News Brief: 2024-25 council had their first 2 meetings, nothing was approved
The KSA's speaker of council Amrinder Sandhu he will call the next council meeting. (File photo)
The 2024-25 Kwantlen Student Association council held their first meeting on April 4 at 10:25 am to elect the executive committee on Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Surrey campus and online via Microsoft Teams.
Faculty of Arts Representative Jasmine Kaur Kochhar proposed a motion to amend the agenda to appoint the internal committee before electing the executive committee. The motion was approved.
According to the KSA’s Regulations, “Council shall elect the members of the Executive Committee at its first meeting taking place on or after April 1.”
The amended agenda was put to a vote for approval, it failed to pass. The meeting was adjourned at 10:34 am.
The KSA council held another meeting on April 5 at 10:21 am in Birch 250 at the KPU Surrey campus and online via Microsoft Teams.
Kochhar proposed a motion to amend the agenda to appoint the internal committee after the executive committee elections. The executive committee elections weren’t on the agenda.
Kochhar reworded the motion to amend the agenda to appoint the internal committee. The motion failed because council members had concerns about appointing the internal committee before electing the executive committee.
Kochhar said she wanted to appoint the internal committee before the others as it “is the most crucial one,” and Birch 250 was booked for another event at 11:00 am.
“Considering today’s time [limit for the meeting], the internal committee elections could have been done way faster because for [the executive committee], we have a couple of candidates giving speeches each and then going through the election procedure. … I don’t think it would have been fair to have it conducted in the shortest [time] span,” she said.
“We had yesterday’s meeting to [elect the executive committee], we had ample amount of time, but due to the unadopted agenda, the meeting could not go forward.”
Students of Colour Representative Ishant Goyal said appointing the internal committee before the executive committee breaks the KSA’s Regulations.
“I would not support going forward [if] … the current council decides to move ahead anyhow with the internal committee elections first,” he said.
“We don’t want to be contrary with our regulations as we’re setting up examples for the upcoming councils and we want to be leading KSA towards a good future.”
The meeting adjourned at 11:01 am. The next council meeting was not decided on during the meeting due to a debate on if it should be held on April 8 or 12. Speaker of council Amrinder Sandhu said he will call the next meeting. The Runner will provide updates as soon as more information becomes available. Interested students can email info@kusa.ca to join.
