Does the CFS defend or attack freedom of speech?
CFS plays freedom of speech card to buy advertising; students' union says CFS restricted their freedom
Either the Vancouver Sun has a good sense of humour or isn’t aware of the hilarity of the timing of an opinion piece it published today. When I first came across the op-ed titled “One of our vital freedoms is at stake in court ruling“, I assumed the freedom of speech argument was regarding the court hearing scheduled today between the Kwantlen Students’ Union and the Canadian Federation of Students.
RELATED CONTENT: CFS goes to Supreme Court to delay referendum AND Kwantlen claims victory against CFS lawsuit
But that is not the case. The article uses the freedom of speech card (rightly, in my opinion) to defend the CFS’ right to purchase advertisements on city buses in Vancouver. The CFS was rejected when they tried to buy advertising space during the provincial election in 2006 to publish “Rock the Vote” ads because of a policy banning political ads on transit. At the time, the CFS argued that their ads were not partisan, and therefore shouldn’t rejected on the basis of being political.
However, their message was close enough to NDP policies on minimum wage, tuition, and the environment that the argument didn’t fly. Elections BC, in an interview with the University of Victoria student newspaper The Martlet, said after reviewing the material that it “definitely indicated partisanship.”
The Supreme Court of BC ruled that buses are government entities. Therefore, freedom of speech should be guaranteed under the Charter, meaning that bus advertising policies can’t restrict speech. On Tuesday next week, the case will reach the Canada Supreme Court where the CFS will again argue for freedom of speech.
From the op-ed written by Jamie Mclean: “While probably based on good intentions, the GVRD policy constitutes a deliberate form of government censorship. The government does not have to provide spaces for public speech or advertisement, but once it does so it cannot then dissect Charter protected expressions into classes of suitability. To prohibit someone from expressing political views in one form or another is to establish a dangerous precedent or ‘chilling effect’ for the further erosion of free speech and other Charter rights.”
Now to the irony.
As this article sits on newsstands, still hot off the press, the CFS is in court for the second hearing regarding their petition to delay the membership referendum at Kwantlen University College. Although the court already ordered the referendum be delayed by three weeks, other disagreements must be settled, such as the referendum question and key campaign rules.
In addition to delaying the vote, the CFS sought to restrict the distribution of “campaign material” outside of the official campaign dates. I put this term in quotations because its definition is at the centre of the dispute between the KSA and CFS. According to Titus Gregory, a policy analyst at the KSA, the CFS representatives on the referendum oversight committee don’t consider CFS general materials to count—such as posters or handouts for their “I Am CFS” campaign that features ads at Skytrain stations (Vancouver’s version of the subway). But he says they do consider the KSA newsletter to be a campaign material.
The KSA calls the CFS’ demand an attack on their freedom of expression. According to a KSA statement, “On the free speech issue, the Judge disagreed strongly with the CFS, and pointed out repeatedly that we live in a free society.”
On the question of the CFS and free speech:
The CFS organizied an affiliation drive during at the University I attended a few years back (U of Windsor) and I have to say, they were very good about allowing “freedom of speech”, and I’d go as far as saying they encouraged participation as well, especially when it came to politics, be it internal campus elections and referendums or provincial and federal elections.
Fact is: without the CFS, I doubt that most sudents’ concerns would get any kind of considoration in provincial legislatures or in the House of Commons or during elections. It doesn’t get enough now and it’d probably be worse without them.
Attact? My internal copyeditor would like to know if that’s halfway between attract and attack.
re: “without the CFS, I doubt that most sudents’ concerns would get any kind of considoration in provincial legislatures or in the House of Commons or during elections.”
Nonsense. The CFS has no presence in Alberta or New Brunswick. How do you explain the tuition freezes in these provinces? Contrary to its propaganda, student activism is not the exclusive preserve of the CFS.
CASA does a lot of good – many of the initiatives benefiting students over the past few years have been CASA lobbying platform points. Harping on lower tuition or other student needs isn’t going to help – you have to go and meet with politicians and be respectful. CASA’s non-partisanship is a big help in all of this, as has the partnership network.
Speaking of sudents’ concerns in provincial legislatures. The CFS has a huge presence in BC and Ontario (that’s why it is controlled by people from BC and Ontario). But despite the CFS hegemony in these two provinces, provincial legislatures BC and Ontario keep hiking tuition. Why is it that the CFS is only effective at changing policies in provinces where it barely exists (PEI, Nova Scotia, Alberta, New Brunswick)?
