Niall Carolan, VP Finance

Carolan has kept a relatively low profile within SSMU this year, rarely participating actively in Council or in other political forums. On the rare occasions that he has made his positions known, they have erred on the side of moderation, rarely embracing SSMU’S more radically progressive values. To his credit, Carolan has managed the SSMU budget competently, and the Society will be running a surplus this year. However, it should be noted that this was partly accomplished through the use of corporate advertising, which has drawn substantial criticism. Many students took issue with the highly intrusive Tangerine tent at Fall Activities Night, while others noted that prominent advertising space in the SSMU basement was devoted to Uber, a company with noted anti-union practices. In addition to his valuable work on the overall SSMU budget, Carolan has done his best to have Sadie’s, the student-run cafeteria, break even this year. This seems to have failed, though this is more attributable to structural issues than to a lack of effort on his part. The same cannot necessarily be said for the sustainable investments fund and the ethical purchasing policy, both of which Carolan promised to create, and both of which have failed to materialize. Moreover, Carolan has consistently proved unresponsive to emails, both from other SSMU personnel and from the press. As such, it is difficult to accurately assess his performance as a SSMU executive.