How has your experience as SSMU Clubs and Services representative prepared you for this position?

Well I’ve represented clubs and services all year, so far at least, and I have received a lot of feedback. We have office hours every week, and we … meet with clubs and services to see what feedback they have.

I’ve also sat in council and advocated for clubs’ rights and all the things they stand for, especially with the McGill name issue.

I’m also the president of the Indian Students’ Association, so I know the other side. I’m kind of saying I’m the “average Joe club”—you know, we apply for funding, even personally this year, we struggled so much with mailbox, applications, lockers, bank accounts—there’s so many things to start up and they’re not all in one place on the website, so it’s really confusing…. There’s no information online so there’s a lot of miscommunication, and most clubs honestly don’t know how to do a lot of it … So I’ve dealt with a lot of frustration from a lot of club executives even with office allocation, that’s one of the biggest aspects of my platforms.

The clubs and services portfolio is pretty big. How would you go about prioritizing your responsibilities?

One of the things that I realized this year was that the clubs and services representatives are not utilized to the maximum potential that they could be. 

I feel like if I were VP Clubs and Services I would have a set of projects that I’d want my clubs and services representative to work on and report back to me, and they would do the research and really try to get out to the clubs and services on campus. And that way I would be able to prioritize things like the building, which has been in the past … kind of shoved aside.

The HVAC system in this building has not been maintained or replaced in 60 years since it’s been around, and I mean this building approximately uses as much as a small hospital, which is kind of ridiculous … Usually the priorities are split between that kind of clubs and services and building, and I really plan to … really have [the clubs] be more involved.

If you were a superhero, what would your power be?

I think I’d want to be invisible, because I think that way I’d be able to tell what people really think. Sometimes people don’t tell you what they really think … I’m not a judgmental person, but I’ve always wanted to know what people really thought about issues.