Delegates: Gurpreet Singh (SUS VP External) and Bilal Faisal Faheem (SUS President)
Date: 21 July, 2025 – 25 July, 2025
HOSTED BY STUDENT’S ASSOCIATION OF MOUNT ROYAL UNIVERSITY (SAMRU)
Location - Calgary, Alberta
This July, two UFV Student Union Society executives travelled to Calgary to attend the CASA Policy & Strategy Conference, hosted by the Students’ Association of Mount Royal University.
The Policy and Strategy Conference is where CASA's membership focuses on setting the direction of CASA for the next year. CASA delegates discussed, debated, and approved on a host of topics, including CASA's Board Action Plan, CASA's advocacy priorities, Pre-Budget Submissions, Pre-policy consultations, CASA's yearly campaign, and Committee Work Plans.
What is Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA)?
CASA is a non-partisan and not-for-profit student advocacy organization that represents over 400,000 post-secondary learners across Canada at the federal level. To know more about CASA go to - https://ufvsus.ca/blog-editor/sus-execs-at-casa-foundations-2025.
Conference Highlights: Sessions, Key Discussions & Outcomes
On our day of Travel, CASA hosted an Alumni Reception in the evening, giving delegates an opportunity to network with some CASA Alums – one of which was SUS’s former President Gurvir Gill (G). Your executives also met with Naheed Nenshi – former Mayor of Calgary and current Leader of the Opposition in Alberta.
We started the first day at the conference understanding the History of the Student Movement through the years and traced its roots from early campus activism to the formation of national student organizations. We were introduced to CASA’s 2025-2026 Communications Strategy following which was the Opening Plenary & Committee Elections.
One major highlight: UFV SUS VP External Gurpreet Singh was elected as a Voting Member in the Governance and Internal Review Committee (GIRC) for 2025–2026.
He will be responsible to work on the policies and operating procedures that govern CASA board, home office and members.
On the second day, Each of the Board of Directors presented their Action Plan followed by a World Café Style discussion, which allowed us to provide feedback and point out the things that best served UFV SUS.
On the third day, we were provided with an overview of CASA’s approach to advocating for post-secondary students at the federal level. The session explored key advocacy strategies, including direct lobbying to parliamentarians, committee appearances, brief submissions, coalition-building, demonstrating how CASA ensures student voices are heard in national decision-making. We were then provided with the Federal Political Climate Update, which gave us some context of how government relations operate at the federal level. Lastly, we were presented with the 2025-26 advocacy priority themes which ended with a Roundtable discusssion on the priorities.
On day four, we had the policy-pre consultation session. We discussed CASA’s three policy priorities for this year, which included:
Food Security at Post-Secondary Institutions
Accessibility for Students with Disabilities
Post-Secondary Solutions to the Skilled Labour Shortage
SUS executives presented their insights on how these issues imapct student at UFV and gave feedback that will directly inform the early drafting of CASA’s Federal Policy Committee’s new policy statements.
On our last day, we discussed CASA’s finances presented by SUS President, Bilal and how it can sutain its work on the federal level. We were given an overview of the CASA on the Road Campaign (Curious what this is ? - DM us on Instagram @sus_execs) followed by the Closing Plenary where we officially approved the Board and Committee Action Plans, and priority themes for the year. Here are the priorities themes that were set for 2025-2026:
International Students
Employment
Student Financial Aid
Food Inseurity
Housing
What’s next? :
We are:
Getting ready for Advocacy Week 2025 in Ottawa this November, where we meet directly with Members of Parliament, Senetors and senior Federal Officials. Stay tuned for updates on that soon.
Ensuring UFV’s voice is heard in the drafting of national student policies.
Turning the priorites set at CASA into action.
- Gurpreet Singh
Vice President External, UFV SUS