All Posts Tagged With: "Canadian Federation of Students"
Budget 2010: Why don’t you get a job?
Budget puts grads to work. Nothing for current students
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s budget, tabled Thursday afternoon, offered little in the way of new spending announcements, or policy revisions, for students. Instead, the 2010 budget makes modest expansions to existing programs that are largely aimed at putting university and college graduates to work, as well as at encouraging low income students to pursue a post-secondary education. Student groups say not enough is being done to help existing students.
Related: Budget 2010: New post-doctoral grant
The budget commits $108 million over three years “to assist young people looking to gain skills and experience.” This includes a one-year $30 million boost to the Career Focus component of the Youth Employment Strategy, which funds businesses and other organizations to provide internships to recent graduates. “This will allow more young Canadians to get that vital first job in their field of study,” the budget reads.
An additional $30 million increase is provided for the Skills Link portion of the Youth Employment Strategy. According to the government, Skills Link targets young people who are “at risk,” and others in need, including people with disabilities, single parents, Aboriginals, recent immigrants and those who have dropped out of high school. Skills Link is aimed at giving youth “the broad range of skills, knowledge and work experience they need to participate and succeed in the job market.”
The Pathway to Education Canada program will see an extra $20 million aimed at encouraging students from lower income families to pursue post-secondary education. Finally, minister Flaherty’s budget promises $30 million to create “partnerships” with First Nations “to improve the governance framework and clarify accountability for First Nations elementary and secondary education.”
In response to Thursday’s budget, Canada’s two largest student groups expressed disappointment.
The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) praised the government’s investment in Pathway to Education Canada, which is targeted at increasing university participation rates. However, CASA says not enough has been done to help students who are already attending Canada’s post-secondary institutions. “Unfortunately the federal government did not recognize the needs of students that are currently facing a cash and credit crunch due to last year’s recession,” said Arati Sharma, CASA’s national director.
Similarly, the Canadian Federation of Students also denounced the budget as inadequate. “With a record number of Canadians enrolled in college or university, this budget does nothing to help students and their families afford an education,” said CFS national chairperson Katherine Giroux-Bougard.
The lack of significant funding announcements is consistent with yesterday’s Speech from the Throne, in which students were barely mentioned. In fact, the only reference to students came when the Conservative government pledged to work with Aboriginal communities and province’s to “reform and strengthen education, and to support student success and provide greater hope and opportunity.”
The only other hint the government offered about today’s spending, echoed in the budget, was that there were no major cuts planned. “Balancing the nation’s books will not come […] by cutting transfer payments for health care and education,” governor general Michaelle Jean read, going on to explain later in the speech that restraining program spending overall would protect growth in transfers to pensions, education and health.
With files from Erin Millar
The case of the mystery million dollars
The CFS says Concordia can’t hold membership referendum until it pays $1-mil the union says it doesn’t owe
When Concordia Students’ Union president Amine Dabchy received the letter, he burst out laughing. “How did they pick such a specific number?” he recalls thinking. The letter informed the students’ union that it owned over $1 million to the Canadian Federation of Students—a huge sum Dabchy does not believe his organization owes.
The disagreement over $1,033,278.76 in unpaid fees is the latest episode in a months-long conflict between the Concordia Students’ Union (CSU) and the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), the largest student lobby group in Canada. Since the fall, the CSU has been attempting to put in motion a student referendum that would allow the union to cease its membership in the CFS. According to Dabchy, the CFS has been doing everything in its power to prevent a referendum, including demanding payment of this sum. “We believe this is a political tactic to prevent us from having a referendum,” he says.
When asked whether the debt is a political tactic Dave Molenhuis, treasurer and chairperson elect for the CFS, replies, “Definitely not.” He goes on to explain that the CSU was made aware of the debt years ago and that clearing outstanding fees has long been standard procedure before a referendum. “The rules around outstanding membership dues are very clear. It’s nothing new.”
The CSU—which pays over $200,000 annually to the CFS—is one of 13 students’ unions at 12 universities attempting to end its membership in the CFS. As the battle for student votes heats up, it seems inevitable that the CFS and multiple students’ unions will find themselves in court over the results.
Read about the disputes over referendums at other universities here
The trouble at Concordia started when the newly elected executive of the CSU started the process to leave the CFS. After over 16 per cent of the Concordia student body signed a petition asking for a vote on their continued membership in the group in October 2009, the CSU attempted to schedule a referendum. CFS bylaws at that time required that at least 10 per cent of the student body sign such a petition and that the petition be delivered six months in advance.
