The Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) held its fall student elections from Monday, October 24 to Wednesday, October 26. CCSS external executive Jessie Niikoi says that the student society is happy with the how the elections went this time around.
“We generally feel like it was a smooth one and we’re happy we were able to fill all the positions on the board because it has been a while since we have had a full board,” says Niikoi. “So, it is great to have more people on the board and for students to see that side of us in terms of decision making and whatever we do for students.”
Denver Xavier got voted in as international director, Puneet Kaur as women’s director, Safs Saifullah as pride director, and Astrid Klee as wellness and access director. Purvi Dubey, Jaisica Singh, Ayush Chauhan, and Alex Joseph are Interurban directors; Angela Chou, Banipreet Bhan, Divyam Bhardwaj, and Manik Chopra are Lansdowne directors. Addison Wong is Lansdowne executive, and Abhishek (no last name given) is off-campus director.
The ballot also had two referendum questions. The first asked students if they support allowing the cost of the student health and dental plans to increase annually at a maximum rate of inflation plus 1 percent (it’s currently a maximum of three percent) during years “when inflation is higher than traditionally normal.” This passed, with 54 percent of students voting in favour.
“That one is was mostly because we observed we hadn’t recently increased our student fees in terms of the health and dental… and just because of inflation, we wanted to be able to provide the same service we usually do to students without having to cut out so many things,” says Niikoi. “That’s why we had to bring that inflation forward because in case that inflation actually hits, it would compromise the services that are essential to the students.”
The second referendum question asked if students support the CCSS implementing a virtual care program at a cost of $35 per year to provide all students with 24/7 virtual access to medical care. This also passed, with 70 percent of students voting in favour.
“[The insurance company] suggested this service to us because it’s something that’s exclusive to students… it’s like a Telus Health service, but it’s exclusively for Camosun students. So, you wouldn’t have the waiting times where you have to wait a few hours or a few days to get in with a doctor. This would be quick and easy because it’s geared towards students. They also mentioned how cheap it would be. It’s as expensive as an Amazon subscription basically, because it’s only $3 per month, and then you have it for the whole year.”
Niikoi says that looking ahead to the next election, the CCSS plans to put more effort into campaigning and encouraging students to vote.
“I especially feel like we could do more because we have a lot of students,” she says. “The effort to actually reach out this year has been more because we had our work study, our social media pages having this out, so it’s pretty much the same as last year… I definitely feel like we’re going to have to do more in our next election because it’s going to be another fresh set of people for most of the positions.”
A total of 740 students voted in the election, which was held online. 410 voted on day one, 134 on day two, and 196 on day three. The election results are preliminary and have yet to be ratified by the CCSS board.