Compass’ presidential candidate is Anne Boucher, the UTSU’s current Vice-President External. Boucher is a fifth-year St. Michael’s College student studying Political Science and Environmental Studies. If elected President, she said that her goal would be to make the UTSU “more human.”
Boucher believes students have lost trust in the UTSU, referencing the recently settled Sandra Hudson lawsuit, and described the current UTSU as “very corporate,” having spent the last few years remediating finances.
Boucher’s priorities are ensuring the transition to the Student Commons is smooth and successful, making the Commons accessible and welcoming in its first year, supporting any vote to leave the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), and lobbying “to reintroduce the federal transit tax credit and to increase transit subsidies for students.”
As Vice-President External, Boucher headed the U-Commute initiative to introduce a referendum to add a $280 per semester U-Pass for UTSG undergrads. “From this point… it’s up to the students to decide,” she said. “I’m very neutral [about] the outcome, but I am proud of being able to negotiate up until this point.”
Boucher also believes that the Associate Membership Agreement between the UTSU and University of Toronto Mississauga Students’ Union (UTMSU) should be changed.
“The agreement as it is now is not great for either side,” she said. “I do think the agreement should be improved to reflect the needs of the UTM students, and that would be giving the autonomy of the UTMSU to do their own advocacy work.”
Boucher also said that she would not consider hiring back the two full-time staff members who were laid off in May 2017, citing the long-term financial solvency of the union and that, in her view, “services remained the same” without them.
— With files from Josie Kao and Jacob Lorinc