However, the CFS has repeatedly rebuffed the CSU’s efforts to get the ball rolling. In January, more than two months after receiving Concordia’s petition, the CFS requested that the university registrar verify that the nearly 5,500 signatures were signed by full-time students with valid student numbers. The registrar disqualified only 269 ineligible signatures, leaving enough eligible signatures to trigger a referendum.
The CFS then requested a copy of the petition that the registrar used when verifying signatures. The CSU responded and asked the CFS to confirm its proposed referendum dates by January 28. That deadline came and went without a response.
That’s why Dabachy couldn’t believe his eyes when he received the CFS’s letter detailing the staggering debt owed by the CSU. “We are denying that this is true,” he says. Dabachy wasn’t able to find any record of the debt in CSU books or meeting minutes. In the letter, the CFS states no referendum can be held until the CSU has paid the amount in full.
The disagreement comes down to a Memorandum of Understanding that was signed by former CSU president Keyana Kashfi in April 2009, less than two months before Dabachy took office. The MOU—a copy of which accompanied the CFS’ letter to the CSU—stated that the CSU owed the money for unpaid membership fees and laid out a payment schedule to start in September 2010.
With the exception of Kashfi, no director of the CSU was aware of the document, according to Dabachy. “When we look through our records, we have paid our membership fees since we first became members,” he says. Kashfi appears to have signed the MOU without consulting the CSU council.
Molenhuis says that it is impossible that the union was unaware of the outstanding fees. “It’s common knowledge amongst previous executive members of Concordia,” he says.
Dabachy believes that Kashfi’s actions are a clear violation of CSU bylaws and Quebec laws. CSU lawyers sent a letter to Kashfi last week informing her the CSU would be holding her liable for over $1 million for entering the agreement on her own.
In an interview with the student newspaper The Concordian, Kashfi explained that the debt was incurred in part because the CSU hadn’t adjusted its membership fees for inflation. The CSU also allegedly didn’t pay fees for business and engineering students.
“It’s a lot of money, but it’s what’s owed,” Kashfi told the Concordian. “If anything I did a service to the CSU by stopping the CFS from collecting the debt all at once.” She also said she was not in violation of CSU bylaws because she wasn’t making a purchase, rather paying what was owed for services rendered.
In a statement emailed to Maclean’s OnCampus, the CFS states: “In fairness to all other dues paying members of the Canadian Federation of Students and in accordance with the Federation’s Bylaws, any outstanding dues must be remitted prior to holding a vote on the question of continued membership.”
So what’s next for the CSU? Dabachy says that he plans to go ahead with the referendum regardless of whether the CFS agrees. “We’ll see what happens and we will make use of all of our legal options and rights.”
UVic student union revokes club status of pro-life club
Latest move to silence abortion debate at UVic will likely lead to legal showdown
The University of Victoria Students’ Society (UVSS) cranked up their fight against the pro-life student club Youth Protecting Youth (YPY) last week by revoking the club’s status. Previous efforts to silence the club’s controversial message only went so far as to deny the club funding. This latest move denies the very existence of the group, upping the stakes significantly in a conflict that is sure to end up in court.
The spat began in October 2008 when the university’s students’ society refused to give YPY the same meagre funding all UVic student clubs receive. Clubs approved by a committee are entitled to $232 each year in addition to such perks as banner supplies and free room bookings. Upon review in 2009, the committee approved funding for YPY. But the students’ society board stepped in and once again revoked the funding, yet still permitted it to operate on campus.
In an October 2009 meeting, the society’s directors accused YPY of “harassing” female students with anti-abortion posters. Those opposed to YPY have also complained about a YPY sponsored event that featured the controversial pro-life activist Stephanie Gray debate distinguished medical ethicist Eike-Henner Kluge. Director Tracey Ho summed up the society’s position by saying, “No one should debate my rights over my own body.”
YPY fought back by contacting the BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA), in hopes the organization would defend its right to freedom of speech. BCCLA agreed and in late 2009 threatened to launch a lawsuit on behalf of YPY if the UVSS didn’t reinstate the club’s funding. The UVSS brushed the BCCLA off. (Read our previous coverage here.)
In a UVSS meeting that stretched past 11pm last Monday night, the student society decided to revoke the club’s status for one year, meaning that in addition to losing funding, YPY can no longer rent rooms or access other perks available to clubs. YPY may be able to regain status if it complies to certain restrictions. The catch is that the UVSS hasn’t yet determined what those restriction are, so YPY’s status won’t change until the restrictions are written at some unspecified time in the future.
