Students at more than a dozen post-secondary institutions across Canada have begun a move to leave the Canadian Federation of Students

 

Jane Lytvynenko
Canadian University Press

OTTAWA (CUP) – Students at more than a dozen post-secondary institutions across Canada have begun a move to leave the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) according to a press release sent out Sept. 4. Of the 83 members student unions across the country, students at 15 are rallying to hold a membership referendum said Ashleigh Ingle, one of the spokespeople for the movement.

“There are large groups of students that are very dissatisfied with the way the CFS runs,” said Ingle, who was on the executive for the University of Toronto’s Graduate Student Union last year. “After a long time of multiple student unions trying to make the same reforms over and over again and seeing no results, we aren’t seeing that as a productive way forward anymore.”

With students at 15 schools involved this marks the largest campaign to leave the organization since 2009, when students at 13 schools wanted to leave the CFS. This time students at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and Capilano University in B.C.; the University of Toronto, Ryerson University, York University and Laurentian University in Ontario and Dawson College in Quebec have confirmed they will apply to host a referendum.

Ingle said some schools are not going public with their campaigns yet.

“Not all of the people who are running petitions are in a stage where they want to be explicitly named especially because of the tendency for doing this kind of thing to attract a lot of attention of CFS campaigners,” she said.

According to Brent Farrington, the CFS spokesperson for internal affairs, while the federation is aware of the campaign, it does not have plans to launch any counter campaigns

To leave the CFS, members of that student union must collect a petition with signatures and present it to the CFS executive. Once the signatures are ratified, a date is set for the referendum to take place.

According to the CFS bylaws, which Farrington said change every six months, the vote cannot be held during the regular electoral period and is a simple majority vote.

Ingle said leaving the CFS is not an easy process for its members.

“We are trying to follow the bylaws as strictly as we can so we can avoid as much legal hassle as possible,” she said. “That said, if it does require legal action at some point to get this to happen for our fellow members, we have the resources to follow that through.”

Currently several schools across the country are in lawsuits with the CFS. Ingle said that’s one of the reasons some members are reluctant to leave.

“We wanted to spread the word that it’s happening now because we want people to know that it’s possible and that if they wanted to try to do something like this on their campus now, they wouldn’t be alone,” she explained.

Farrington said CFS members “have the ability to collect petition on referenda on continued memberships.” He said members determine what the priorities of the federation are.

“As a membership-based organization, the federation is a network of the student associations,” said Farrington. “The loss of any members results in other association having not as strong of a voice. In terms of our day-to-day operations, we would be effected by there being a fracturing of the student movement in Canada.”

Ingle stressed that the CFS — primarily the staff and the national executive — is unreceptive to change.

 

With files from Kalina Laframboise, Quebec Bureau Chief