Written by Petra Chase, Features Editor with contributions from Jonah Lazar, Staff Writer
Editor’s note: The features editor and a staff writer spoke to the news team to learn more about this ongoing situation. Beyond being interviewed and forwarding us correspondences with the SFSS for fact-checking, the news team was not involved in the production of this article to avoid conflict of interest.
Council Chats is a column in The Peak’s news section that informs readers about Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) proceedings. Council, made up of elected executives and representatives, is the highest governing entity of SFU undergraduate students. These biweekly meetings are publicly open to all members of the society — any student who has paid their tuition. However, since the 2025/26 Council year began, The Peak’s news staff state they have been deterred from reporting on their meetings, and raised concerns surrounding the SFSS’ transparency to the student body.
After multiple hurdles to report on Council meetings, the news team was told by SFSS president Landy Liu in September they would no longer be allowed to record Council meetings, evading further discussion. This decision was officially passed by Council on March 11, 2026, six days after The Peak contacted them for a statement. However, according to Peak news editor Hannah Fraser, there has been “unprofessional disorganization” since as early as May, when the current Council’s term began.
Miscommunication and missing minutes
On May 16, Fraser contacted the SFSS about attending an upcoming Council meeting, as it had been moved from May 15 to May 21 on their website, which Liu confirmed. She also asked whether this meant the entire schedule would be pushed by a week. However, he did not address this. After Hannah followed up on May 18, Liu responded two months later, apologizing and saying the email “was lost in my mailbox.” On May 21, news writer Lucaiah Smith-Miodownik was not allowed to enter the Council meeting over Zoom. Fraser emailed the SFSS for a follow-up, writing to them, “It’s possible that [Smith-Miodownik] request to join was missed by whoever was managing the Zoom, but I’m wondering what happened there.” Despite an apology and note that Peak staff “are welcome to join” future meetings, no reason was given as to why Smith-Miodownik was not allowed into the meeting.
When contacted for a statement in late February, the SFSS cited “technical issues” and “audio visual challenges.” They stated this was the new executive team’s first meeting and they wanted to promote in-person attendance to “encourage greater engagement.” Despite this, they acknowledged that the delayed response was “unacceptable and should not have happened.”
In September, news writer Niveja Assalaarachchi was assigned to cover a Council meeting on the 10. On the 8, he bumped into SFSS vice-president events and student affairs, Albert Radu, on campus. “We had a very candid conversation,” Assalaarachchi recalled. He claimed he asked Radu what the next Council meeting would be like and Radu responded that the meeting had been cancelled. The rescheduled meeting had not been announced on the website, nor was The Peak informed until Assalaarachchi reached out himself over email to clarify. The SFSS stated, “a notification of cancellation should have been posted publicly” and this was a “shortcoming on the part of SFSS.”
Fraser also noted an inconsistency in Council minutes being shared. SFSS by-law 17 1.b states, “by-laws, policies, and minutes” must be uploaded for members “within three months of their approval.” Meeting minutes for at least eight meetings, from as far back as over five months ago (October 8), have not been posted on the SFSS website at the time of writing. Since joining The Peak in 2024, Fraser said she has consistently received post-meeting documents in her inbox right after each Council meeting. Since September, these minutes, if sent at all, were being sent over a month after the meetings.
The SFSS recognized their uploading of meeting documents is “frustratingly slow.” They attributed this to the “limited capacity” of the administrative team and “operational demands” in requiring a chair and Council to approve these minutes. They are “currently looking for ways to expedite this process.”
Recording ban
The recording ban informally began on September 24. After Assalaarachchi entered the Council meeting over Zoom, Liu informed him via private message that recording would not be permitted: “I cannot approve the recording today but will share the minutes when it’s done,” Liu said. Assalaarachchi responded, “I was under the impression that The Peak had permission to record meetings?” Liu said, “This was not talked about with myself as chair and we can communicate about this for future meetings over email.” Assalaarachchi told The Peak he was “stressed because without a recording, we would have no reference point as to what happened at the Council meeting” to write the article. Under former SFSS president Emmanuel Adegboyega, and for several previous Councils that we could verify, The Peak did not encounter issues recording Council meetings.
“As part of our fact-checking process, the editor-in-chief(s), copy editor, and fact checker also review the recording and bring any further concerns about accuracy to my attention.” — Hannah Fraser, news editor, The Peak
After the meeting, Fraser emailed Liu to understand the situation, explaining that recordings are needed for fact-checking and “not shared beyond the publication.” It took just over a month and a follow-up email for Liu to respond that the SFSS “will not be permitting The Peak to record our meetings using the Zoom application for this term (until April).” Fraser asked whether this meant The Peak could only record audio from a separate device, rather than the internal Zoom function. In this email, she explained, the sole purpose of a recording is to “ensure accuracy, including quoting SFSS councillors and execs properly, and ensuring we represent events/issues/topics fairly. When a writer sends me their draft Council report, it is not uncommon for me to correct some of their reports due to factual errors. As part of our fact-checking process, the editor-in-chief(s), copy editor, and fact checker also review the recording and bring any further concerns about accuracy to my attention.”
