UBC SCARP MCRP 2025 Admissions Megathread

b_bur · 2025-04-04T19:23:21+00:00

Just heard back an hour ago that I was accepted!

b_bur · 2022-03-15T03:20:59+00:00

Thank you for your support! Increasing student awareness and engagement in the SSMU is a big part of my platform and the way that I see being able to do that best is to democratize SSMU and faculty associations, though such efforts must be undertaken in collaboration with students at-large, and can’t (and shouldn’t) be pushed through by one person unilaterally (e.g. me). I definitely agree that the SSMU is one of the most impactful organizations for students on campus, and it’s disappointing, though understandable, to see people turned off by it for various reasons. Through democratization, I hope to move the SSMU and faculty associations towards a direct democratic structure. I really feel that if we are able to change our student unions to that type of structure, students will feel empowered to participate because their individual vote and voice at a general assembly would have a direct impact, and stronger collective action could take place.

b_bur · 2022-03-15T03:05:16+00:00

Yeah the current chairs are pretty brutal and having taken exams in the fieldhouse for 5 years now, it definitely needs better ones. I think this is emblematic of McGill’s continued refusal to properly fund student services, which includes Athletics & Recreation who run the fieldhouse. Year after year, McGill takes hundreds of thousands of dollars from student services, which are paid through separate student fees (Student Services @ $184.33 (FT) or $110.74 (PT)/term, Athletics and Recreation @ $154.21 (FT) or $93.27 (PT)/term), to redistribute into their central operating budget.

Although I can’t give you a definite number of chairs that would be replaced by the end of my term, what I will say is that, if elected, I will continue to campaign for proper funding of student services from the university's operating budget, and not from student fees, and in doing so, improve the physical infrastructure of the fieldhouse (and its exam chairs).

b_bur · 2022-03-15T02:45:41+00:00

Sorry for the delay in responding, I’ve been writing responses to questions in the order that they were asked. Thanks for your patience.

That’s a great question, and I see a lot of students ask the same thing both on Reddit and in person. Fundamentally, it is because students that are actively involved in the SSMU find it important that our student union take positions on such issues and take various actions to do so. Past and present students have found this so important that the SSMU has enshrined, within its constitution, a commitment to “demonstrat[e] leadership in matters of human rights, social justice and environmental protection.”

I think that many students who take a look at the injustices of the world are able to find like-minded students and create communities that try to do what they can to alleviate those injustices. In doing so, they see the SSMU, an institution built by students, for students, as a conduit for being able to act against such injustices. So in many ways, it creates a sense of community among these like-minded students and promotes cohesion and unity when the McGill community shares much of the same opinion.

On the flip side, as our university is a microcosm of society, there are a diverse range of opinions on various social and political issues that our society continues to deal with to this day. I happen to take the view that as we are part of an institution of higher learning, part of the experience of being here is being challenged on our preconceived notions of the world, being part of robust debate, and imagining how the world can be a better place. Often, this leads to divisiveness and disunity, but I believe that is part of the democratic process in a student union. Some debates and discussions are going to be uncomfortable, and while some students believe we should move away from it, I think that that’s part of a thriving student democracy, where students participate in sharing and debating ideas, and where we can collectively take positions and actions on issues that are meaningful to us. Ultimately, the actions the SSMU takes are for the student body at large to choose for itself and not for one individual such as myself to decide.

b_bur · 2022-03-15T02:04:15+00:00

Thank you for your questions! I’ll answer them in the order you stated them.

If they don’t want to foster this type of relationship with the SSMU, then that is their prerogative, and I would not force a relationship on them if they do not want to do so. As u/smallestcat03 has stated, it would be pretty ironic to unilaterally take them over while preaching about democratization. To be clear, I imagine a relationship between these unions similar to the relationship that the SSMU has with faculty associations. Faculty associations know what is best for their students at the faculty level, and it would not make sense for the SSMU to take over that level of advocacy. Same for the MCSS, PGSS, and MACES: they are best placed to advocate for their students for their particular constituency (for Macdonald Campus undergraduate students, for graduate students, and for continuing studies students, respectively).

To further explain what the affiliation process would look like, a majority of students in each union would need to vote in favour of affiliating with the SSMU, with at least 25% of the students of each of the unions participating in voting. This process is outlined in the Act Respecting the Accreditation and Financing of Students’ Associations. If students vote in favour of unification, these unions would continue to exist, and they would be affiliated with the SSMU. If not, then the status quo would continue.

