John John is a fourth-year history student running as an independent presidential candidate. He says that he is running to combat student apathy at UTSC, as he is disappointed with the lack of engagement from both students and the SCSU.
In an interview with The Varsity, John said that he is running more to make a point than to win.
John’s number one platform point is to abolish slates, as he thinks they are a major barrier to getting students to run for the SCSU.
“People are being boxed into certain kinds of ideology all the time. They don’t really have any time to express themselves freely, and also it intimidates a lot of people from getting involved in politics.”
He believes that the problem of student apathy toward the SCSU is less of a problem with individuals and more to do with how the union is structured.
However, when it comes to being involved in the SCSU, John calls on students to “figure it out for themselves.”
“I don’t want them to always think someone will have some kind of ready-made answers for them.”
If a candidate is making a promise, John believes that students should always be skeptical and ask the question, “So what?”
When asked about what he would do regarding Doug Ford’s changes to postsecondary funding, John said that he did not really have an answer for that as he doesn’t “have a formulated platform and it’s more like getting people [to] run for themselves.”