The decision was in part a response to a complaint filed by the UVSS Women’s Centre. “Reproductive rights are elemental in women’s collective and individual potential for equity in all realms of social life,” the complaint letter states. “Access to abortion free from harassment is one of these reproductive rights that YPY continually undermine through the proliferation of inaccurate information and the creation of hostile environments.”
“YPY’s identity and actions as a pro-life organization inherently discriminates against women. Through intimidation tactics and moralist evangelizing, YPY limits the ability of women on campus to access accurate information about abortion free from harassment.”
John Dixon, president of BCCLA, finds this argument illogical. “It is worthwhile to consider, for a moment, what this really means,” he wrote in an email. “It means that the very civil, moderate pro-life YPY club at UVic doesn’t even have to get out of bed in the morning to discriminate against women; it means that no matter how mild, moderate, and circumscribed its advocacy, it discriminates against women. There is no appeal to reason here, but a weird evocation of a kind of secular flavour of sacrilege.”
In a Thursday email to UVSS chairperson Veronica Harrison, YPY president Anastasia Pearse asked the UVSS to call a special general meeting to reconsider their status. “We are unaware of any policy or bylaw that gives the Board discretion to withhold club status indefinitely based upon a yet-to-be-developed policy,” Pearse wrote. “We refuse to participate.”
Harrison has maintained that the UVSS has every right to deny funding to YPY. “Freedom of speech of course can happen, but not when it’s harassing or oppressing other people,” she said in December.
UVSS Director Nathan Warner was one of the minority who voted against revoking YPY’s status. “I’m pro-choice but I’m also pro-debate,” he told Maclean’s. “Abortion is not an easy topic for anyone and I believe that no matter what you ask it will likely offend someone. I don’t think that is reason enough to merit banning a club from campus.”
Warner concedes that YPY is asking tough questions in its anti-abortion campaign. But, as he points out, YPY’s posters don’t include graphic images that have been associated with other pro-life campus activism. “This attack on freedom of expression is unfounded and needs to be stopped,” he said.
It seems unlikely that the BCCLA will back off either. According to Dixon: “At the University of Victoria, the values of freedom of conscience, opinion, religion, and expression are decried as quaint residues of an irrelevant past. The Board of the Student Society has drunk deeply at the well of post-modernist ideology, and they are determined to drive the very moderate and civil student pro-life club from the campus. What certainly seems separate from this university is the faintest memory of the very idea of a ‘university’ as a place dedicated to the preference of dialogue over force.”
Related: Closed for debate. Also see, Uvic’s pro-choicers up the ante against pro-life club
- With files from David Foster
CFS-BC loses legal battle over barring Kwantlen rep from board
Decision could have consequences for BC societies
The Canadian Federation of Students British Columbia chapter lost a legal fight this week when they were ordered to ratify a representative from the Kwantlen Student Association on their board. Since May 2008, CFS-BC has refused to recognize the KSA representative as a voting member of the board, even though each member student union is supposed to have a vote according to CFS bylaws.
Justice Brown ruled Wednesday that CFS-BC was in violation of the Society Act and their own bylaws by not admitting the KSA’s representative, Derek Robertson, who was twice voted to the position by Kwantlen students. The KSA applauded the decision. “I’m happy to see that the court has upheld the rights of individual student societies, and their students, to elect their own representation,” said Steven Lee, KSA chairperson, in a release. “This ruling makes the CFS-BC more accountable, democratic, and open to more than one point of view.”
However, Shamus Reid, chairperson of CFS-BC, warned that the ruling could have grave consequences for societies in BC. CFS-BC was concerned that Robertson “could not represent their interests,” Reid explained in an email to Maclean’s. “The BC Society Act provides that directors of a society are legally responsible for protecting the society from harm,” he added. “Despite this legal responsibility, Madame Justice Brown’s ruling denies directors the legal power to do so.” The KSA claims that CFS-BC directors are worried that Robertson would be disloyal to the CFS.
The KSA has long been in conflict with the CFS over a variety of issues, and last year held a defederation campaign to end the union’s membership in the organization. The referendum failed. Leading up to and during the the referendum, the two organizations were in and out of court.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated.
Affirmative action for CFS delegates
UTM student struck from the delegate list reportedly because she is white
Beginning Thursday, the Ontario arm of the Canadian Federation of Students will be holding its semi-annual general meeting. And, already, controversy has begun to stir, as a previously approved delegate for the University of Toronto-Mississauga Students’ Union has been struck from the list. After the VP external Henry Ssali had approved student Stefanie Marotta as a delegate, the union’s executive committee overruled his decision. Two reasons were given for the reversal: one reasonable, one unreasonable.
