UTMSU president, Nour Alideeb, has been elected as the chairperson of the Canadian Federation for Students Ontario, which was announced at the CFS semi-annual general meeting held over the weekend of January 21.
According to Alideeb in an email to The Medium, this is the first time that a UTMSU representative has been elected as the CFS Ontario chairperson, whose responsibility, aside from being the official spokesperson, is to “oversee the strategic direction” of CFS, including implementing campaigns and services to its members.
“I’m very excited for this role, because I’ll be able to take my passion to a provincial level,” Alideeb said. “Among many things, I look forward to working with students across the province on issues like fighting for a free and accessible post-secondary education system, reviewing and improving sexual violence policies on each campus, and challenging the many systems of oppression that affect our students on and off campus.”
Candidates were required to submit a nomination form, give remarks at the all-candidates election forum, and engage in a question-and-answer period at the meeting. Each member of a students’ union had the right to vote and cast a secret ballot.
“This election, we saw a lot of engagement, a lot of different people from across the province interested in each of the positions contested,” said Rajean Hoilett, the current CFS Ontario chairperson, in an interview with The Medium. They explained that every January at the semi-annual general meeting, the CFS and student union members elect a new leadership.
Other than Alideeb, another student from Ryerson University ran for the same position.
Over 80 student unions are members within the CFS, including UTMSU, the University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union, and the Association of Part-Time Undergraduate Students.
Alideeb’s term as the chairperson begins on June 1, 2017.
