Last night, in the Lower Ceilidh, AMS executive candidates participated in the final debate before students go to the polls. Even though candidates have had plenty of time to prepare—the campaign period is already over one and a half weeks in and two other debates have taken place—the teams were inarticulate and generally unimpressive.
Diane Phatsaphaphone of Team HPR was unable to clearly articulate her answers and it was often difficult to understand what exactly she was trying to get across. Also, Phatsaphaphone’s running mate, Jennifer Raffoul, suffered many lapses during the debate and apologized on several occasions for losing her train of thought. If these are the same individuals who hope to be our representatives to the istration and other University and city officials, their performances at the debate were not only dismal, but enough to plant seeds of doubt about the capabilities of the team.
The absence of vice-president (operations) candidate Nancy Huynh did not bode well for Team SHT. What was worse, Jonathan Scarlett did a particularly poor job of representing Huynh by proxy; it was so bad that it seemed like he knew absolutely nothing about his teammate. At one point, when an audience member asked a question about what the teams would do about the lack of diversity on campus, Scarlett noted that Huynh was a member of Japanese Relations at Queen’s (JRQ) and “one of those Chinese clubs.” The constant plugging of their website was annoying, and often a diversion from providing detailed answers.
Although HML came across as the more polished team, they were unnecessarily aggressive, bordering on hostile. While force and confidence are needed for a successful team, instilling fear and intimidation isn’t exactly an invitation for students to approach them. At different times during the debate, Dave Homuth was caught saying “when I am elected,” undercutting the team aspect of this election.
Team MBT seemed more like they were running for a high school election than the leadership of an $8.7 million not-for-profit corporation. Meghan Teuber, when answering a question about how her team would address transgender issues, made the point that there are no transgender washrooms on campus; however, she was quickly informed that in fact, there is one in the JDUC.
Although all teams stayed focused and maintained a respectful tone throughout the debate, they had a generally poor presence and appeared unprepared to debate the issues. Frankly, they looked nothing like people who should hold three of the highest positions on campus.
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