Legislative Council

The Legislative Council is the legislative arm of the SSMU. Thirty councillors elected by specific constituencies, including school and faculty associations and councils representing particular student demographics, and the seven (7) SSMU Executives comprise the voting members of Council. The Speaker, Parliamentarian, General Manager, and Recording Secretary are non-voting members. According to Article 3 of the SSMU Constitution, Council is the governing body of the Society and “shall be empowered to make all decisions and take all actions on behalf of the Society.”

All SSMU members are welcome to attend open sessions of Council, which are generally held every second Thursday beginning at 6pm. In the Fall 2021 semester, all sessions of Council will be conducted via Zoom. If you would like to attend these online sessions as a member of the gallery, please fill out this form.

For 2021-2022, the dates of Council are:

While Council is run according to Code Véronneau, its proceedings should be accessible to all members; don’t hesitate to ask the Speaker, Parliamentarian or a Councillor (including Executives) how you can participate in the debate. Council meetings can last several hours, so if you are interested in a particular issue, it may be wise to check the agenda in advance and/or ask a Councillor to contact you (e.g. by text message) when the item relevant to your issue is coming up. The agenda order can also be amended to accommodate your schedule, so get in touch with a Councillor if this is something you require. You can peruse its agenda and “documents in advance” (reports of Executives and Committees, as well as proposed resolutions and policies) below.

Council Documents 2021 – 2022

If for any reason you have any difficulty accessing the documents below, please email the Speaker of Council or the President. You can also follow the Legislative Council on Twitter with the hashtag #SSMULegCouncil!

Speaker of Council & Parliamentarian

Speaker of Council acts as the chair of Council. They are responsible for the smooth procedural functioning of Council meetings which includes the call to order (which opens the meeting), granting the floor (i.e. giving people permission to speak) and stating motions and putting them to a vote. The Speaker is guided in their tasks by Code Véronneau in addition to the Constitution, Internal Regulations and any relevant resolutions of Council.

Parliamentarian is also responsible for running Council with the Speaker. While the Speaker controls the floor and grants Councillors speaking rights in an appropriate fashion, the Parliamentarian takes care of the organization, projection and amending of motions and reports during Council.

Committees of Council

SSMU Committees make recommendations to Council on everything from the allocation of funding to student groups to the approval of new clubs to the adoption of new policies. Each Councillor sits on at least one SSMU Committee. The Committee Terms of Reference contains all of the information about the various committees at SSMU.

Representatives

The voting members of SSMU’s Legislative Council comprise thirty councillors elected by specific constituencies, including school and faculty associations and councils representing particular student demographics, and the 6 SSMU Executives. The Speakers, Parliamentarian, General Manager, and Recording Secretary are non-voting members.

Councillors’ primary responsibility is to represent the interests of their constituencies in SSMU governance. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with your representatives!

This year’s representatives are:

	Constituency	Name	Email Address
	Arts	Yara Coussa	artsrep1@ssmu.ca
	Arts	Avishai Infeld	artsrep2@ssmu.ca
	Arts	Ghania Javed	artsrep3@ssmu.ca
	Arts	Charlotte Gurung	artsrep4@ssmu.ca
	Arts and Science	Leo Holton	artscirep@ssmu.ca
	Athletics	Sedami-Habib Djossou	athleticsrep@ssmu.ca
	Clubs	TBD	clubsrep1@ssmu.ca
	Clubs	Nadia Dakdouki	clubsrep2@ssmu.ca
	Dentistry	Han Wen Yu	dentistryrep@ssmu.ca
	Education	Justin Liao	edrep@ssmu.ca
	Environment	Katie Thomas	envirorep@ssmu.ca
	Engineering	Hiraku Murakami	engrep1@ssmu.ca
	Engineering	Julie Bellia	engrep2@ssmu.ca
	First Year Council (FYC)	Lucille Applegate	fycrep@ssmu.ca
	Inter-Residence Council (IRC)	Carolina Zveiris	ircrep@ssmu.ca
	Law	Arnaud Desrochers	lawrep@ssmu.ca
	Management	Nathaniel Saad	managementrep1@ssmu.ca
	Management	Mary Zhang	managementrep2@ssmu.ca
	Medicine	Benson Wan	medicinerep@ssmu.ca
	Music	Mitra Khodadadi	musicrep@ssmu.ca
	Nursing	Emily Eiley	nursingrep@ssmu.ca
	PT/OT	Elisa D’Amore	ptotrep@ssmu.ca
	Science	Asma Khamis	sciencerep1@ssmu.ca
	Science	Emaan Qazi	sciencerep2@ssmu.ca
	Science	Andres Perez Tiniacos	sciencerep3@ssmu.ca
	Senate Caucus	–	artssenator1@ssmu.ca
	Senate Caucus	–
	Services	Nathan Claret	servicesrep@ssmu.ca
	Social Work	TBD	socialworkrep@ssmu.ca

Non-Voting Members of Council

	Position	Name	Email Address
	Speaker of Council	Alexandre Ashkir	speaker@ssmu.ca
	Speaker On-Call	–	speaker@ssmu.ca
	Parliamentarian	Jasleen Kaur	parliamentarian@ssmu.ca
	Recording Secretary	–	recsec@ssmu.ca
	Recording Secretary	–	recsec@ssmu.ca
	General Manager	Daniel Dufour	gm@ssmu.ca