Point of Inquiry is a column written by AMS Columnist Quyen Schroeder about our student union’s governance and policies. It seeks to analyze the AMS with a critical — but constructive — eye.
Quyen Schroeder (they/she) is a fourth-year student studying English language and computer science, and they’ve been a committed observer of almost all AMS Council meetings since February 2023. She also ran as “Barry ‘Bee’ Buzzword” in the 2025 AMS Presidential election. They can be reached at q.schroeder@ubyssey.ca.
Bylaw changes are coming — and you’ll be able to vote for them on Oct. 22 at the AMS’ Annual General Meeting (AGM).
The AMS Bylaws are the union’s most stable governing document. To change them, the union must call a general meeting or propose a referendum item. Then, two-thirds of voters must vote in favour of the change.
During a general election, for a bylaw change to be quorate — that is, for enough students to vote in it for it to count — eight per cent of UBC’s student body needs to vote. For next week’s AGM, that number is one per cent of students: just over 600 people. By showing up on Oct. 22, your vote for or against these bylaw changes will be significantly more impactful.
I’ll break down these changes so you can decide whether it’s worth turning out to the AGM to support these bylaws or just for the chance at a year-long supply of Blue Chip cookies. While I think you should show up to the AGM, these bylaw changes are unlikely to affect any individual student directly. For the AMS’s resource groups, however, these bylaw changes acknowledge their integral place within the union and the campus community at large.
Most of the bylaw changes are minor, representing clarifications on the duties of AMS executives and small tweaks to wording that align the bylaws with provincial legislation.
Filling vacancies
These bylaw changes allow the AMS to create procedures to deem a seat vacant and to appoint temporary replacements for vacant members. Multiple voting seats on council are currently vacant. The creation of a procedure to fill these seats on an interim basis is beneficial. The Affiliate Colleges (which includes Corpus Christi, Saint Mark's College, Regent College and Vancouver School of Theology) and the Graduate Student Society often struggle to fill seats. A process for appointing members to vacant seats has limited effectiveness without those willing to serve.
I’m somewhat concerned about the potential of this to be used to avoid elections and appoint ideologically complacent replacements. In recent years, AMS executives who ‘left’ the AMS have taken an indefinite leave of absence without technically resigning. As such, the AMS was not required to hold a by-election, meaning they could appoint a replacement, rather than having students vote for one. The procedures the AMS develops for appointing a replacement should address this.
Removing councilors
There is also a proposed amendment that would allow council to discipline, suspend and remove members of council (which includes both elected councillors and AMS executives) who are “found to be in violation of the Society’s Bylaws, Code, or internal policies.” Additionally, council can declare a member of council who has been removed from office “ineligible to be duly elected” for up to a year.
Clearly, this is in reaction to last year’s expulsion and removal of former VP AUA Drédyn Fontana. He ran for AMS President just months after he was removed from his position as VP AUA. Current AMS President Riley Huntley was vice-chair of the committee that wrote the report that led to Fontana’s removal and ran against Fontana in this spring’s election.
(I ran as joke candidate Barry ‘Bee’ Buzzword against Fontana and Huntley in the 2025–26 AMS Presidential election.)
The AMS should have a procedure to formally discipline and even remove executives. Students should not be stuck with a representative who is unable to execute the duties of their office. This bylaw change provides that mechanism perfectly adequately. It also allows council to suspend an executive, rather than outright removing one, providing a less extreme course of action for minor infractions. Again, this is a positive, allowing for discipline that is less disruptive to the continuity of the union’s operations.
I haven’t decided how I feel about the provision allowing council to prevent a removed executive from running for office. On one hand, there is value in preventing someone council has decided is unfit from office from returning with a vengeance. (Fontana sued the AMS for severance pay and aggravated damages following his removal.) Yet, I also found genuine democratic value in Fontana’s campaign. His platform described procedures intended to address what he and numerous former executives have described as a toxic culture within the AMS. I think if Fontana were elected, he would have earnestly worked to improve the AMS.
Regardless, I take solace in knowing that executive removals are nearly unheard of in our union’s history — Fontana is the only executive to have been removed. Hopefully these new bylaws will never need to be used.
Resource groups
In a previous essay for this column, I expressed my hopes for a stronger relationship between the AMS and its resource groups. These bylaw changes are a tangible display of the AMS’s commitment to those relationships.