The original explanation, the reasonable one, given for denying Marotta delegate status is because she is assistant news editor for the Mississauga campus paper, the Medium. The other explanation, the more unreasonable one, apparently has to do with the fact that because Marotta does not belong to a minority constituency group, it is more expensive to send her, but more on that below.
With respect to her employment with the Medium, Marotta claims she had no intentions of covering the CFS meeting for the paper, and that she wanted to attend as a regular student. She also failed to inform her superiors at the paper that she was planning to go as a delegate to the AGM. Despite this failure to disclose, the Medium’s editor-in-chief is backing her, publicly anyway, stating in an editorial that the incident:
“[D]oesn’t just affect us here at The Medium—it affects all UTM students who may wish to write for this newspaper. Would you still write for us if you knew it would hurt your chances of participating in UTMSU and CFS-organized activities?”
While Marotta says she was simply interested in becoming more involved with the student union, and seems miffed that she is being denied this opportunity, she would potentially be in a conflict of interest, whether real, or perceived. As assistant news editor she has covered the UTMSU and presumably supervises others who cover them. The fact that the UTMSU raised her status as a campus journalist when deregistering her is entirely fitting. I just don’t understand why it would be controversial for the UTMSU to tell Marotta that, because of her other obligations, it would be inappropriate for her to become intimately entwined with the union leadership as an official delegate to a CFS conference. Of course, if Marotta had applied to attend as a student journalist, and was subsequently denied, that would be a different story.
As for the Medium, the students that run it should be livid that one of their editors failed to disclose her intentions to become more active with the union, which she is responsible for covering. To understate things, if I was running the paper I would be quite annoyed. I don’t mean any of this to suggest that student papers and student unions must necessarily be adversarial but being closely involved with one should preclude becoming closely involved in the other. It is just unprofessional for it to be otherwise.
If the union executive had left it at that, as a question of potentially conflicting loyalties, they might have avoided some controversy. Instead, when pressed on the question, they raised the spectre of affirmative action. As reported by the Medium:
[M]embers executive committee [sic] argued that it would cost extra money to send Marotta to the event. Marotta, a white female, does not belong to a “constituency group,” a category created by the CFS that includes Aboriginal students, students of colour, francophone students, students with disabilities, international students, mature or part-time students and students who identify themselves as members of the LGBTQ community. The UTMSU pays $325 for students who identify as members of the constituency group, but the cost goes up to $400 for students who don’t fall into this category—students such as Marotta.
The paper further reports that “This year, all of the delegates sent by UTMSU to the CFS semi-AGM identify in one or more constituency groups.”
Whatever the progressive intentions of providing a discount for supposedly underrepresented groups, does it fulfill its purpose if all the delegates from a particular school are from at least one of these constituency groups? If students’ interests can only be represented by other students just like them (a point on which I disagree, but nevermind that for now) then denying representation from majority students would seem to skew representation, and create divisions of its own. That seems counterproductive and appears to promote diversity simply because it is cheaper.
I’ll wear a poppy if I want to
A videoblog response to the CFS annual general meeting.
Last week, the Canadian Federation of Students conducted their 28th Annual General Meeting in the Ottawa-Gatineau region.
Some thoughts:
Click here to check out the AGM motions package
Related:
CFS threatens legal action against Eyeopener
Breaking up is now harder to do
Breaking up with Canada’s largest student lobby group
Breaking up is now harder to do
CFS passes contentious motion aimed at making it more difficult to defederate
Leaving the Canadian Federation of Students has become more complicated after a controversial motion passed Saturday evening, capping the organization’s three day annual general meeting held in Gatineau. The motion brought forward by the Carleton Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) was likely motivated by a movement launched earlier this year to hold defederation votes at 13 student unions.
Reporting for the Canadian University Press, Emma Godmere writes (You can read the whole story here on page 6):
The sixth motion on the meeting’s original agenda – proposed by local 78, the Carleton Graduate Students’ Association, and dubbed “motion six” throughout plenary, despite a change in motion order – brought forward the greatest debate at the meeting.
The vote on the motion, toward the end of the final plenary of the meeting, was stalled as the hotel’s fire alarm went off in the middle of debate and all present in the room filtered out into the hotel parking lot. After a delay of over 20 minutes, delegates were allowed back into the large room to continue the debate and vote on the motion, which passed 44 to 19.
The motion to bring reforms to the membership referendum process included extending the minimum time period between defederation referendums on a university campus from two years to five years (three years for colleges); limiting the number of such referendums in any three-month period to two for the entire organization; and increasing the number of required referendum petition signatures from 10 per cent of a member local’s student population to 20 per cent.
