Chris Vaillant talks about victory and plans for office

Stacey Goyan
News Editor

For the first time in LUSU history, an Orillia student will hold an executive seat in the Lakehead University Student Union.  Chris Vaillant, a Concurrent Bachelor of Arts & Science student, sat down with The Argus to discuss his win, and his plans for office.

Stacey Goyan: What was your reaction to winning the election?

Chris Vaillant: I was pretty overjoyed with the fact that Orillia is going to have a say with executive level issues.

SG: What kind of things do you think need to be brought to the table at the executive level for Orillia?

CV: Probably just the whole issue with our office space [getting space for LUSU on the permanent campus opening in September] and getting LUSU established here.

SG: It’s your first day in office, what’s the first thing you’re going to do?

CV: If it’s May 1st we’re talking about; it’s probably going to be meeting with the general manager and getting some continuity rolling

SG: Will you be moving here to fill the executive spot?

CV: Yeah, I’m constitutionally required to be at the head office but at the same time, one member of the executive is constitutionally required to travel to Orillia. I think that between all three of us new executives it would pretty much be a consensus that I would be the person.

SG: Are you happy with the results of the Orillia [universal bus pass] referendum?

CV: Yeah I am. I think that will give a lot of our students good opportunity to save a lot of money, as well, get some quality safe reliable transportation for us.

SG: So you talked about how there’s a bit of a difficulty with communication between the Thunder Bay and Orillia campus. How do you think that can be addressed?

CV: Having an executive member from Orillia will certainly help increase that continuity [between the two campuses]. I’ll be able to keep a lot of people who are down here informed about what’s going on. I think they’ll be more prone to listen to what’s going on from an Orillia person and not just a name they know from Thunder Bay, because they’ll be able to put a face to it.

SG: How do you think you would do things differently from the present Vice President Finance [Josh Kolic]?

Well Josh has done a really good job and I was really disheartened to hear that he didn’t get elected for president, not that I don’t look forward to working with Mr. Snoddon. I’ve had many relations with him over the past years and I’m thrilled to be working with him… Josh has done a great job especially with the situation he walked in on and I think he’s handled it really well.

SG: Have you talked to your future coworkers?

CV: I have spoken to them briefly but I’m actually [going to] be coming up over March break where we’re to meet and discuss a lot of our future goals and other things we’re going to be doing hopefully.

SG: Anything else you’d like students to know about you?

CV: I think I’d like to drive the point home that even though I’m from Orillia, there shouldn’t be a difference or a fear that things are going to go awry now because there’s someone from Orillia in the Thunder Bay executive. Sure, we made history [in] that for the first time that someone’s run for the executive from the Orillia and that they got elected… it’s just another kick at the can by somebody different. We all have the same goals in the end. I think we’re [going to] make a lot of progress next year.