After the Tribune gave Kay Turner a C- for her tenure as vice-president internal last year, we weren't optimistic about the prospect of a Turner presidency. But, Turner has outperformed the Tribune's every expectation. She has managed to hold the SSMU Executive together despite the resignation of VP Finance and Operations Tobias Silverstein, picking up many of his responsibilities herself. Turner also helped to temper potentially explosive issues such as Choose Life's controversial club status application, and the divisive Gaza motion at the winter General Assembly.
While Turner has done a good job overall, there were larger problems with SSMU that she could have handled better. The GA reform motion put forward by the Executive during the winter election period was misleading. It was presented as simply changing the regulations controlling GAs from the SSMU constitution to the by-laws, making them easier to modify in the future. But the motion also removed the qualified quorum requirement for GAs, making it easier for a small minority of students to dominate GAs.
Turner also has maintained good relations with former Elections McGill Chief Electoral Office Nicole Gileadi, but she failed to work well enough with Elections McGill before Council censured the organization, setting off a petty feud. Though Turner has admitted that Elections McGill's mass resignation didn't surprise her, she did little to stop it.
Despite this failure, we think that Turner's presidency was an overall success. The Tribune hopes Ivan Neilson will continue her tradition of consensus-based leadership.
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