Joshua Lee wins medicine representative in byelection

By Gayathri Peringod, October 21 2019 —

On Friday evening, the Red Room of The Den was humming with anticipation in the moments before Joshua Lee was announced as the Faculty of Medicine representative, the only elected role in this year’s byelection.

Lee came first in the byelection with 40 per cent of the vote (106 votes) from students enrolled in the Cumming School of Medicine, with a total of 262 students in the Faculty of Medicine voting in the mid-October byelection. Pranav Khosla came second with 22 per cent of the vote.

Lee appeared elated and overwhelmed when speaking to the Gauntlet after the announcement. Addressing his faculty directly, he expressed his desire to properly represent them. 

“I’m very honoured to be serving you, and I have a lot that I am excited to present to you and I want to keep engaged with you to make sure that, as I campaigned, my impact lasts past my term,” he said. “Thank you very much for all your support.”

Lee ran on a campaign of creating a clear mandate and responsibilities for the Med Rep. position, hosting an online forum about SU Quality Money Projects and generating ideas for the Quality Money application and supporting and engaging Bachelor of Community Rehabilitation students, all of which he aims to complete in his elected term which ends April 30, 2020.

Most elected student representatives of the Students’ Union were present for the announcement in the Red Room of The Den on Friday. The results were announced by SU Chief Returning Officer Ashley Teixeira, preceded by an announcement of all the other new student representatives from the byelection, who were acclaimed to vacant positions due to a lack of contest for their campaigns. 

The acclaimed byelection representatives are Business representative Huzaifah Abbas, Veterinary Medicine representative Douglas Doyle-Baker, Social Work representative Marie Beaupre-Olsen and Engineering representative Khaled Elmalawany, all of whom will serve their term until April 30, 2020. 

Correction: a previous version of this article misspelled the SU CRO’s last name as Texeira when it is in fact Teixeira. Our apologies to readers for this error.