According to the CUP story, Carleton GSA president Kimalee Phillip says the fact that the motion passed shows “that CFS is stronger than most people assume.” However, due to five abstentions others say that the motion failed to pass with a two-thirds majority as required by CFS rules governing constitutional changes. “Of 69 members present, only 44 supported it. That’s less than [two-thirds], and the question really isn’t more complicated than that,” said CFS-Quebec treasurer Andrew Haig. The CFS chair disagrees and said during the plenary session that constitutional changes require a two-thirds majority of members who actually cast a vote.
No word yet on whether the CFS national executive will consider the matter when they meet in January.
UBC to decide on CASA membership tonight
But will the motion pass? This time, for a variety of reasons, the result isn’t certain
If one thing has been made clear over the past few weeks on this website, it’s that’s the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) is definite water-cooler talk. That is, if the Internet had some sort of equivalent of a water cooler. But regardless, through a combination of its size and its penchant for creating controversy, the CFS can definitely be considered sexy within the realm of Canadian post-secondary student government/lobbying. Which isn’t saying much. But still.
However, the CFS’ counterpart, the smaller and federally-focused Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, keeps trundling along, working exclusively on issues of federal jurisdiction. Its largest member, UBC, may be fully pulling out of the group tonight. A motion has been put forward to the student council that would see the Alma Mater Society (AMS) fully remove itself from CASA. One of the things CASA trumpets as a selling point is that members can easily join and leave whenever they see fit without a full-scale referendum—and UBC students may just take full advantage of that.
Curiously, the end of the motion reads: (click for the entire motion)
“Be it further resolved that the AMS remain unaffiliated to any federal lobbying organization, for no less than two years; and
Be it further resolved that if the AMS considers affiliation with an external lobbying organization, it negotiate with CASA first.”
It’s a clear compromise on those who drafted the motion to find common ground with councillors who are neutral on the relative merits of CASA, but are strongly against joining the CFS. On the other hand, if federal fixed-election laws have taught us anything, it’s that these sorts of “we pwomise” motions/laws can easily be circumvented. A new executive and council could come in and override all of this.
So will the motion pass? Last year at this time, the AMS voted to step down to associate member status within CASA (the motion passed unanimously). This time however, the vote is not so certain. Much of the conflict has come due to the clumsy way the AMS executive has tried to distance itself from the organization. Most memorably, an email to students sent by VP External Tim Chu, the AMS claimed that “CASA is an organization that has quite a bit of problems. These problems include… Spending more money on cell phones than member relations.” Which would be ridiculous. If it were true.
However, in a meeting with UBC, National Director Arati Sharma said that CASA talked more about the cell phone budget than the member relations budget at their last AGM. Oops. Furthermore, the external office of the AMS, which is in charge of carrying out lobbying, hasn’t exactly been controversy-free in the last few months. It’ll be up to councillors to determine if Canada’s largest student union can competently handle external lobbying without any outside help or affiliation. I’ll have a report up on the decision once it breaks tonight (or, for those out on the east coast, more likely tomorrow morning).
UPDATE: Earlier today, Arati Sharma sent a letter to AMS Councillors and campus media which contained this interesting tidbit:
“In the current contract between the Alma Mater Society of the University of British Columbia – Vancouver, and the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (point 7 on page 3 of the attached Full Member Agreement), the AMS agreed to the exit provisions of Article 4 of the constitution (page 2 of attached Constitution 2007), which states in 4.10:
“A Full member reverting to Associate Membership or an Associate Member withdrawing from the organization must notify the Board of Directors in writing no less than thirty (30) calendar days in advance of employing the necessary legislative steps in the Member’s constitution or Bylaws.”
Two CASA representatives met with AMS representatives on October 8, 2009 but no notice of tonight’s motion was given. CASA was informed by the UBC Insiders (a campus blog) Twitter feed instead.
How much does your student union executive get paid?
And is it too much? Or not enough?
Every student union is a little different, but they all have one thing in common: they don’t work for free. Student unions often have multi-million dollar budgets, and you can bet the people in charge are getting a good chunk of your money.
But just how much? I did a little digging, and pulled the numbers from every student union in Ontario that’s a member of the Canadian Federation of Students – easily accessible list of websites, if you’re wondering why. Or at least I tried to. Only 12 CFS-O schools have online budgets (that I could find), while 25 don’t.