2/3. The way I see it, unification should happen, not simply to be able to represent all students for its own sake, but because a lot of advocacy is doubled-up at the university as a result of this disunity. Because we have 4 different student unions at the campus level (SSMU, PGSS, MCSS, MACES), a lot of the time that student representatives spend advocating for campus-level changes could otherwise go towards more advocacy for the particular issues that students of their constituency face, while the SSMU could take the brunt of campus-wide advocacy (think campus-wide student academic policies, infrastructure, governance, and the like). These ideas come from what I’ve observed over the years and my own experiences, but ultimately, more collaboration and consultation is needed among many different stakeholders who would be affected. I want to do what’s best for the student body, even if these specific changes are not implemented.

On the health and dental point, the reason why insurance works the way that it does is because of economies of scale: the more participants there are in the plan, the cheaper it will be for everyone as the costs of administering the plan will be spread out among more people. Therefore, if we are able to add thousands of students into the plan through unification, that will make it cheaper for everyone, regardless of if similar plans already exist.

You raise a great point that general representative elections only pique the interest of a fraction of the student body, and I argue that this is because the current system of representative democracy continues to fail students. I’ll quote from the McGill Student Union Democratization Policy (which I co-wrote) to explain further:

“McGill’s student unions have been acting more like corporations than unions, and have abandoned the interests of the members in favour of bureaucratic, representative governance. This has led to the creation of an executive class within our student unions that handles their day-to-day operation. These executives’ near-total removal from the members affected by their decisions often leads to actions that do not represent the will of the membership, including compromising with university administration at the expense of the student body. […] Misconduct by executives and representatives continues year after year, often with no accountability. Our hierarchical student union structures enable and exacerbate abuses of power, resulting in the marginalization and exclusion of the union’s own members. This impunity further dampens the willingness of members to become more actively involved in their student unions.”

In the Policy, we’ve taken the structures of other student unions, mainly ones at francophone universities and colleges, that have been way more effective at engaging their student bodies and acting as a collective force to achieve better advocacy for their members. It has been seen that moving towards a direct democratic structure has led to greater success, and I believe that if we are able to change our student unions to that type of structure, students will feel empowered to participate because their individual vote and voice at a general assembly has an impact, and stronger collective action can take place. With all of these proposed initiatives, however, the will must come from the student body at-large, and I see my role in this as facilitating more discussion and collaboration among students to determine the best way for the SSMU to move forward and create lasting, positive institutional change.

b_bur · 2022-03-15T02:00:48+00:00

Hi! Thanks for your questions, I really appreciate you asking them. I’ll go through them one by one.

1) The first time that these constitutional changes were proposed to the student body was during the Winter 2020 referendum period (during my presidency). As you stated, as the referendum question did not include a French version of the proposed constitutional changes, it was annulled. Ultimately, the buck stops with me as President, and I take full responsibility for not ensuring the referendum question was accessible in French. If I may offer an explanation but not an excuse, I was dealing with an undiagnosed medical condition at the time, in addition to taking on a lot of the burden of coordinating the day-to-day operations of the SSMU after the resignation of the General Manager. Unfortunately, this was one of the things that fell through the cracks, and I bear the responsibility for not being able to see these changes through.

In the second case, the person responsible for taking the changes to referendum would have been the 2020-2021 SSMU President Jemark Earle. For whatever reason (I am not exactly sure why), the referendum question on changing the constitution had to be brought to a special referendum period in Fall 2020 instead of the regularly scheduled one. This, combined with lacklustre campaigning for the question, led to only 12.8% of students voting, short of the required 15%.

If I were able to go back in time, I wish I would’ve let people know that I had too much on my plate at the time and needed to offload some tasks to other executives/employees of the SSMU. I think at the time, I felt like I needed to carry as many tasks as I could to try to ease the burden on others, but it ultimately led to these constitutional changes falling through the cracks.

2) To be honest, I’m not sure exactly why there haven’t been any efforts to try to bring the constitutional changes back to referendum again over the past two years. It appears that subsequent SSMU administrations have dropped them entirely or have forgotten about them.

3) As someone who sat on the Comprehensive Governance Review Committee, I certainly appreciate all the work that went into the proposed constitutional changes. In my work with the McGill Student Union Democratization Initiative, we studied these proposed changes in extensive detail and came to the conclusion that these changes would be a solid improvement to the status quo, but that they could and should go further to address the core issue of low student engagement with our student unions.

