Hey UFV Students!

Between November 24-30th, SUS President Jayden Hovey and VP External Roxy Granikovas attended the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) Advocacy Week Conference in Ottawa, Ontario. CASA is a non-profit and non-partisan organization that represents and advocates for nearly half a million post-secondary students across Canada at the federal level.During Advocacy Week, your execs joined other student leaders to meet with various organizations, members of parliament (MPs), senators, and even the Prime Minister to ensure that student priorities were being addressed on a federal level.Student leaders advocated for:

1. Higher federal investment in the Student-Work Placement Program (SWPP).

2. Giving more work opportunities to apprentices to work on federal construction projects.

3. Linking federal graduate research funding to increase with CPI.

4. Doubling the Express Entry Program points for students completing credentials and degrees in Canada.

5. Permanently renewing the Canada Student Grant (CSG) to $4,200 grant per year/$300 loan per week maximum.

6. Increasing funding for the Post-Secondary Student Support Program (PSSSP) and equivalent Metis and Inuit programs.

Some of SUS' meetings included:

1. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

2. Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship, Marc Miller

3. Minister of Employment and Workforce Development, Ginette Petitpas-Taylor

4. Green Party Leader Elizabeth May

5. The Ministry of Housing

6. Senators Kristopher Wells and David Richards

7. MP Salma Zahid

8. The Federal Youth Secretariat

And more!CASA’s 2024 Advocacy Week was a big success and we are hopeful to see more federal support for post-secondary students at UFV and across Canada.We look forward to reporting more soon!

- Roxy Granikovas