Far Fromeit, the fact of the matter is tuition in those eastern provinces you’ve mentioned has gone up so high it has started to effect enrollment figures. In recent years universities in NB and NS have been in a crisis as years of jacking up tuition is driving students away to better funded universities in BC and Ontario, where in fact universities are better funded. The tuition freeze is a bailout by the provinces and not a direct result of CFS which has a small presents in NB and NS. The real question is why hasn’t CASA fought for student interests in NB and NS? You also failed to mention NFLD, the poorest province in Canada by many measures yet it has very low tuition rates that have been frozen for years. Oh yeah, you also forgot to mention that NFLD is exclusively CFS.
Matthew Naylor:
“CASA’s non-partisanship is a big help in all of this, as has the partnership network.”
The Liberal party created CASA while Lloyd Axworthy was experiencing stiff opposition launched by CFS in the mid ’90s. CASA was a spawn of the Liberal party’s assault on working Canadians. Remember this Axworthy fellow? Yah, he and Paul Martin axed the dedicated education transfer and downloaded university funding to cash starved provinces. CASA was created in order to engineer compliance and appathy amongst students across the country. The feds don’t want a Quebec student movement in other provinces. It’s genius move on the part of the Liberals really, but dissassterous in that it has created a generation of debt for young people.
The Liberals created CASA. You are something else.
CFS and its cronies will paint whatever story in whatever light is needed to boost their flailing credibility. When stories are written that can’t be spun, they call the lawyers instead.
Same old routine.
re: “you also forgot to mention that NFLD is exclusively CFS”.
Errr . . . You ought to brush up on your student union history “John Thompson” because the aging CFSers in Ottawa had NOTHING to do with Brian Tobin’s 1999 decision to freeze on tuition fees in Newfoundland.
In fact, despite the CFS sponsored folklore, the fee freeze in Newfoundland was acheived by an organization that was later absorbed by the CFS (we have a habit of giving up our sovereignty down here). The CFS likes to claim “victories” for the work of other organisations but that does not mean there’s any truth to such claims.
I don’t know about CASA’s recent history with the Liberals, except maybe their defense of the MSF which was primarily a liberal project… however that isn’t exactly exaggerated partisanship.
In comparison, for Ontario, OUSA (undergraduate student alliance) and CSA (college) have been collaborating with the governing Liberal Party on a few press releases, but as I understand those are not officially branches of CASA, right? Despite the similarity in names.
I still don’t understand what the second part of that sentence means, though:
“CASA’s non-partisanship is a big help in all of this, as has the partnership network.”
The tuition fee freezes in Alberta and New Brunswich followed years of skyrocketting tuition fees, and the idea of frozen tuition being implemented across canada thanks to the work of the CFS.
BC freeze-CFS
Newfoundland freeze-CFS (long ago the newfoundland federation of students)
Ontario freeze-CFS
Manitoba freeze-CFS
Saskatchewan freeze-CFS
Good ideas have to come from somewhere, and it isn’t the ineffective bunch of liberal lackey’s who call themselves CASA. They seem to be doing less than before (if that’s possible) now that the liberals are out of power. Funny that CASA, who applauded the work of the millenium scholarship foundation, lost that one in the last budget…
“Good ideas have to come from somewhere”
Funny how the “somewhere” in post-secondary education seems to always be the CFS (for the CFS). Hell if we use that logic the CFS’ osmotic influence is in evidence all over the world. What a perfect dream world it is — CFS “victories” as far as the eye can see. By the way, if you think Stephen Harper is implementing policies using the CFS playbook, I want your dealer’s number. The so-to-be-proven crappy grants program just announced was a product of blind hatred for the Liberal party.
Citing the BC tuition freeze as a ‘good thing’ is more than a little questionable.
The BC freeze screwed students something big. Unfunded tuition freeze’s means the cost of education continues to rise, but the amount of money to go around doesnt.
At least in Alberta, its a funded freeze… funny, the CFS can claim credit for the crappy one that hurt students in the long run and yet not the good one thats being directly beneficial to students.
And I cant see how CASA lost on MSF. Both sides kinda lost. The CFS had a blindered obsession with wiping out government implemented needs based grants, seems they half lost that one.
Its no longer needs based grants, its income based grants, something CASA has been pushing for (and I personally disagree with). In that regard, CASA won.
In the regard of killing MSF? Meh, the CFS kinda won? I mean, a similar program is being brought into being that has the same amount of money in its kitty to do largely the same thing… I guess Millenium was killed, only to be reborn in a less efficient and marginally different manner.
The government never does anything unless it thinks it can win them votes, therefore I would like to congratulate the electorate of every province that has a funded tuition freeze.