KSA Council passes backlog of motions during monthly meeting

Several motions were passed by the Kwantlen Student Association council after they reached quorum for their monthly online meeting on Dec. 10.

Councillors Dilvaj Virk, Abhay Singh Cheema, Marika Wagner, Dhanwant Singh, Simranjit Kaur Dhaliwal, Harmandeep Kaur, Sukhmandeep Singh Gill, Armandeep Kaur were all absent. Business faculty representative Ravinder Pal Singh reported being unable to attend on camera because he was recovering after testing positive for COVID-19.

The council has been unable to pass motions in the last few months because too few councillors were attending the online meetings, and there was no meeting held in November.

In an email to The Runner, KSA Speaker Titus Gregory said that the reason the meeting had not been scheduled “was simply because there is not a lot of business on the agenda at the present time.”

This resulted in the passing of a backlog of motions that had been presented to council earlier this year, like the motion to approve the Sexual Violence and Misconduct Policy, which was presented during their last meeting in October.

“This is a renewal of our sexualized violence policy that expired in January, but we’ve updated it and added more resources, and we’ve added things to make it a stronger and more diverse policy,” said KSA Policy and Political Affairs Coordinator Jewelles Smith.

Council also passed a motion to add $15,000 in funding to the WUSC student refugee sponsorship program for the year, a motion to sign the Sustainable Development Goals Accord, and a motion to support the Divest Canada letter, which is a movement to pressure organizations to divest from fossil fuel investments.

The council approved the proposed budget for the next year, which was presented by VP Finance & Operations Ripunjot Brar, and discussed ongoing planning for the student union building and planned to advocate for the establishment of an ombudsperson’s office at KPU.

KSA Executive Director Benjamin Newsom delivered a report that contained updates on the Multipass program. The association was negotiating with Club 16 for a discounted gym pass for students similar to the agreement the KSA formerly had with Steve Nash Fitness World.

KPU Tech campus representative Jeremy Law raised concerns with the amount of work KSA President and VP Student Life Gurdial Dhindsa had been doing over the fall semester, referencing Dhindsa adding just two new points to his report concerning emails he had received since the last meeting

“I don’t know if that’s the amount of work that should be done for a month and a half. Those are the concerns I have, and those concerns have been brought up at past council meetings,” said Law.

“I cannot add anything that didn’t happen,” said Dhindsa in response. “That was exactly what happened over the month. Those were the main things. That’s why there were only two new points.”

Afterwards, the council also passed a motion to schedule the next KSA Annual General Meeting, which is to be held on March 25, 2021.