Candidates say a lot of things during debates — numbers, figures, claims and more.
It can be hard to catch everything that was said, but that's why we at The Ubyssey have a team dedicated to fact-checking all the big claims candidates make during debates.
Here we're covering the second debate on February 27 where the candidates for the Board of Governors (BoG), VP academic and university affairs (VP AUA), VP external and VP administration debated each other.
We didn't cover everything, but hopefully this gives you a clearer idea on what was discussed — and how much of it was true.
Quotes have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Board of Governors
Eshana Bhangu, Kamil Kanji, Jasper Lorien, Ferdinand Rother, Siddharth Rout, Leonard Wang and Enav Zusman are running for BoG.
Rother, Rout, Wang and Zusman were absent from this debate.
Jasper Lorien: On campus housing has increased by up to eight per cent this year, tuition up to five per cent.
Eshana Bhangu: I was the only member of UBC’s finance committee to vote no to the tuition increases this year.
Lorien: I would try to get the Climate Action Committee recreated … it was killed in 2023.
True. The Sustainability and Climate Action Committee was dissolved in March 2023.
Bhangu: During my time at the AMS, the AMS did actually send submissions to the Board of Governors asking them to divest from some of these companies [complicit in human rights violations.]
True. Bhangu abstained from the 2022 AMS divestment motion.
Bhangu: Grad students make up 52 per cent of the users of the food bank while being 22 per cent of the population.
Kanji: [I secured] an $18,000 to $24,000 increase in minimum funding packages for every PhD student.
Mostly true. While PhD students must now receive a minimum funding package of $24,000 a year starting September 2024, the previous minimum funding amount was $22,000 — which had been in place since September 2021 when the funding was last increased from $18,000.
Kanji: Increasing the allocation for financial aid for international students from 7.5 per cent to 8 per cent, to make sure there's new revenue available to help support the money necessary to support education.
False. In a statement to The Ubyssey, Kanji said he was referring specifically to increasing international students' access to need-based financial aid. The 7.5 per cent of tuition Kanji mentioned is allocated to student financial aid for both international and domestic students.
Lorien: The Trek scholarship, which then just got cut for students that are international.
True. In July 2023, The Ubyssey reported that international students were no longer eligible for Trek Excellence Scholarship.
Bhangu: I did set that institutional precedent by getting that drop date extended without standing for the first time ever.
True. In January 2022, Senate voted 37 in favour and 24 opposed for students to drop courses without a W standing. Bhangu introduced the motion as chair of the Student Senate Caucus.
Bhangu: The cost of building 1 student housing [unit] is $300,000 per bed.
True. According to August 2023, it costs UBC $292,000 per student bed.
Lorien: With 9,500 neighborhood housing units being built, there would only be 3,300 new student beds [in UBC’s Land Use Plan].
VP academic and university affairs
Drédyn Fontana and Taushifa Shaikh are running for VP AUA.
Taushifa Shaikh: Fifty-seven per cent of students face financial hardships … 75 per cent of Black students experience discrimination … 40 per cent of us are scared of running out of food.
Mostly true. According to the 2023 AMS Academic Experience Survey, 57 per cent of respondents experience financial hardship related to the cost of housing. The survey responses also report 75 per cent of Black respondents experienced racial discrimination and that 38 per cent of students worry about running out of food.
Shaikh: We got an additional $500,000 in funding [for mental health coverage]. That was one-time funding.
True. Current VP AUA Kamil Kanji secured $500,000 in funding to increase the AMS/GSS Health & Dental Plan mental health coverage from 80 per cent to 100 per cent. In a statement to The Ubyssey, Kanji confirmed this was one-time funding.
Shaikh: Currently, there are only 13 advisors within the CFA [who get] 380 to 400 cases and invigilate 22,000 exams in a year.
True. According to the AMS’s Student Priorities for 2024/25 UBC Operating Budget report.
Fontana: If we took the $1.25 million [UBC’s invested] in Lockheed Martin out, how many guns would not be produced, how many less people would die?
