Hello all, I am Rory Norris (he/him), Vice-President, Government and Stakeholder Relations of the Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association (WUSA), and OUSA President 2026– 2027.
I will be honest: after wrapping up my term as WUSA President in 2024, I told myself I would never be involved in student politics again. And yet, here I am, beginning my year-long term on the Steering Committee as President.
Serving as OUSA President is an extraordinary privilege. OUSA represents undergraduate students at some of Ontario's most respected universities. Through our collective voice, we have the ability to shape provincial policy, influence government decision-making, and improve the day-to-day realities for hundreds of thousands of students. I do not plan to waste a single day of it.
So, what does this year look like? A few things I want to be upfront about from the start. First and foremost, affordability is the issue. It is what drove me to put my name forward, and it will be the lens through which I approach every conversation, every policy discussion, and every meeting with government stakeholders this year. The cost of being a student in Ontario is not just inconvenient, for many students, it is the difference between getting the opportunity to work hard to receive their education, or dropping out. Declining OSAP grants, rising tuition, and an increasingly unaffordable cost of living are not abstract policy problems. They are real barriers that real students are navigating every single day.
Beyond affordability, there are other priorities I am committed to advancing this year. The first is visibility. As I considered this position, one concern kept surfacing in conversations with students and student leaders alike: they did not see OUSA; they heard about it in passing. They may have attended a General Assembly or seen the organization on their student union website, but the connection between OUSA's work and their lived experience felt distant. OUSA can only be effective if students actually know it exists and understand what it does on their behalf, and too many students have no idea that there is a provincial organization fighting for them.
The second priority is research, strengthening the evidence base that underpins our advocacy so that when we walk into a room with the government, we walk in with credibility and data that is impossible to ignore.
The third is government relations. In a complex and shifting political environment, building the right relationships and delivering the right messages to the right decision-makers is not optional.
None of this happens without communication, and that is a commitment I am making right now. One of the things I heard clearly, both in the lead-up to this role and throughout my time in student government, is that students and leaders alike do not always feel connected to what OUSA is doing, and I hope to change that. Through the Presidential Updates and regular, honest communication on what we are working on, what progress looks like, and where the challenges are.
I am not going into this year with all the answers. What I do have is four years of experience in student governance, a clear set of priorities, a deep respect for this organization, and an absolute commitment to putting in the work every single day.
I am genuinely excited for the students I get to serve this year from Waterloo to Western, Laurentian to Laurier, and everywhere in between. Every one of them deserves an advocate who shows up, works hard, and refuses to treat their concerns as background noise. That is the standard I am holding myself to.
That is everything for me for now. I am looking forward to the year ahead. Thanks for reading, you can reach me at [email protected]
Sincerely,
Rory Norris
President, Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA)