrain network. This makes sense, as Surrey has a more distributed population, while Broadway is high density within one narrow corridor.

In order to reinforce these points, I plan to spearhead an advocacy campaign on this issue. I admit that it can be difficult to engage UBC students about certain internal AMS issues. However, transit is an issue that affects almost all students, even those who do not normally pay attention to the AMS. It is worth noting that the “UBC Needs Rapid Transit Now” campaign from two years ago succeeded in convincing Metro Vancouver to amend their regional growth strategy, giving the UBC Line equal priority to rapid transit south of the Fraser River. Given the AMS’ previous success on this issue, and given the high relevance of transit to students, this should be a clear priority for a future AMS advocacy campaign.

Would you support a small increase to UPass fares in exchange for better transit service on UBC routes and better transit infrastructure (ie. an underground bus loop)?

I would not absolutely rule out this idea. With that said, I would approach it with considerable scepticism, given Translink’s previous history of raising prices, but not raising service levels. I would weigh the costs and benefits of any particular proposals that Translink brings forward, and I would only entertain these ideas if the increases in service greatly outweighed increases in the cost of the UPASS.

What is your opinion regarding the 4 referendum questions?

I will be voting yes on each of the referendum questions. I encourage students to do the same, in order to increase the fiscal responsibility of the AMS.