No matter. I pulled the numbers as best I could. Salaries for each executive were sometimes lumped together, sometimes seperated. Benefits were often unclear and tied in with other expenses. Executives wages were not always seperated from other full time employees. Some of these budgets are two or three years old. So if anybody has more recent or accurate numbers, I would love to see them. But overall, this gives us a little bit of perspective.
The average executive receives about $16,757 in remuneration ($19,705 for undergrads, $10,860 for grad students.) The average executive slate is paid about 13 per cent of the student union budget (15 per cent for undergrads, nine per cent for grad students.)
Here’s the list, in order of average executive financial remuneration (includes salary, benefits, honorariums, etc.)
1. Carleton University – $36,599
2. University of Guelph Central Student Association – $30,335
3. University of Windsor Students’ Alliance – $27,682
4. University of Toronto Students’ Union – $26,171*
5. University of Ottawa Graduate Students’ Association – $16,110
6. Trent Central Student Association – $13,075
7. Scarborough Campus Students’ Union – $12,703*
8. University of Western Ontario Society of Graduate Students – $11,419
9. Queen’s University Society of Graduate and Professional Students – $8,480
10. University of Toronto at Mississauga Students’ Union – $7,574
11. University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union – $7,432
12. Glendon College Students’ Union – $3,500
* UTSU and SCSU both include their executive salaries with those of directors, co-ordinators, and other important staff; these numbers are the average of the pay of all these positions
So what do you think – do student leaders get paid enough? Or do they get paid too much? I’d love to hear your comments, and if anybody has any information about student unions that I haven’t covered I’d love to share it with the readers.
Equal campaign spending
Why would you want a fair referendum that you might lose?
The Canadian Federation of Students has voted down another attempt to reform the CFS that would have been a push in right direction, and encouraged the federation to be the fair democratic grassroots organization it claims to be.
The motion, voted on at the group’s semi-annual general meeting, would have imposed the same spending limit on the CFS side as is imposed on the non-CFS side of a membership referendum.
Here’s a quote from the new York Federation of Students president on page 5 of The Fulcrum’s summer edition:
“As far as we’re concerned, in any referendum situation the No side
has an [inherent] advantage because they can break the rules as much as they want without any type of consequence,” said York Federation of Students President Krisna Saravanamuttu, who voted against the motion.
I have a question for Saravanamuttu: Why is this justification for not creating a rule to create fairness between opposing sides in a referendum? If the problem is that the rule isn’t being followed, does this mean we should not have rules in the first place?
Kudos to the graduate students at Concordia for voting in favour of the motion. The CFS has great potential in theory but has sold its soul in favour of power and money, but thankfully, there are some left that still see what could be.
National student politics in the Web 2.0 era
CASA delegates debate on Twitter, national audience joins in
When I started blogging in 2005, there were only a handful of people involved in campus politics who communicated publicly on the Internet.
Today, this is not the case. This weekend marks a real milestone in student politics; the first real-time open group conversation debate related to a national student lobbying organization meeting.
(Note: People have “tweeted” at previous meetings, this is the first time a real-time large scale discussion has occurred live on Twitter.)
The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations is meeting in Calgary this week. Many of the student politicians are using Twitter to communicate their thoughts. One of the them, Blake Fredrick of the University of British Columbia Alma Mater Society is not a fan of CASA and is making it known on his Twitter feed: www.twitter.com/Blake_Frederick
Frederick has started a discussion with his comments, a discussion which is best followed using the twitter search engine here: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Blake_Frederick
You can follow all tweets related to the CASA meeting here: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=#casacon
Yes, it’s my fault
Who’s to blame for the lack of coverage of Canadian Federation of Students meetings?
According to the People’s Voice:
“To most young people, the CFS meeting was invisible. We can hold the corporate media primarily responsible for that.”
Student alliance asks Ottawa to ease debt in downturn
Graduates with limited job prospects need help dealing with debt, says CASA
The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations is calling on Ottawa to ease the debt burden for people who are graduating in tough economic times with limited job prospects.
National director Zach Churchill says the government can do some simple things to help recent grads who will, on average, complete a four-year undergraduate degree more than $24,000 in debt.
The alliance argues the student financial-aid system should be more accessible and that tariffs on imported books need to be eliminated.
The comments come after meetings this week with government officials.
The Canadian Federation of Students recently called on Ottawa to increase transfer payments to the provinces in an effort to reduce skyrocketing tuition fees.
- The Canadian Press
CFS deputy chair-elect at centre of new Concordia controversy
The Concordia University student newspapers are reporting on a new student politics controversy at the university, this time involving a staffer of the CFS-Q who is also the deputy chair elect of the national student lobbying organization. Noah Stewart, was seen on security footage removing seven posters during a recent student election campaign at Concordia. [...]
