UTMSU end of year recap: Striving for affordability and solidarity
In an interview with The Medium, UTMSU President Joelle Salsa detailed achievements and challenges that the UTMSU accomplished this year, with a focus on transit changes and the importance of student solidarity.
As the 2024 to 2025 academic year draws to a close, The Medium met with Joelle Salsa, President of the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) Students’ Union (UTMSU), to discuss the past year and the achievements and difficulties the Union faced throughout it.
Amidst the controversial rollout of the digitization of the U-Pass starting in the 2023 to 2024 term, UTMSU addressed students’ concerns over the frequent delays and mishaps with the PRESTO E-Tickets app, especially involving the unreliability of the QR code scanner.
To combat this, UTMSU has announced that the digital U-Pass will be moved onto an e-voucher system directly linked with student’s PRESTO cards, removing the need to use the E-Tickets app. Salsa described this change as “a win that directly affects so many students every single day” and the union’s proudest achievement of the year.
Salsa estimated the new change could occur as early as this May, just in time for the summer term. According to Salsa, the new integration will make “transit more accessible, more reliable, and easier to use for all students” as students could use both their physical PRESTO cards and the PRESTO cards loaded in their phone’s mobile wallet with the vouchers, essentially providing both a digital and a physical copy of the U-Pass. A primer about PRESTO e-vouchers can be found on the PRESTO website.
Additionally, with many students travelling between UTM and other cities within the Greater Toronto Area, the new U-Pass arrangement secures the inclusion of the U-Pass in the One Fare Program, a major step forward that will give students greater flexibility and affordability in their transit options. As Salsa describes it, the One Fare Program allows for “students [to] only pay one fare when transferring between [different transit agencies].”
To further underscore their commitment to affordability, the UTMSU froze U-Pass fees to ease the integration of the U-Pass onto the PRESTO card and mobile wallets and inclusion into the One Fare Program.
The One Fare Program is valid for all local transit systems that use PRESTO within the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. Including the U-Pass in this program means that students can commute through other participating transit agencies without having to pay a second fare for two hours after tapping onto a MiWay bus with the U-Pass or three hours when transferring onto GO Transit.
Salsa mentioned the difficulty of executive work as the union’s main challenge, especially with the UTMSU only having one-year terms for its executives.
One-year terms mean that the union is “constantly racing against the clock” to ensure that positive, meaningful change can be made for the benefit of all UTM students, signifying that more ambitious initiatives would have to be carried over between different UTMSU executive teams.
Nevertheless, Salsa is optimistic, noting that their transparency, connections, and work done already can “allow future teams to pick up where [they] left off.”
In that regard, Salsa expressed a need for students to know the university’s governance structures to be better informed about their rights and ways to challenge the university. Through a well-informed student body, according to Salsa, a movement of “student power” can be born.
In regard to next year, Salsa advocated for continuing UTMSU campaigns for “accessible education, affordable housing, accessible transit, and global solidarity.” She expressed hope that the incoming UTMSU executive team would foster a greater sense of community between students not only at UTM but also with the other student unions among the university’s three campuses, coordinating as one unit united in supporting students throughout their university careers.
“The only way we achieve these [goals] is through collective action,” concluded Salsa, calling for student solidarity. “The power lies in numbers, and we’re strongest when we work together.”
