A CFS Day of Action in Toronto in 2008
Last week, a group of organizers from various universities across the country announced plans to begin petitioning to leave the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) — a nation-wide lobby group whose mission statement, according to their website, is to “provide students with an effective and united voice, provincially and nationally.”
Currently, CFS — founded in 1981 — represents over 80 student unions and half a million individual students from various universities and colleges across Canada, with the largest concentration of post-secondary institutions being located in Ontario.
This latest push to leave the CFS includes student unions from Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Capilano University, the University of Toronto, Ryerson University, York University, Laurentian University, and Dawson College. This defection could leave the CFS without representation in British Columbia, Manitoba, and Quebec.
In the release made by the student organizers, Ashleigh Ingle, a graduate student at University of Toronto, stated, “Many of us are longtime student organizers and have seen students attempt to reform the CFS from within for decades, but to no avail.”
She continued, “Students are realizing that their interests are not served by the Canadian Federation of Students. We are not walking away from organizing at the national and provincial level; we are creating the space for that to happen effectively.”
SFU’s undergraduate student union, the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS), formally left the CFS in 2012 after a 2008 referendum showed that 67 per cent of voters wished to leave the federation. A lengthy legal battle ensued between the two parties, which was eventually settled out of court. The case cost the SFSS over $450,000 in legal fees.
They’ve been very resistant to change.”
– Alex McGowan, Kwantlen Polytechnic, University student
In 2011, the Concordia Student Union also began the process of attempting to sue their way out of CFS membership, becoming the 8th university at the time to do so. Complaints about membership with the CFS revolve around the organization acting non-democratically, and not representing its student members.
“Mainly, it’s their inactivity, the fact that they haven’t been doing anything with our money,” said Alex McGowan, a Kwantlen Polytechnic University student and West Coast representative of the movement. “They haven’t been effective, all the services and discounts that they provide us are already provided by our student association, and the lobbying has been ineffective.”
McGowan went on to describe the CFS’ “anti-democratic nature.” He said, “They’ve been very resistant to change, and students trying to work within the organization have to be able to get elected.”
Currently at Kwantlen, a full-time student pays $8.52 per semester to the CFS, while a part-time student pays 95 cents per credit. In order to leave the CFS, a student union needs to have 20 per cent of the student body sign a petition in favour. After that, a date is set for a referendum, which passes by majority.
Petitions like this have sprung up at the other 15 institutions involved in the statement, which also encourages other university student unions to take the same steps.
CFS internal coordinator Brent Farrington said that the reasons and unions behind the movement is unclear. “The real question for us is who they are and where they are, because it’s quite vague . . . We’re mostly just trying to find out what the actual grievances are. We’re kind of in the dark.”