The Concordia University student newspapers are reporting on a new student politics controversy at the university, this time involving a staffer of the CFS-Q who is also the deputy chair elect of the national student lobbying organization.
Noah Stewart, was seen on security footage removing seven posters during a recent student election campaign at Concordia. Stewart, a former VP of the Concordia Students Union, is currently employed by the Canadian Federation of Students – Quebec as a spokesperson.
Canadian Federation of Students hopeful interferes in Concordia election – The Link
Former CSU politician Caught on tape – The Concordian
Police investigating after CFS-Ontario receives racist mail
Kenyan students called “refugee dog” in hateful letter, group says
Police in Toronto are investigating after racist hate mail was delivered to the Ontario office of the Canadian Federation of Students.
The federation says the mail was received late last month following the launch of its province-wide task force to study racism on college and university campuses.
The envelope contained a recent editorial cartoon from the New York Post that was accused of having racist overtones, and a picture of federation representative Hildah Otieno, a student from Kenya.
On the clippings, words such as “refugee dog” and “KKK” were written.
Otieno said that after much discussion, the group decided to make the incident public.
The federation’s Task Force on Campus Racism is holding hearings through April and will then prepare a report to be released this fall.
- The Canadian Press
Lawsuits, accusations and denials at Concordia
Continuing coverage of the Concordia student union and health plan scandals
The student press in Montreal is doing a great job covering the continuing Concordia Student Union health care plan scandal. Here’s the Wednesday round-up.
The McGill Tribune covers the story with a news piece and publishes an opinion piece written by Max Silverman.
There is some new information in the news article. Most interesting is Ian Bokyo of the Canadian Federation of Students denying to the Tribune that the CFS is in any way connected to Morneau Sobeco.
The question is: what does Boyko mean, exactly? Does he mean that the Federation has no contact with Morneau Sobeco, that they basically wouldn’t know the firm if it were placed in a line-up with other insurance brokers? Does he mean to say all mentions of the “CFS” on the Morneau Sobeco website are fictitious (01, 04, 07, 08, 11, 18, 19, 27, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 44, 45, 46, 48, 61, 68, 69, 71, 82, 84, 88, 92, 94, 97, 98, 102, 103, 106, 110) and Morneau Sobeco is making these supposed plans up? It’s worth noting that all student health plans listed by Morneau Sobeco are with the Canadian Federation of Students-Services affiliate National Student Health Network (NSHN) and all unions receiving the plan are CFS Locals.
More likely, Boyko is engaging in semantics: the relationship is with the Canadian Federation of Students – Services which, while legally separate from the Canadian Federation of Students, is treated as one organization in day-to-day operations. The CFS and CFS-S share the same phone number, same office, same web domain, and all members of the CFS-S board are members of the CFS board. Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck….
Max Silverman, former vice-president external of the Student Society of McGill University and one of the most knowledgeable individuals on student politics in Montreal, pulls no punches in his assessment of the Concordia crisis. Silverman hopes the crisis will result in Concordia students taking back their student union.
Both student newspapers at Concordia publish on Tuesday and both feature extensive coverage of the scandal.
The Concordian continues its coverage with a news piece that the Concordia Student Union plan was awarded to the NSHN, which the CFS-S says is not true.
New PSE grants neither fair nor efficient
Who will benefit from the new income-based Canada Student Grant Program?
After a short, unkind rant about the Canadian Federation of Students, the Educational Policy Institute’s Alex Usher discusses who will be benefiting from the federal government’s new income-based Canada Student Grant Program:
The top level of our new “access grant” has over twice as many potential clients who are over 22 and have been in school for years as it does students under 22 who are just starting out. Dependent students have to have very poor parents to qualify; all an independent student has to do – even if they are from a very wealthy family – is to not earn $20,000/year.
Forget the obvious issues around budgeting and whether or not HRSD is banking on really low take-up rates for this program. Let’s talk about fairness: is it fair that younger students have less access to this money than older ones? Or, let’s talk about efficient program design: is it efficient for a program that is ostensibly about access to be giving so much of its money to students who have already been in school for a number of years?
At the root of the problem here is an inability to come up with a program design that meets the needs of all students equitably. By applying a single set of criteria across a vastly diverse group of students, CSLP has come up with a student support system which, on aggregate, looks neither especially fair nor efficient.