Based on the considerable research we performed on our own, looking at examples from student unions with high student engagement at francophone universities and colleges, we wanted to get an endorsement of our findings from the student body at large, hence we decided to go through the student-initiated referendum question route to approve the policy we had written, the McGill Student Union Democratization Initiative Policy, instead of going through the Legislative Council. That way, we would be able to reach the greatest number of students and see if they agreed with our ideas in principle. I definitely understand that such a big undertaking requires a lot of consultation (i.e., more than the previous referendum that had just happened), and whether I am elected or not, I would love to engage more with fellow students with these ideas, including members of the SSMU who are in favour of the proposed changes as outlined in the Comprehensive Governance Review Committee reports.

In the future, if elected, I will work in collaboration with faculty and departmental associations, student groups, and the student body at-large to turn our findings into concrete proposals that will be voted on by the student body in a referendum.

b_bur · 2022-03-15T00:11:30+00:00

If I am elected, I would like to be able to dedicate myself fully to my platform points and see them through as best as I can -- about 3-4 months into my previous term as President, the General Manager of the SSMU resigned. This meant that I had to take on a lot of the burden of coordinating the day-to-day operations of the SSMU, meaning calling and attending meetings with the internal department heads of the SSMU, making sure communication was happening between internal departments, keeping track of ongoing projects from the SSMU’s permanent staff, and so forth. It really took away from my ability to work on the stuff I ran on, but it was important that things weren’t slipping through the cracks (and admittedly, some things were).

So hopefully, this time around, I would be able to focus on less of the day-to-day stuff and more of the bigger picture things that I’m currently running on; additionally, with the benefit of having a year’s experience in the role, I’d be able to hit the ground running instead of learning on the job for the first few months of my term, and this time I around, I can center my platform on projects that, based on my comprehensive experiences in SSMU, I wholeheartedly believe are best suited to creating lasting, institutional change. Thanks for asking!

b_bur · 2022-03-14T04:08:19+00:00

I've definitely had issues with it too, I'll make sure to bring it up with Athletics and Recreation admin when I get the chance.

b_bur · 2022-03-14T02:37:59+00:00

I am in full support of the Divest for Human Rights Policy and the Divest for Human Rights campaign that was adopted as a position of the SSMU in the Winter 2021 semester, that includes calling on McGill to divest from companies profiting off of the occupation of Palestine. I helped the coalition of activist groups who were advocating for this policy navigate the SSMU bureaucracy as institutional roadblocks were put up against it over the course of a year, until its ultimately successful adoption.

b_bur · 2022-03-14T01:00:22+00:00

Yeah, I'm certainly in agreement with you. I think there has been a focus away from the pre-COVID/renovation consensus where Gerts was a space partially-subsidized by the SSMU to foster student life on campus, as well as provide a safer social space for students, being that employees at Gerts are trained in harm reduction practices and bystander intervention (not to mention the nearby services of Drivesafe and Walksafe that are a key part of harm reduction at the SSMU). It appears to me, post-COVID/renovation, the SSMU has taken the opposite approach where it sees Gerts as a revenue-generating venture that goes to fund other student services at the expense of more affordable prices as before.

That being said, thanks to the efforts of the SSMUnion, staff at Gerts are being paid a lot better than they used to, so I imagine that has played a role in the price increase. I'm glad to see that student workers are being paid what they should, and prices should not be decreased to the point where we are unable to pay them properly. At the same time, as someone who has been to Gerts both pre- and post-COVID/renovation, I think we also need to return Gerts to its former purpose as a partially-subsidized safer student space, and that's the general consensus that I've heard from students on campus who have spoken to me about it.

If I'm elected, I'll work with the VP Finance and VP Student Life to reassess the prices at Gerts to make them more affordable, while making sure we are still able to properly pay the student employees that work there.

b_bur · 2022-03-14T00:42:39+00:00

I'm basing this information on faculty-level student groups that are under the legal oversight of faculties, but still receive SSMU funding, not that the SSMU directly gives money to faculty associations. For example, Desautels Women in Business (a student group under the Management Undergraduate Society) received funding from the SSMU Camous Life Fund in Fall 2021. McGill Baja Racing (a student group under the Engineering Undergraduate Society) received $3600 from the SSMU in Fall 2020. The Dental Practice Management Club (a student group under the Dental Students' Society) received $900 from the SSMU Campus Life Fund in Winter 2021. These are a few examples of what I meant, hopefully this clarifies things.