The AMS’s resource groups can be broadly split into two divisions. Some provide resources and community to marginalized students at UBC; this includes the UBC Pride Collective, the UBC Disabilities United Collective (DUC), and the UBC Women’s Centre. The rest focus on advocacy: this includes the UBC Social Justice Centre (SJC) and the UBC Student Environment Centre (SEC).
Resource Groups currently exist only as a provision of the AMS Code. Unlike the bylaws, code is easy to change. Only two-thirds of the 33 voting seats on council need to approve a change to the code. While resource groups are constituted under AMS Code, council could decide at any meeting that they don’t want resource groups to exist. Only 22 votes would be required to terminate them.
The proposed bylaw changes intend to enshrine the AMS’s resource groups into the bylaws, creating a permanence and stability for these groups that doesn’t exist now. Should these bylaws go into effect, it would take another successful referendum or AGM vote to remove resource groups. In the near future, this is unlikely given the resource groups’ recent ability to drive electoral turnout.
Adding resource groups to the bylaws does not prevent the AMS from deconstituting a specific resource group — as our union threatened to do to the SJC in 2024. The change protects the concept of resource groups, not an individual resource group. Regardless, enshrining resource groups into the bylaws is valuable, ensuring that they will exist for years to come.
But this also comes with a notable explicit restriction on their autonomy.
As a subsidiary organization, the bylaws would allow council to require resource groups to seek consent to “conduct any functions or activities using the name of the University or the Society” or “conduct any fund-raising activities including any charity drives.” While these restrictions were already in place for clubs and constituencies, these bylaw amendments extend them to resource groups.
I am concerned that this provision might be used to suppress resource groups in the future. I don’t think it’s an imminent concern — I can’t find an instance of the AMS requiring subsidiaries to seek consent for either activity. The section of AMS Code on resource groups reads, “Neither the Clubs and Societies Committee, the Finance Committee, an Executive nor the Executive Committee shall interfere with the discharge of duties by the RGAC specified in this section.” I’d be incredibly surprised if this was used before I graduate — especially by the current administration. However, I’m cognizant that we may be making problems for resource groups in the years and decades to come, particularly if the AMS’s relationship with resource groups regresses.
The AMS has attempted to restrict the dispersal of Resource Group funds before. In 2010, the SJC was planning to give a $700 grant to UBC Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR). SPHR, in turn, was planning to donate that money to a charity that would put that money towards a humanitarian aid flotilla headed for Gaza. The AMS froze the grant. For two weeks, the independence of resource groups remained in question. AMS Executives cited the SJC’s failure to hold an AGM as a reason for the freeze. At the time, a member of the commission responsible for investigating the SJC’s AGM claimed that the reasoning was provided only after the transfer freeze was already in effect. Indeed, in the first article on the matter, the AMS said the reason for suspending the transaction was that the AMS’s VP finance “felt uncomfortable signing off on the transaction.”The commission’s investigation — likewise having been initiated only after the transfer was frozen — disproved the executives’ allegations about the SJC’s AGM.
I reached out to all five of the AMS’s resource groups. The Pride Collective and DUC supported both of the bylaw proposals — they did not share my concerns about autonomy. The SJC responded, but didn’t indicate a preference. Neither the Women’s Centre nor the SEC responded to my request for comment.
Over the past few months, the AMS has shown its commitments to engage with resource groups were more than just talk. In codifying resource groups in the bylaws, the AMS places them as a central part of their mission. This important change was not made without the input of resource groups — as has been the case in recent years.
The Pride Collective wrote in response to me that it “appreciates [AMS President Riley Huntley] and [AMS Equity and Inclusion Lead Weilan Zhang]’s willingness to engage and support the Resource Groups.” After years of nonexistent or destructive consultation with resource groups, I’m glad to see that the AMS under Huntley’s leadership is engaging in earnest and effecting positive change.
At the AGM on Oct. 22, I will be voting in favour of these changes. I think you should too — especially if you believe in the mission of the AMS Resource Groups. You can pre-register to attend the AGM on the AMS’ website. Broadly, these are all positive changes, and though I have concerns about some, the likelihood of those concerns being relevant is remote, at least in the near future.
This is an opinion essay, and a part of a regular column. It reflects the columnist's views and does not reflect the views of The Ubyssey as a whole. Contribute to the conversation by visiting ubyssey.ca/pages/submit-an-opinion.
First online
Share this article