The CASA media playbook vs. the CFS media playbook
Last week, I noted a critical editorial in the University of Alberta Gateway. The editorial questioned the value of Canadian Alliance of Student Associations membership for University of Alberta students. (It also questioned the value of membership in the Canadian Federation of Students.) I’ve been critical of CASA in the past and will likely be [...]
Last week, I noted a critical editorial in the University of Alberta Gateway. The editorial questioned the value of Canadian Alliance of Student Associations membership for University of Alberta students. (It also questioned the value of membership in the Canadian Federation of Students.)
I’ve been critical of CASA in the past and will likely be critical in the future. Same goes with the CFS. How the two organizations respond to critical coverage is night and day. The CFS sends legal letters and throws a tantrum whenever it is unhappy with anything in the student press. CASA will send a letter to the editor to explain their viewpoint.
When a story unfavourable to CASA is being written, I can call them and get answers. When any article that is not favourable, even neutral, about the CFS is being written, repeated phone calls will not be returned. It is not unusual for legal letters or warning to arrive prior to the publication of an article.
The result this week; CASA national director Zach Churchill is interviewed in The Gateway this week.
Head of prominent student health plan alleges $25,000 bribe
Concordia students’ union says allegations are completely false
A crisis at the Concordia Student Union has grown larger this week after the revelation that a former senior member of the ruling political slate allegedly demanded a $25,000 campaign contribution from the student union’s health and dental plan provider.
In a sworn affidavit, the executive director of the Quebec Student Health Alliance (ASEQ) Lev Bukhman alleges a campaign organizer for the “Unity” slate, Steve Rosenshein, asked for $25,000 to finance the campaign of the political slate.
Bukhman, a lawyer by trade, alleges that his decision to not give the money resulted in the CSU changing insurance brokers and subsequently asks that Concordia University’s administration take trusteeship of the student health plan.
The CSU denies the change in brokers has anything to do with the alleged bribe request and claims the ASEQ plan cost Concordia students $250,000 more than necessary last year.
The current Concordia student health and dental plan contract with ASEQ expires at the end of this academic year. The Concordia plan has been managed by ASEQ since 1996 when ASEQ was created by consortium of Quebec student unions, which included the CSU as a founding member.
In the late fall, the CSU executive hired Morneau Sobeco and the National Student Health Network, which is affiliated with the Canadian Federation of Students-Services, as consultants for their upcoming health plan. Morneau Sobeco and the NSHA are partners in delivering what some refer to as the “CFS health plan.”
Bukhman’s accusations against Rosenshien were only made public after these events took place.
The alleged incident, according to Bukhman, occurred on the evening of March 6, 2008. The affidavit was sworn on May 26, 2008 in front of a Commissioner of Oaths.
In his affidavit, Bukhman says Rosenshien asked for $25,000 dollars to support the campaign of the CSU “Unity” slate, for which Rosenshien was allegedly a campaign organizer.
Bukhman states Rosenshein was making the unusual request in part because, “in the past his [Rosenshein's] work had been supported by the CFS… but this support was no longer forthcoming because the CFS, Bukrman quotes Rosenshein as stating, “had it’s hands full dealing with referendums on other campuses.”
Bukhman also claims Rosenshein implied that a failure to provide the hefty donation would result in the CSU switching their health plan to the NSHA plan. Bukhman’s affidavit states Rosenshien warned that “the CFS wants to get the Concordia health plan, they are working hard behind the scenes, and they are giving us lots of support.”
Rosenshien has not yet publicly commented on the affair. The Concordia Student Union denies the accusations they’ve signed a health plan contract with the NSHA and calls the allegations “ridiculous”.
Denying anti-abortionists club status hurts free speech?
Liberties groups says issues around abortion need further debate, not censorship
The Globe and Mail is reporting that the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) has weighed in on the controversial debate surrounding the rights of anti-abortion clubs on university campuses.
In a letter, sent last week to the Canadian Federation of Students, the CCLA says denying campus-club status to anti-abortion groups infringes on freedom of speech and is objecting to a resolution supporting student unions that deny the groups funding and office space.
“We decided to weigh in on this, a rather disquieting development in the university environment, which is supposed to encourage debate,” says CCLA general counsel Alan Borovoy.
In their letter, the CCLA asks: “What is there about these anti-abortion groups that warrant such special denigration?” saying that the issue needs further debate, not censorship.
In the Globe, CFS spokesman Joel Duff says the resolution, which was adopted by federation delegates a year ago, lends “moral support” to student unions who are opposed to funding anti-abortion groups. He also points out that the student unions’ opposition to financing was upheld last fall by the Supreme Court of British Columbia.