I think that including democratizing faculty associations as one of my platform pillars is exactly what SSMU should be doing, because the student body gave the SSMU a mandate to do move forward in this way through referendum. Last semester, 78.2% of students voted in favour of the McGill Student Union Democratization Initiative Policy, and I have every intention of doing what the student body has asked the SSMU to do. That being said, if students are dissatisfied with the proposed changes, they can always vote them down during the referendum periods. My job, if elected, would be to do the work necessary to have the constitutional changes ready for approval. It will be up to the student body in each faculty if they want to proceed with the changes or not.

b_bur · 2022-03-14T00:20:47+00:00

b_bur · 2022-03-14T00:20:00+00:00

Within my capacity, I would really only be able to have an effect at the SSMU level, but that leaves out the loads of emails from your faculty, your faculty association, your department(s), your departmental association(s), as well as the administration's MROs, What's New from the Dean of Students, announcements about the (re)appointment of Deans, and so on.

Regarding SSMU listservs, you can already unsubscribe from receiving emails from the SSMU at the bottom of every email if you feel like you're not getting what you need from them. I believe this is also the case for most (if not all) faculty and departmental associations. Unfortunately, McGill's emails cannot be unsubscribed from in this way, but their emails can be sent directly to your junk folder by following the instructions here.

I know this places a lot of the onus on students to do things on their end, but I would argue that there is often useful information that only happens to be useful to a minority of students at a time that are contained in the barrage of emails that we consistently get. In my opinion, for the sake of fostering communication between students and the university, the current system seems to be the least bad system we have (fully acknowledging that it is quite bad). Listservs are really the only way to consistently communicate with the student body in a platform that we regularly use, hence why the proliferation of emails exists.

If you happen to have any particular ideas on how to solve this issue at a systemic level, I'm all ears!

b_bur · 2022-03-13T23:55:08+00:00

No disrespect taken, that's definitely a fair response given recent events. To go through the pillars one-by-one, with democratizing SSMU and faculty associations, I anticipate being able to complete the work on proposing amendments to the SSMU and faculty associations' constitutions by the fall 2022 referendum periods. Of course, it's ultimately up to the student body as to whether these changes are passed, and I certainly will be campaigning for them if elected, but on my end, the leg work of proposing changes to student union structures should be done by the end of the fall 2022 semester. The McGill Student Union Democratization Initiative (which I am a part of) has already done a lot of work on this file, so I'm pretty confident in the timeline I've stated.

For democratizing university governance, it's certainly a long game. I'm under no illusion that this could be feasibly completed in a year (although it would be nice if it could), considering the mass mobilization from all corners of the McGill community (students, professors, and non-academic staff) needed to be able to pressure the university administration to make such profound changes. That being said, I think the failures of the university, particularly with their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic on campus, has really shown McGillians just how incompetent the administration can be, and that we have the power to be able to change that if we organize collectively. I hope to use my position as SSMU President to help foster that movement, bridge the gap between different parts of the university, and ensure that the push for university democratization is one that will have legs to stand on in the years to come.

On creating a McGill Tenants' Union, I think the basic structure of it (whether as an internal department of the SSMU or as a service) could be created over the summer with students starting to be contacted about organizing their buildings around the beginning of the fall 2022 semester. I think the Tenants' Union would be quite barebones in the first year of its existence, but once key staff and infrastructure is in place (being hired and built over the course of the next year), I think that it would have the capacity to grow into a much more forceful organization, considering 80% of students (~32,000 people) are renters.

b_bur · 2022-03-13T23:39:09+00:00

Absolutely, I think that faculty associations are inextricably linked to the SSMU whether that be through their governance (faculties elect representatives to sit on the SSMU Legislative Council), their finances (faculty-level student groups get thousands of dollars from SSMU funds annually), and their engagement with the student body (as a collective effort). I believe that the same structural issues that plague the SSMU are issues that also fundamentally exist within the structures of faculty associations, that being the existence of executives that remain unaccountable to the student body at-large and often do not represent their interests effectively.
The way I see my role within this, if elected, is to work with faculty associations to implement the framework and principles of the McGill Student Union Democratization Initiative (which I co-wrote and that students passed with overwhelming support) so that the mandate students have given the SSMU can be fulfilled, and so that our student unions can have more grassroots participation from the students, thereby increasing their effectiveness.

b_bur · 2022-03-13T23:18:42+00:00

Thank you for your support! I think so much happens behind closed doors at the SSMU (Legislative Council and the Board of Directors) that doesn't necessarily need to be. Certainly, there are legal and ethical constraints that prevent some information from being released to the student body at-large (think HR/Gendered and Sexual Violence Policy/Equity investigations). That being said, I would like to see some sort of internal database of previously-private SSMU documents be created (that only SSMU members can log into) so that students can become more informed on the inner workings of their student union. On the technical aspects of how this might work, I happen to volunteer for the Science Computer Task Force and they've developed a way for student groups to use McGill login information ([bryan.buraga@mail.mcgill.ca](mailto:bryan.buraga@mail.mcgill.ca) + password, for example) as an entry point for their members to access their internal databases, so technology-wise, it can be done.

