At the first VP external by-election and general election debate last night, uncontested candidate Solomon Yi-Kieran answered questions on the upcoming federal election, TransLink cuts and lobbying for international students.
To start the debate, Yi-Kieran was asked how they would handle the stress and workload of beginning this position immediately. They claimed they have “proven [they’re] good at working with stress,” and feel prepared to take on responsibilities.
However, they didn’t provide examples of how they have done and will continue to do this — this lack of specifics was a trend throughout the rest of their debate.
On how they would be addressing this year’s federal election, Yi-Kieran said they would “continue in the footsteps of previous VP externals” by setting up a voting booth at the Nest and ensuring there is “extensive communication to students about how they can vote and what issues they should be voting for.”
TransLink is set to cut a substantial portion of its services, including eliminating the nightbus. On their plan to get services reinstated for students, Yi-Kieran said they would lobby provincial and municipal governments to increase TransLink funding and would make sure that if cuts happen, they aren’t to the services that benefit students.
Yi-Kieran was asked about whether they would take on a leadership role in Undergraduates of Canadian Research-Intensive Universities (UCRU) as previous VP externals have done, and the role of UCRU.
In their response, they did not provide the correct description of UCRU — they said it is a BC-wide organization, but it is an alliance of students’ unions across Canada. They also failed to acknowledge that past VP externals have been UCRU chairs or vice-chairs and did not specify whether or not they would continue taking on a leadership role.
On lobbying the federal government on issues pertaining to international students, Yi-Kieran said they want to eliminate barriers to getting permanent residency in Canada.
“In order to have your work count towards the permanent residency, you need to be having full-time work, and that's just not balanceable for international students who are taking full-time course loads,” they said.
They plan to address this by “advocat[ing] to all major parties and to the eventual [federal] government” to ensure part-time and Work Learn positions can be counted towards permanent residency applications.
Yi-Kieran was asked how they would change the post-secondary funding formula to help reduce the impact of university budget cuts due to reduced international student enrolment. They said “universities … used to be funded much more by government funds” than student fees and that they would advocate for more funding — they did not provide any information on what steps they would take to do so.
As an uncontested candidate, Yi-Kieran may not need to prioritize garnering votes to win this election. Yi-Kieran was asked how they are considering student opinions in their campaign — they responded by noting how they designed their platform in consultation with faculties and student groups like the Indigenous Student Society.
“I will also be committed to transparency,” they said. “I have a strong track record of transparency with my monthly Senate updates and through the work that I've done on campus.”
“And I will not only continue that, I will also continue the track record I've just made of making sure I'm consulting with groups before I'm making important decisions.”
The external candidate will debate again on Thursday at 12:45 p.m. in the Pit before voting opens on March 7.
This article is part of our 2025 AMS Elections coverage. Follow us at @UbysseyNews on X (formerly Twitter) and follow our election coverage starting March 3.
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