The Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) is the student-funded organization representing and serving SFU’s undergraduate students. The executive committee is made up of seven students who manage “day-to-day operations and implement Council’s decisions,” according to their website. Two of them stepped forward for an interview with The Peak. Rishu Bagga and Hyago Santana Moreira were elected as president, and vice-president university and academic affairs, respectively, in the Spring 2026 election. They shared their goals and challenges at the helm of the SFSS for the academic year.
Santana Moreira is an international student from Brazil. He was involved in community advocacy and volunteering at his school and church from a young age, thanks to his grandparents’ influence. He came to SFU in 2023 to pursue international studies and public policy, he explained. After feeling “the sense of community in residence” during his first year, he began to see the SFSS as a place to build skills for a future career in public policy and “continue building community,” he continued. Santana Moreira served on Council as international studies student representative before becoming vice-president equity and sustainability for a year and a half, addressing issues like food security and climate action. For example, he helped lead the Community Burger Day campaign last year, which raised over $5,000 for the SFSS food pantry in one day.
“When you’re able to build a platform for SFU students to use the SFSS on things that are big and that are affecting everyone, then really you have the ability to make change.”
— Hyago Santana Moreira, vice president university and academic affairs, Simon Fraser Student Society
In his new role, Santana Moreira looks to mobilize students to create dialogue with SFU. “I think that we need to build community engagement so that we can advocate together,” he said. “When you’re able to build a platform for SFU students to use the SFSS on things that are big and that are affecting everyone, then really you have the ability to make change.” For instance, he says the SFSS is planning on hosting town hall-style meetings, where students can participate in meaningful debate surrounding SFSS action.
He is also looking to reform a few other issues on campus, such as the current status of the dining hall. “I’ve been in talks with SFU since last year [about] a sustainable dining hall model that would allow more students to use that space rather than necessarily just those who live in residence.”
Bagga studies biomedical physiology and kinesiology. He began volunteering with the SFSS in June 2023, his first year, taking on small projects as an associate, assisting SFSS executives on things like a student satisfaction survey and event planning. Bagga ran on the experience of serving as vice-president university and academic affairs in his second and third year. As an executive, he worked on safety initiatives such as Naloxone training and a housing rights workshop. He also helped lead a successful project with SFU to bring free menstrual products to bathrooms on campus.
Bagga views his new role as posing a unique set of challenges. “Being a student society president is a big jump from being an executive,” he said, explaining that on top of being responsible for students, he’s also accountable to the “greater Burnaby community,” the operation of the Student Union Building (SUB) and SFSS’ many associated services and partnerships, and “basically everything that goes on in the university.”
As a vice-president, Bagga helped reduce the SFSS’ annual deficit (an amount spent not replaced by earnings) from $1 million down to $500,000 during the 2024/25 fiscal year, claiming in his election platform that it dropped further to $400,000. He stated a large deficit has existed since constructing the SUB, which opened in 2019. He’s set his sights on bringing this deficit down to zero by the end of his term. “That would be my last send off to the SFSS,” he said.
Bagga told The Peak that reducing this deficit will come from cutting “redundant activities and redundant services being provided at the SFSS. Looking at effectively providing those services on a tighter budget, and again trying to generate revenues from other streams and resources.”
He shared that cutting human resources was a strategy previously used to reduce the deficit, and that the first few years of operating the SUB required more staffing than the current situation. He explained that the SFSS “wanted to shift [to] a model of empowering student groups, student clubs by increasing their funding and putting more resources into those groups than staff.”
In July 2025, five of the SFSS’ 18 workers outside of the executives were laid off. CUPE 3338, the union representing the employees, alleged the SFSS violated their collective agreement and the Labour Code by not informing the union about layoffs and doing so after they requested bargaining. In a Peak article, the SFSS at the time responded that they upheld the “collective agreement, ethical standards, and equity commitments in all decisions affecting staff and students.”
“Effective leadership means you’re not just preparing for today, you’re also preparing for tomorrow and years beyond that. And that’s why the deficit removal is important, because knowing how post-secondary is right now, the prices are only going to go up.”
— Rishu Bagga, president, Simon Fraser Student Society
Bagga identified a lack of continuity due to the quick turnover of the leadership team year after year as a main problem that “forces teams to think for the year itself, dealing with just the present. However effective leadership means you’re not just preparing for today, you’re also preparing for tomorrow and years beyond that. And that’s why the deficit removal is important, because knowing how post-secondary is right now, the prices are only going to go up.”
The health and dental plan has been a consistent issue for the SFSS over the years, as the SFSS cannot raise the costs of the plan to match inflating insurance premiums without a referendum. The SFSS has pushed forward referendums to allow them to raise the insurance plan’s cost in line with inflation five times over the years, yet to no avail. When speaking on the SFSS’ strategy to continue providing health and dental insurance, Bagga told The Peak, “We will try again to run that referendum because it’s very essential [ . . . ] We know a lot of these students are in need of these benefits.” He added, “If it does fail again, then the future teams will just have to take it on a year by year basis.”
Despite some of these struggles, both Bagga and Santana Moreira remain optimistic about SFSS-student relations. Bagga told The Peak he believes “the student experience right now is pretty good” and highlighted recent renovations in the SUB, such as a new arcade space, and a burgeoning online presence. “As a team, we’ve been trying to be more present and more around, and it starts from that. For example, even increasing our presence in Surrey is something that we’re looking at,” Santana Moreira said. He went on to say that the SFSS is looking to reshape its ways of communicating with the student population, such as building a new website that’s “more streamlined.” They’re also looking at how to make councillors “more present” in Council decisions and set them up to better consult and inform their student unions.
Both Bagga and Santana Moreira ran on platforms which named lobbying with the federal and provincial governments as a key aspect of their approach to SFSS governance. Bagga elaborated that the SFSS is planning a trip to the provincial capital to request more international student seats and funding be allocated to SFU and UBC than smaller colleges.
“One of the main things that [SFSS leaders] always complain about is not having enough preparation, contacts, or relationships that they can use. As a team who has made a lot of relationships across the university, the province, and with the federal government, we need to be able to pass on those relationships to incoming teams so that they can continue the lobbying.”
— Hyago Santana Moreira, vice president university and academic affairs, Simon Fraser Student Society
Santana Moreira emphasized the importance of creating a sustainable lobbying approach. “One of the main things that [SFSS leaders] always complain about is not having enough preparation, contacts, or relationships that they can use. As a team who has made a lot of relationships across the university, the province, and with the federal government, we need to be able to pass on those relationships to incoming teams so that they can continue the lobbying because continuous advocacy is more important than single time advocacies.”
SFSS’ Annual General Meeting will be held on Zoom on October 28 at 5:30 p.m., open to all SFU undergraduate students. The meeting will discuss a host of issues, including election reforms. Registration can be found at form.jotform.com/262805148110247.