True. According to UBC Investment Management’s holding disclosure report from December 2022, the university has $1.2 million invested in Lockheed Martin.
Fontana: The university has already committed, in their Climate Action Plan, to divest from fossil fuels by 2030.
Fontana: Campus Vision 2050 committed to building 3,300 [new student beds] but based on current growth estimates that number should be 5,000.
True. Campus Vision 2030 and UBC’s Land Use Plan committed to building 3,300 beds.
Shaikh: $4–5 million of student financial aid last year went unspent.
False. $5–6 million of student financial aid went unspent [in 2022].
VP external
Ayesha Irfan and Jake Sawatzky are running for VP external.
Jake Sawatzky: One of the biggest transit things that needs to be focused on right now is bus 480. There's a lot of students in Richmond that really relied on that transit route.
True. Translink cut the 480 bus route — which ran from Bridgeport Station to UBC — during the pandemic due to costs and has continued to point to this and the implementation of the R4 bus route as reasons not to reinstate the 480. Students commuting from Richmond have been complaining about this route suspension since class returned to in-person in 2021.
Ayesha Irfan: There was no commitment for funding the SkyTrain here at UBC [in the 2024 BC provincial budget].
True. The 2024 provincial budget includes $2.8 billion for the Broadway Subway project that would extend the Millenium line from Commercial-Broadway to Arbutus, but nothing for the business case to further extend the line from the Arbutus station to UBC.
Irfan: I think one of the things that I did like [in the BC provincial budget] though was there was a new income tax credit for up to $400 per year for renters.
True.
Irfan: Another piece that has to do directly with the federal government is ensuring that the federal government renews the building on successful International Education Strategy that is set to end in 2024 and increase the budget to $165 million.
True. The federal government implemented a five-year International Education Strategy in 2019 that allocated an initial $147.9 million followed by an $8 million increase each year. The strategy was aimed at increasing the diversity of where international students come from and encouraging Canadian students to go abroad during their studies.
Sawatzky: Victims shouldn't have to be in the same court rooms as their abusers … That is 1 of the 11 minimum standards that really stood out to me as super important.
True. According to the Students for Consent Culture (SFCC)’s 11 minimum standards for sexual violence prevention, protections from face-to-face encounters is 1 of them.
VP administration
Jai Sodhi, Kevin Heieis and Amy Liao are running for VP administration.
Amy Liao: We introduced low sensory hours for clubs week.
True. Clubs Week this January introduced low sensory hours. Liao is currently a part of the VP administration office which organized the event.
Liao: We currently have two sensory rooms in the Nest already.
Jai Sodhi: I would like to have more external partners [collaborate with the Hatch Art Gallery.]
Noted. In October 2023, the Hatch Art Gallery collaborated with student groups for its Reveal/Reform exhibition, and in February collaborated with the Centre for Climate Justice on its Climate Catharsis exhibition.
Heieis: Porch and Flavor Lab are two unprofitable businesses out of all the AMS ones.
True. Despite Porch and Flavour Lab being unprofitable, the AMS’s budget reforecast shows they generated more revenue than projected.
Liao: We are actually pushing out the Club's Directory, which will be on the AMS website.
Liao: Opening the ISC was a $24,000 price tag.
Mostly true. The Interactive Sustainability Centre cost the AMS $26,000.
Heieis: The Panhellenic Society had their club status revoked, and this is a group of women that needs to be supported. We need to meet ensure that they are safe, and they have resources that they can use on campus.
False and noted. In 2022, the AMS moved a motion to give the Panhellenic Council its funds if it were to be deconstituted following the IFC’s deconstituion. These students, regardless of their affiliation, still have access to AMS services as UBC students and members of the society.
Liao: UBC Sororities is a club, and we are supporting them.
True. UBC Sororities is not deconstituted as an AMS club, according to AMS Interim President Ben Du.
— Additional reporting by Stella Griffin, Emilija Vītols Harrison, Spencer Izen and Trinity Sala
This article is part of our 2024 AMS Elections coverage. Voting is open until March 8.