As the president of the student union at the University of Ottawa, I represent 35,000 undergrad students. We manage a big budget. We have a $15-million turnover that includes payments to our health plan and to the U-Pass program, which we also manage at the student union. We have about 150 to 200 staff who work at the Student Federation. In a nutshell, what we do is support students through a number of services from academic advocacy to support for students with disabilities. We also have a women's resource centre that we run, as well as a pride centre. We do a lot of equity work on our campus.
We also lobby all levels of government, municipal, provincial, and federal, on a variety of student issues. We also lobby our administration on a number of issues from tuition fees to creating new grants and scholarships, but also ensuring that the university is upholding its responsibility to properly promote and share the information and opportunities that are available to students.
As a student union, it isn't our responsibility to be doing the work of the university and other institutions, but rather to ensure that they're properly doing their jobs and ensuring that the information is transmitted to students.