It took another six weeks and a follow-up for Liu to respond, saying he would “provide more updates” following a Council meeting on January 14. However there was no further communication from SFSS. The meeting agenda from January 14 also showed no discussion on the topic. The minutes for the September 24 meeting were not uploaded until December 22.
On February 27, 2026, The Peak contacted the SFSS for a response to the news team’s concerns. The SFSS said they “will continue to prohibit external recordings of their meetings” due to their policy of keeping members’ “personal information confidential.” They expressed that The Peak is not “legally entitled” to a recording, or “formally accountable for what may happen with that information should it be used to harass a member of Council or lead to an exposure of a councillor’s personal information.”
The statement was delivered from Liu on March 4, who requested we rescind individual names from our article, and instead only refer to “the SFSS.” He added, “We are individuals who advise or work for the Society as a whole. Decision making is done by [Council].” The Peak asked to verify the documented motion of Council’s decision to prohibit recording, and for clarification on “what personal information would be shared in public Council meetings that could be used to harass members. As Council meetings are open to the student body, it is unclear why a recording would lead members of the student body to have more information than what is willingly being shared during the meetings.” No motion was provided but Liu said he would bring the matter to the upcoming Council meeting and “reaffirm its existing position.”
On March 11, the SFSS formally passed a motion to “uphold its obligation to councillor privacy and safety; Be it resolved that Council approves a formal response.” There was no further information provided on what these privacy and safety concerns were.
Questions around legality and transparency
SFSS councillor and representative of the geography student union Jeffrey Collinson reached out to The Peak after the motion had been passed, stating that he argued against it. He believes the SFSS is concerned with upholding the Personal Information Protection Act, which includes “opinions and views” as personal information. According to section 10, personal opinions may be collected via recording if consent is given, as long as the purpose of the recording is delivered.
“This is inherently a public-facing position. About $450,000 a year goes towards paying Council and exec, and I think the membership deserves to hear what we’re saying.” — Jeffrey Collinson, geography student union representative, SFSS Council
The SFSS stated they record meetings for the “internal administrative team to be able to capture the meeting minutes accurately.” Collinson claims the SFSS does not ask for consent from attendees to record, so they are also “collecting personal information.” The SFSS stated they collected “a consent form from all registered councillors” at the beginning of the Council term, but did not elaborate on collecting consent from all attendees. “I think that councillors are worried about making a slip-up, saying something wrong, and getting sued for slander or getting hate for it,” Collison said. “However, this is inherently a public-facing position. About $450,000 a year goes towards paying Council and execs, and I think the membership deserves to hear what we’re saying.” According to the SFSS’ operating budget, $430,560 goes towards councillor and executive stipends.
Collinson also alleged that the topic of The Peak’s right to record had not been discussed ex-camera by Council prior to the most recent meeting. The SFSS said they “cannot confirm or deny” this. Ex-camera refers to the portion of Council meetings that are open to all members, as opposed to in-camera, which is a confidential discussion among councillors.
Assalaarachchi stated the current Council is taking a “radical departure from previous SFSS administrations.” The previous Council also used to post Council meeting recordings consistently on SFSS’ YouTube channel, a practice which halted with the current Council. The Peak has never leaked recordings outside of our organization, or used it for purposes beyond fact-checking.
Fraser emphasized that simply attending and taking notes are insufficient for reporting, for instance, if “a writer has miswritten a figure provided in a financial presentation. My corrections and our follow-ups with people to ensure we understood them currently are only possible through reviewing the recording [ . . . ] If meeting minutes aren’t actively updated for the community to reference, then the 2025/26 SFSS team has not allowed the students they represent to understand their operations and future plans effectively.”
The SFSS stated, “All ex-camera activity is fully publicly accessible in-person” and they will continue to provide “communications regarding how to access the Council meetings online.” They added,“The next scheduled Council meeting will take place on March 25, 2026.”
“Not everyone is sitting through the SFSS’ long meetings,” continued Fraser. “We have sat through 2–3 hour meetings in the past — and it’s all for students.”
“The SFSS represents over 25,000 undergraduate students and the decisions they make should be as transparent and open as possible,” Assalaarachchi added.
The SFSS stated, “The Peak has never been treated differently from all SFSS members with respect to attending meetings and the right to record meetings. The SFSS would welcome the opportunity to meet with The Peak to discuss these issues at greater detail if desired.”
It would be an over-reach to interpret accountability as a breach of legislation respecting “personal information,” in my opinion. Media coverage is in the public interest. — David F. Sutherland, media lawyer
Media lawyer David F. Sutherland told The Peak, both SFSS and The Peak “should recognize the benefit of cooperation between the two bodies and a well-informed student body. Individual members of Council should only be named where accountability requires that identification, and, ideally, the individual should be given an opportunity to respond. It would be an over-reach to interpret accountability as a breach of legislation respecting ‘personal information,’ in my opinion. Media coverage is in the public interest. On March 13, BC’s Finance Minister announced an investigation into the Kwantlen Polytechnic University Student Association (KSA) ‘to determine whether there has been any misuse of funds or other problematic conduct’ by KSA. No misuse of funds or other problem has been found at KSA and none has even been alleged at SFSS. Accountability serves to avoid any need for such an investigation at SFU.”
