SU Elections 2026 Q&A: Lister Hall Students’ Association Referendum

The University of Alberta Students’ Union (SU) 2026 election is giving Lister Hall residents the opportunity to vote on a student representative association membership fee (SRAMF) renewal by the Lister Hall Students’ Association (LHSA).

The SRAMF is $75 and students have the option to opt-out.

Representing LHSA in this Q&A is Kieran Simpson, LHSA vice-president (internal).

For students who don’t know, what is the Lister Hall Students’ Association?

Kieran Simpson: We are a students’ association that is entirely made up of 60 officers, I believe, and we are a part of the LHSA. There’s an executive council that handles programming and finance organization, they’ve also put a floor coordinator (FC) on every single floor of Lister, so they’re kinda there 24/7, usually on the floor for student advocacy, and then also programming once a month. So if students want a break from how hard school can be, they’re here to help them acclimate, but also if they have any issues, it’s someone for them to talk to. So that’s kind of where the organization is rooted. 

What is this referendum trying to accomplish?

Simpson: The referendum is just trying to accomplish the fact that we can continue to have our fee, which is a $75 for any Lister resident, which basically just helps us continue to run our programming. It also helps us continue to have students come back, because it is a paid role, we usually do fill up every year. We have more students wanting to come back into the role than other organizations in residence, just because there is that paid aspect, which kind of helps with that. It’s also a fee that students can opt-out of if they live in Lister, so if it’s something they don’t want to pay, the only thing that they would lose is they can’t vote in elections, but they’re still welcome to all the programming and everything. So just to try and get that fee approved so we can have it for another five years.

If the referendum passes, how much will students be paying and how is that cost determined?

Simpson: It’s $75, and it’s basically been split for salaries and programming, so we have a certain budget that we have for each of our events. This is public through the LHSA, I think they post this at the end of the year. I think it’s in the Linktree in the bio as well if people want to access that. But basically it’s an event budget for each of our vice-presidents which goes through, then also $125 monthly for our FCs, then $625 for the executives, and $725 for the president per month. So that is what the split is for the funding. 

Why do you think students should care about the work being done by the LHSA?

Simpson: It’s definitely very important to help students acclimate into residence, which is a big goal of that. It’s a very big change coming from different parts of the world, and the LHSA kind of tries to help curb that difference a little bit so students can feel as comfortable as possible moving into a very new environment. Also for advocacy, like we talked about a little bit earlier, it’s very important that if you have any issues in residence, you have someone that you can trust and go and talk to and they can try to improve your residence life, someone that can kind of speak on your behalf. And then also I think that our programming is pretty fun. We try to put on a lot of fun events that usually have pretty high attendance throughout the year, so trying to make students as comfortable as possible, make sure they have a great experience in residence.