TANNARA YELLAND
Layout Manager

Election season kicked off for University of Saskatchewan students on Tuesday, March 22, with the first U of S Students’ Union candidates’ forum.

The hour allowed candidates to present their platforms to the few interested students in the Edwards School of Business reading room, after which they answered questions.

Despite the fact that the successful candidates will steer the course of a $4 million-per-year organization, the tone was light, verging on silly, for most of the forum.

Lone presidential candidate and current vice-president operations and finance Scott Hitchings said he plans to focus on elections — there will certainly be a provincial and there will almost definitely be a federal election in 2011.

He added that under him, the executive would not be afraid to take a stand on issues, though he couldn’t say which issues they would speak on.

Alex Ferwerda was the first of four vice-president student affairs candidates to speak. The VP student affairs race is the most heavily contested in several years.

Ferwerda took a light tone that Justin Lasnier, the next student affairs candidate to speak, echoed. Both candidates said they did not want to make “false promises” they would be unable to keep, and thus kept their platforms vague and refrained from promising anything specific.

Ferwerda mentioned several times a “comment couch,” a couch he would like to install somewhere on campus where students could meet with USSU executive members. Ferwerda took the idea from schools in the UK where he says students line up to talk to their executive.

Lasnier ran for the same position last year, losing to current VP student affairs Leon Thompson by about 80 votes.

When asked what he had done in the last year that made him a more viable candidate, Lasnier described his work with the Indigenous Students’ Council, which included touring Saskatchewan encouraging indigenous high school students to attend university and acting as ISC VP operations and finance.

However, Lasnier also drifted off toward the end of his answer with a confusing anecdote about his campus rec team.

Leejay Schmidt was the third student affairs candidate to speak at the forum. Schmidt is a computer engineering student who claims to have perfect University Students’ Council attendance and boasts an impressive volunteering record.

He mentioned the white ribbon campaign to end violence against women multiple times and stressed the importance of “education campaigns” to raise awareness about everything from campus safety to sustainability.

Student affairs candidate Jordan Nabata was absent from the forum.

Vice-president operations and finance candidate Reid Nystuen focused on his ability to represent students who feel left out by the arts and science — and particularly political studies — dominated executive.

Nystuen is an ESB student who has served on University Students’ Council for three years.

Saeed Bashi, the other operations and finance candidate, said that despite his lack of experience with USSU governance, he has used the USSU centres and thinks that has prepared him to appropriately allocate funds should he be elected.

Incumbent vice-president academic affairs Kelsey Topola is also the lone candidate for her position, and is heavily favoured to win according to Vegas bookies.

She plans to continue her work and to prevent the impending zombie apocalypse: shooting zombies in the head works best no matter what type of zombie one is dealing with, according to Topola.

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Voting begins at 9:00 a.m. Wednesday, March 30 and ends at 4:00 p.m Thursday, March 31.

An earlier version of this article said that Leejay Schmidt had a perfect class attendance record. This has now been amended to be a perfect USC attendance.