My Loyalty Isn't to Another Candidate. It's to Members, and that’s why I’m not on a slate.

Members keep asking me the same question: "Who's your running mate?" and "What slate are you aligned with?"

The honest answer: I don't have one. And that's on purpose.

I was asked to run as a slate. I considered it. But ultimately, I said no—because my loyalty isn't to another candidate running for OPSEU leadership; it's exclusively to our membership.

I didn't arrive at this lightly. I thought about what slate politics actually does to a union—and what it would mean to owe my seat to another candidate instead of to the members I'd serve. The answer was clear.

OPSEU isn't a party system, so we shouldn't run elections like they are.

It doesn’t make sense to have slates because OPSEU doesn’t elect duos. We have individual roles with individual responsibilities that are individually elected by delegates who are supposed to evaluate each candidate on their own merits.

But somewhere along the way, slate politics crept in anyway. Candidates align early. Teams form—sometimes openly declared, sometimes simply understood. And once you've got teams, you've got sides—and loyalty starts flowing toward campaigns and factions instead of toward members.

Once that happens, every Board meeting becomes about positioning, not governing. Every debate and discussion becomes a "gotcha" moment instead of a strategic conversation. The question stops being "what do members need?" and starts being "what does our side win?"

This tension is already present in Board meetings—and the election hasn't even happened yet. Meaning regardless of who wins at convention, our members are currently losing.

And here's the thing: we don't need a Board that agrees on everything. Healthy disagreement is part of governance. We need to be able to trust that decisions are being made around the best approach to deliver for members—not around factional loyalty. That trust cannot exist when the Board is fractured along campaign lines. Division at the top doesn't stay at the top. It's a culture choice that ripples out—into locals, into bargaining, into every fight we need to win together.

The First VP/Treasurer isn't meant to be a running mate. It's a check and balance.

The President is elected on a mandate—a vision for where OPSEU should go. The First VP/Treasurer's job is to be the backbone that ensures that mandate gets delivered. That means managing the finances, yes. But it also means holding the line on governance. Asking hard questions. Making sure the union's resources serve members — not leadership's allies, not factional priorities.

If the President and First VP run together as a loyalty pair, who's doing that work? Who's asking whether this expenditure makes sense, whether this campaign is delivering, whether this decision serves members or just serves the people who got each other elected?

When two leaders owe each other their seats, accountability gets softer. I've seen that dynamic play out on boards—when the people at the table owe each other too much to ask hard questions. That's exactly what slate politics produces. What we actually need is leaders whose loyalty runs to the mission and to members—people who can work together when they agree, and more importantly, when they don't.

As an independent First VP, i can work with any President.

Here's the practical reality: delegates are going to elect a President, and then they're going to elect a First VP/Treasurer. Those are separate votes. The people casting them may have different priorities, different visions.

A First VP who isn't captured by faction can support whoever wins—while still doing the job. Oversight. Accountability. Execution.

This isn't theoretical for me. I've spent years working alongside people whose politics I don't share—at the Peel Regional Labour Council, on pension boards, on nonprofit boards. The work got done because it had to, and because I am know how to hold the line on what matters without turning disagreement into dysfunction.

This election is about what kind of union we want to be.

This isn't just another election cycle. Members are exhausted. Trust is frayed. And the fights ahead — privatization, legislative attacks, a government banking on our dysfunction — aren't waiting for us to sort out our internal politics. They're counting on us not to.

It would have been easier to go with the flow and join a slate. Easier to trade going it alone for a built-in campaign machine and a shared war chest. But doing things just because they're easy, or because everyone else is doing it, isn't how I've ever led. I lead by going back to fundamentals: what's the situation, what does the role require, and who does this actually serve?

Every time I asked those questions, I landed in the same place: if I owe my seat to another candidate, how do I do the job?

I couldn't answer it. So I made my choice.

For members still asking me who my running mate is. My running mate is the 180000 members of this union. My loyalty is to the people I'd serve — not the people I'd serve alongside. And if that's not how OPSEU elections usually work, then maybe that's exactly what needs to change.

You deserve a First VP/Treasurer who answers to you — independently, accountably, and with a loyalty that doesn't bend toward whoever helped them win. That's how I'm running because that's how I'd govern. And that kind of consistency? You can count on me for it.

For too long our members have been asked to settle for less. I'm asking you to expect more, and know that I intend to deliver it.

Ram Selvarajah Candidate for Region 5 Executive Board Member and First VP/Treasurer