This past weekend, your OTSU executives attended the 2026 Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance General Assembly (OUSA GA). Founded in 1992, OUSA was established as an alliance between student governments to give undergraduate students a collective voice in advocating to the provincial government for affordable tuition, better financial aid, and improved post-secondary education.

The OTSU first joined OUSA in 2021 as a non-voting observer before becoming a full member in 2023. Since then, the OTSU has continued to strengthen its involvement in provincial student advocacy, ensuring that Ontario Tech students have a voice in shaping policies that impact their university experience.

In the fall of 2025, I attended my first General Assembly as a delegate representing the OTSU. This year, I had a completely different experience as an author of the 2SLGBTQIA+ policy paper, alongside our VP of Student Affairs, Anwoy Barua.

As authors, we listened to feedback, took notes, and did live edits with over 50 student delegates representing universities and student unions from across the province. This experience was incredibly collaborative, as delegates worked through edit suggestions as a team, building upon each other’s ideas to ensure the representation of diverse and inclusive perspectives.

We then spent hours rewriting and editing our sections each night, followed by final consultations, review and debate of final delegate amendments, and finally a successful vote to pass our paper on the final day of the conference.

We had the opportunity to talk to every single delegate attending this conference, and accomplished what we were there to do: build a collaborative and inclusive policy paper with student leaders from across Ontario.

Kailey Haskell,
Your OTSU President
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Delegate Perspectives

OUSA's Fall GA was truly a one-of-a-kind event. As a member of a smaller school, I was quite nervous heading into a conference of such grand scale. What I found was that the opportunity to connect and speak with different delegates allowed me to be one of the more vocal representatives at the event.

Being able to share my perspective with a diverse group of Ontario students allowed me to develop my professional skills and learn how to adapt messaging behind advocacy recommendations to represent the greatest number of students.

Ryan Stoddart
Vice President of Downtown

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I had the most fulfilling experience as a student delegate at the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance’s Fall 2026 General Assembly. Throughout the weekend, I had the chance to connect, collaborate with, and learn from other post-secondary students hailing from all over Ontario. We were able to incorporate diverse perspectives into policy papers that meaningfully analyze, address, and propose solutions to some of the most pressing issues facing post-secondary students and institutions in Ontario.

I grew a lot from this experience both personally, academically, and professionally, and I am so grateful to the OUSA Home Staff, delegates from the other student unions, and especially the OTSU for having me as part of this fantastic learning experience, empowering me to be part of tangible, equitable change in post-secondary education.

Branice Yeung,
Social Practice & Innovation

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I had the privilege of attending the 2026 Fall GA as a delegate, where I got to see firsthand what goes on behind the scenes when it comes to policies that affect us students. Having the opportunity to review and suggest changes to policies that would be presented to the provincial government, and advocating for the needs and interests of fellow students, was a great privilege and reminded me of the importance of civic engagement and advocacy. Overall, the experience ran smoothly and professionally, and showed me that my voice as a student matters.

Aranno Abrar,
Computer Science