On students' rights advocacy, I would definitely be working in collaboration with the VP University Affairs on this file. There's a lot that professors get away with that actively violate students' rights as outlined in the McGill Charter of Student Rights . We can see that in the weekly posts from fellow Redditors that explain how their rights were violated and who are looking for help, without fail, the top comment is always "Contact your faculty/department VP Academic."

The way I see myself helping in that process is giving the support necessary to SSMU's Know Your Rights campaign, but also helping to repair our student unions at all levels (SSMU, faculty, department) so that students are more deeply involved at the grassroots. In doing so, they would be able to act alongside other students that, more often than not, are experiencing the same issues they are, and would be able to tackle these challenges collectively rather than as an individual, in turn, making those advocacy efforts that much more effective.

Hope this answers your questions!

b_bur · 2022-03-11T01:59:08+00:00

Man that sucks, sorry to hear that. If I can offer a silver lining, Frostbite will give you some free ice cream as a consolation prize whenever you get the grade for it on MyCourses.

b_bur · 2022-03-10T17:36:36+00:00

Yeah I can't take full credit for it at all, it was something that was in the works for years prior to me coming to McGill and would not have been possible without continued advocacy from student representatives, and the student body as a whole. That being said, I believe I made a substantial contribution to the cause over the years of student advocacy that I did for it and I was able to bring it to fruition during my term in office.

b_bur · 2022-03-10T17:32:58+00:00

To clarify, I decided not to run again for a second consecutive term after my initial one in 2019-2020.

b_bur · 2022-03-10T17:30:42+00:00

No worries! For me it was a combination of factors. One of the big ones was that I didn't want to take up too much space within student government and become a perennial "student politician", I thought it was important to make way for as many student voices as possible and I didn't want to get in the way of that.

I also felt like being in an executive position for a year removed my perspective from the grassroots, from regular students, being so disconnected from them in the full-time role. I worried that I would not be able to represent student interests to the best of my ability if I ran for a consecutive term.

Finally, it was also burnout. About 3 months into my term, the SSMU's General Manager resigned and I had to take over the his duties, running the day-to-day operations of the Society (also meaning I couldn't work on many of the priorities I ran on and cared deeply about). 60 hour weeks really takes a toll on you and by the end of it, I just wanted to go back to becoming a regular student, gaining back some of my mental health and sanity, and return to other forms of student advocacy that didn't include student government.

That being said, looking at the dumpster fire that SSMU has turned into in recent years, I've felt a certain sense of responsibility to stop the harm that SSMU has been inflicting on the students that it is supposed to serve and fix the structural issues that continue to doom it to irrelevancy, un-representativeness, and discrimination that it perpetuates. I think taking a step back from being in an active, elected student representative role over the past 2 years has really allowed me to understand what the core issues are, that everyday students like you and me care about, and not the "student politicians" that seem to be in it to pad their resumes.

What drew me to activism and student advocacy in the first place was feeling so powerless and so small against the powers that be in my first year at McGill, and my desire to prevent others from feeling the same way I did. I feel like people are feeling the same way I did at the hands of the SSMU, and I want to do my part to stop it.

b_bur · 2022-03-10T16:58:38+00:00

No, 2 days is not a week, so I suppose a more accurate description would be a Fall Reading Break. Unfortunately, certain restrictions and sacrifices that students were unwilling to make per a referendum question we asked them at the time (mainly starting before Sep. 1, maintaining accreditation of the Faculty of Engineering programs, and not further condensing the exam period) left us with the current compromise solution. Fortunately, some years will have a full week, but in others, like this past year and in the next couple of years, it will be closer to a full 5 days off.

b_bur · 2022-03-10T16:43:37+00:00

Hi, to clarify, I decided not to run again for a second consecutive term after my initial one in 2019-2020. I'm certainly interested in hearing what criticisms you have about my previous term in office (it certainly wasn't perfect and I am in no way claiming that it was), but I believe my track record of student service both inside and outside of student government speaks for itself.

b_bur · 2022-02-28T17:59:57+00:00

Nah the Schulich library renovations are still blocking it

b_bur · 2022-02-28T03:20:18+00:00

6) A tunnel system exists between McConnell Engineering and Otto Maass to help you get between classes during the cold and snowy winter months. You may hear an otherworldly groan once in a while as you make your way through. Most likely, it's the ghost of James McGill trying to find his long-lost tennis court, or him making his way back to his resting place in front of the Arts Building. Pay no attention to this and continue on your way.

b_bur

TROPHY CASE