By Edward Djan
Former Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU) president Ali Yousaf endorsed ‘Revolution’ slate candidate Ahmed Ali as president for the upcoming 2022-23 term.
Yousaf shared a campaign post from Ali’s Instagram page on his stories on Tuesday, urging those at Ryerson to vote for Ali.
Yousaf’s time with the RSU was fraught with controversies.
An investigation by The Eyeopener in 2017 revealed that a portion of funds meant to be returned to students who purchased tickets to 6 Fest—a concert in 2016—and weren’t able to attend, actually went into the personal accounts of several RSU members.
This included Yousaf, who was a finance committee member at the time.
As president during the 2020-21 academic year, Yousaf oversaw mass layoffs at several equity centres that included the loss of all staff at the Centre for Safer Sex and Sexual Violence Support (C3SVS) in 2020.
Yousaf alleged the centres needed to be restructured due to mismanagement, but emails sent to terminated employees obtained by The Eye said staff were let go because of “lack of work.”
Unlike their rival slate, ‘Forward,’ Revolution did not create a campaign website. In an emailed response to The Eye, Ali said, “we were unable to have a website prepared as the elections were announced so abruptly. All and any of our media will be presented through our Instagram account @_teamrev.”
The slate’s campaign promises lack specific policy details. It mainly focuses on university pride, continuing an unspecified amount of funding for student groups and course unions and asking for student input regarding RSU services.
In addition to reaching out to Revolution’s president, The Eye personally contacted each candidate on the slate. Ali was the only candidate to respond by the time of publication. Ali was also the only member of the Revolution slate that participated in this year’s debate.
The Eye has compiled a list of Revolution executives running this year.
Voting begins today on students’ RAMSS accounts and ends on Feb. 4 at 4 p.m.
President: Ahmed Ali
Ali is a fourth-year industrial engineering student.
He says he wants to focus on “school spirit and bringing the campus back to life,” according to his bio on the RSU’s website.
Ali is also a former Rams athlete, having played cricket during the 2019-20 season.
Vice-President Education: Umar Abdullah
Abdullah is a third-year civil engineering student.
This is his third time running to be a part of the RSU.
Abdullah was first elected as one of the directors for the Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science in 2020 as part of Yousaf’s Rise slate.
He ran again for the same position in 2021 with ‘Adapt’—the same slate current RSU president Siddhanth Satish ran with.
His bio on the RSU’s website says he aims to “offer more to the students and enhance their experience at Ryerson further.”
He didn’t elaborate on the specific issues impacting a student’s experience at Ryerson and how he plans to address them.
Abdullah and Satish are now running in competing slates.
Vice-President Equity: Areesha Qureshi
Qureshi is a third-year child and youth care student.
Like other candidates on her slate, Qureshi does not provide specific details of what she plans to do if elected.
She says she wants to “make sure every community on campus feels represented and we all combined together make our experience better.”
Vice-President Operations: Salar Syed
Syed is a third-year civil engineering student.
Like Abdullah, Syed also ran for and won one of the three engineering and architecture faculty director positions with ‘Rise’ in 2020 and again in 2021 with Adapt.
He also served on the finance and oversight committees during his latest term.
Syed said he hopes to provide upper-year students with career support through co-ops and internships, according to his bio.
He also said he aims to “make communication channels more accessible to students to ensure their needs are met,” and provide more mental health resources.
The end of his bio says, “For more information regarding our platform, please visit our platform.” As mentioned, Revolution does not have a website and The Eye has not found a place other than the RSU’s website and candidates’ social media where platforms have been publicized.
Vice-President Student Life and Events: Abaan Ahmed
Ahmed is a fourth-year business management student.
He previously served as the Ted Rogers School of Management faculty director during the 2020-21 term after running as part of the Rise slate.
If elected, Ahmed plans to “make every student aware of Rams spirit and make them realize what it truly means to be part of Ramily.”
Leave a Reply