By Damola Omole and Vihaan Bhatnagar

The Toronto Metropolitan Students’ Union (TMSU) Board of Directors (BoD) has proposed to postpone their Fall 2025 general by-election to the Winter 2026 semester, according to a public statement released on their website at around 11:30 a.m. today.

The TMSU BoD explained in the statement, “that the organization cannot guarantee that the Fall by-election would be free of illegal outside interference,” following the revelation that the 2025 general election results were manipulated.

In light of this sentiment, they unanimously voted on the postponement to Winter 2026 semester during a TMSU BoD meeting held on Monday.

This postponement will be voted on by the student body during a Special General Meeting (SGM) to be held on Sept. 29. Afterwards, the change may be ratified.

The postponement of a by-election requires adding an amendment to TMSU by-laws 4.17 and 6.13, according to a meeting agenda provided to The Eyeopener by the TMSU BoD. The bylaws state, “if a vacancy occurs during the months of May, June or July, a By-Election shall be held in the Fall Term and initiated in the month of September.”

The statement was published following an investigation conducted during the general election due to several complaints made against the union. This resulted in the election being declared voided and the suspension of the executive team and board members, as previously reported by The Eye.

The investigation—conducted by the union’s business consulting firm MNP LLP— found that former TMSU executive member Ali Yousaf had colluded with the TMSU’s 2024-25 Chief Returning Officer Tatiana Carrion to manipulate the election results in favour of Team Re-Elect.

“There have been corroborative statements that Yousaf has placed ‘his people’ into the student union for many years to benefit financially,” the statement added.

The investigation also found that members of the 2025 Elections and Referenda Committee (ERC) colluded to hire Carrion with the intent of influencing the election.

The proposed amendment also commissions and authorizes the remaining directors to “conduct a review of the [TMSU’s] governing structure and make recommendations for structural reform to the by-laws that will permit the Corporation to hold free and fair elections in the spring of 2026.”

The statement added that two interim co-executive directors with “no connection or prior involvement with TMSU,” Sally Lee and Scott Miller Berry, were hired in June as previously stated in a statement released by the BoD on April 9.

The Eye reached out to the TMSU BoD and their legal counsel for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.

Looking forward, the statement ends by advocating for student involvement in the name of transparency. 

“A strong and independent student union is a vital institution that must be protected, and its future success lies in an informed and engaged student body.”

Students can RSVP to attend the Sept. 29 SGM on the TMSU’s website. According to TMSU bylaws, a minimum of one hundred members are required to reach quorum. TMSU general meetings have not reached quorum since December 2022, as previously reported on by The Eye.