Tired of student politicians earnestly trying to convince you that the world will descend into anarchy if they aren't elected?

Perhaps anarchy sounds kind of fun?

Well, I don't have a resume to pad, I'll probably never look for a job, and I specialize at anarchy. Picture me as the spanner and UBC's administration as the works.

You probably neither know nor care what UBC's Board of Governors (a.k.a. BoG or Board) is. I do. I've even attended about five hours of their committee meetings, and would have spoken to them if I'd had a mouth. I attended a meeting of the full Board just after last year's election, and informed President Piper that I lost by six votes. At the following Board meeting, she announced her resignation effective this coming June. That's as close to proven results as any of my opponents are likely to offer. I've been kicked out of more Board meetings than all of my opponents combined, and more than all but Tim have even attended.

If you do care, BoG is a small group of mostly provincial appointees who run the university from behind the curtain. Martha Piper is on it. Electing me will annoy the hell out of Martha, and most of her senior administration. It's probably the most effective way to accomplish this worthy goal. Scott, the public relations guy, would have a particularly tough year.

Now, here are the main planks in my campaign platform (actual planks also shown in photo at left):

Campus Development

With the imminent 99-year lease of almost everything south of 16th Avenue to UBC Properties Trust, UBC is embarking in earnest on a bold project of turning its land endowment into as much cash as possible, as quickly as possible. This, of course, means selling ludicrously expensive condos to rich people. Unfortunately, these rich people tend to think a university consists of students wandering around silently, reading books and pondering the meaning of life. Their neighbours in the undergrad residences, of course, believe university consists of some linear combination of drinking, partying, running around naked, listening to music, getting laid, and making noise. The massive influx of rich people will probably lead to UBC's downfall in a decade or two, but there's a far more immediate and pressing threat. Dogs.

We must protect our brethren, sistren and cast-iren from the indignities wrought by dogs. I intend to ban dogs in the academic core. If necessary, I'm willing to enforce this with an electric fence, or by floating campus fire hydrants at 70kV to ground for their protection. Call it a grudge.

Now, I'll have to admit, south of 16th Avenue isn't as bad a place for housing as, say, just downwind of the Chem building (watch for those designs this spring). I'll push for a Kraft Dinner Emporium in the South Campus mall, where students will be able to buy KD and similar starchy foods (such as instant noodles or rice) by the case or by the pallet, at massive discounts.

Incidentally, UBC Properties Trust is owned by UBC and Loblaws. I'm not joking. I will ensure that the planned "Wesbrook Village" supermarket is not assigned to Loblaws (SuperValu, Extra Foods, Superstore,...) in an inside deal. Failing that, I'll reinvest the kickbacks in things students want, like beer. As a fire hydrant, I believe in getting things out in the open, preferably rapidly, in liquid form and under high pressure.

South Campus is expected to net UBC around 600 million to a billion dollars over the next 5-10 years. While I initially believed that investing this sum and using the interest to buy beer was the way to go, I've seen the error of my ways. In fact, we need to either buy a major brewery or start our own. On-campus alcohol prices could be cut by almost half if beer were available at cost. And who wouldn't want to support their studies by working nights at a brewery, complete with all the beer they could drink without passing out? Now that's what I call an investment. It'll breathe life into this campus like stores and old rich people never could.

Transit

I'll lobby TransLink for adequate bus service, and try to ensure that the transit terminal we're about to build at University and East Mall will work properly, be fire-safe and just generally safe, and won't subject the general public to diesel fumes. To go with the brewery, I'll start a new transit program, the U-PassOut -- your home address will be written on a card around your neck, and the bus will dump you at your doorstep if you're too drunk to find it yourself. This will require a couple of buses with racks instead of seats, but they can be used on the 424 Airport route during the day.

At least one building on top of the transit terminal is supposed to be 5 storeys high with people living in it. Nobody should be living next to the Pit, atop the second-busiest transit transfer point in BC, and immediately downwind of Chemistry, Biology, NCE, and Michael Smith (medical genetics), none of which are 5 storeys tall. If you don't know why this would be bad, visit the Wikipedia entry for fumehood. I'm a fluid mechanic, I know how these things work.

UBC Pemberton

The logical extension of our current campus development strategy is to move UBC's Vancouver operations to cheap land just northeast of Pemberton, then sell off the remainder of the Point Grey campus to pay for the move. Anyone want a luxury condo in Waffle Estates (formerly BuTo)?

I'm not sure whether this move can still be halted, but if it must go through, then I'll push for cheap Whistler ski passes (or our own ski hill) as part of the deal, along with express buses connecting UBC Pemberton with Whistler, Squamish and downtown Vancouver. Obviously, they'll have to run 24 hours a day.

One of my gripes with the current campus is that it was landscaped by homesick easterners, such that the trees are all non-native species that look dead throughout the school year. More recently, anything green and too tall to mow has been considered evil. In Pemberton, I'll see if we can keep some of the original conifers in place, instead of trying to make the campus look like Ontario or England. UBC's garbage can squirrels and pizza-theiving seagulls also don't really belong on campus.

I will resist pressure to name the new campus after Ike Barber, no matter how much he donates. And if any candidate can resist pressure, it's me -- I'm rated to 250 psi.

UBC Policies

BoG sets policies for UBC, covering such unlikely events as snow closures and profs getting appointed to Canada's Senate or elected as MPs. We had 130 policies in force or proposed at last count, which is getting silly (my specialty).

A paucity of policy on policies potentially produces a plethora of poor or purposeless policies, possibly propagating pandemonium. I propose a Policy Policy, to preclude the proliferation of pointless policies (our present plight). A Policy Policy represents my paramount policy priority.

Given the abovementioned policies, I consider it shocking that we still do not have a policy specifically addressing alien invasions. If my policy policy did not preclude such a policy, I would propose one based on the current snow closure policy. It's not obvious to me which would be invoked more frequently.

UBC is also attempting to pass a policy (130) on the wireless network -- it was originally worded to give ITServices the right of arbitrary search and seizure if they thought anything might interfere with UBC wireless (including research and teaching apparatus). The wording's less heavy-handed now, but I'm still not a big fan.

Buzzwords

UBC's administration likes to speak in meaningless buzzwords, in an attempt to numb the otherwise lucid listener into submission. I will leverage my core competencies in architecting synergystic pedagogical buzzword paradigms for the influquation of befuddlement, strategically capitalizing on proprietary buzzword sourcing for hydrantal buzzword equity escalation. My buzzword engineering will capture mindshare at the expense of the administration's bovine biowaste (by contrast, they've been trying to grow the pie). At the very least, I'll irritate the people who like to say "synergies" a lot. Especially Martha. Actually, most members of the upper administration will probably come to view me as the bane of their existences.

Obscure technicality #1: Why this election is meaningless. (technical, but slightly amusing)

Obscure technicality #2: What actually happens if I really do get elected. (less humourous)