All Posts Tagged With: "Ian Boyko"

Ian Boyko, in his role as chair of the Carleton University Students Association, will be deciding if the signatures on a petition to impeach Carleton University Students Association (CFS Local 1) president Brittany Smyth are valid. Boyko is employed by the Canadian Federation of Students as Government Relations Coordinator.

Ian Boyko, in his role as chair of the Carleton University Students Association, will be deciding if the signatures on a petition to impeach Carleton University Students Association (CFS Local 1) president Brittany Smyth are valid.

Boyko is employed by the Canadian Federation of Students as Government Relations Coordinator.

CFS says claim it gave money to CUPE is “false”

We received a letter this afternoon from the lawyers for the Canadian Federation of Students. It says the CFS never gave $2,500 to the union representing York strikers, CUPE local 3903. “This passage is false,” reads the letter. “CFS has not made any such financial contribution to CUPE 3093.”

What we’re trying to understand — and what we’ve have just emailed CFS spokesman Ian Boyko to ask — is exactly what that means.Is the CFS saying that no part of the CFS gave $2,500 to CUPE local 3903? The original Excalibur story says that the Ontario arm of CFS, CFS-Ontario, provided the money. Is the CFS splitting hairs (as they often do) between the closely related CFS and CFS-O? Is that the alleged falsehood in our post and the Excalibur story? Or is CFS saying that no money was given to CUPE 3903 by any part of the CFS, whether the national body or the provincial body, and that the Excalibur story is entirely false?

We note for now that the Excalibur is sticking by its story and the Canadian University Press has just moved the Excalibur story on its newswire, which is distributed to Canadian campus newspapers.

More details to come as soon as we receive them from the CFS. We’re happy to make their position clear and public, but so far all we have is this letter (and this earlier exchange with Ian Boyko), so that’s what we’ve published.

Update 28-Nov-08 1458EST: Ian Boyko responded to use with the following email:

Joey,

Every statement about the Canadian Federation of Students in the original post, including the title, is false. The Canadian Federation of Students has not made a donation to CUPE 3903 (“zero dollars”).

As for determining the actions taken by affiliated organizations, you should ask their representatives yourself. The difference between our organization and our affiliates has been explained to you before.

Now they we’ve received a specific complaint from the CFS, we are in the process of clarifying the information provided by the CUPE 3903 website.

Business leader says that university and colleges need to reach out to adult learners, new immigrants

Canada must improve the educational outcomes of aboriginals and new immigrants in order to prosper in the global economy, according to the executive vice-president of The Canadian Council of Chief Executives.

“It is clear that Canada cannot rest on its laurels,” said David Stewart-Patterson in a keynote speech at an international conference regarding higher education access. “If we want to continue enjoying steady growth in our standard of living, we need to do better.”

The conference, titled “Neither a moment nor a mind to waste,” took place this week in Toronto and explored ways to improve student access and educational outcomes.

Canada’s economy has undergone a period of rapid growth in the last fifteen years from an economy “in which we did not have enough jobs for our people to one in which we cannot find enough people for the work that needs doing,” explained Stewart-Patterson. He added that ensuring access to higher education was once a moral imperative but is now an economic necessity.

“Far too many Aboriginals are not finishing high school,” he said, pointing to research by the Caledon Institute of Social Policy showing that Aboriginal people who complete high school have almost the same post-secondary participation rate as non-Aboriginal high school graduates. Stewart-Patterson called on the federal government to seize the “critical opportunity to demonstrate leadership and work with First Nations to find solutions that work.”

“This is the one group of students for which the federal government, rather than the provinces, bears primary responsibility,” he said.

Stewart-Patterson’s words are particularly relevant in light of the current dispute between the federal and Ontario governments over responsibility for the First Nations Technical Institute. The federal government recently withdrew funding for the institution, arguing that education is a provincial responsibility. After months of uncertainty as to whether the school would remain open, the provincial government stepped in with emergency one-time funding. But the province still maintains that the institution is the federal government’s responsibility.

Stewart-Patterson says that as Canada’s largest growing demographic, aboriginal youth are very important for the future of Canada. With the overall youth demographic expected to peak in 2012, Canadian universities must reach this group of potential students in order to maintain current enrolment levels.