A petition asking students whether or not they want a referendum to question the continued membership of the UVic Students’ Society (UVSS) in the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) has been sent to the CFS’ national office in Ottawa.
The group of students who have been organizing the petition and gathering signatures since early September sent notarized copies of the signatures on Oct. 26. The group kept the originals “because of [the CFS’] tendency to lose stuff,” said Jose Barrios, one of the petition’s organizers.
The 108-page petition had 1,972 signatures, 1,892 of which were deemed valid as students attending UVic during the 2009-2010 winter session by UVic’s Acting Registrar Lauren Charlton.
The 1,892 signatures represent 11.4 per cent of UVic’s undergraduate population. In order to request a referendum to deferederate, a petition needs to have the support of 10 per cent of undergraduate students.
A letter of notarization and a letter acting as the official notice of a call to referendum are included with the signatures. The package will be served to the CFS national office by a bailiff later this week. Barrios said that the group chose to get a bailiff to serve the papers instead of sending them by mail so that there will be no question over whether or not the CFS received the package.
“We’re following their rules to the tee to make sure they don’t stop the democratic process on a technicality,” said Barrios.
Still, he’s not convinced that the CFS will allow a referendum without a fight.
“I’m sure something’s going to happen,” said Barrios, noting that in past referendum attempts, the CFS has lost documents. “They’ll just pull it out of their hat.”
Once the CFS receives the package they will have 90 days to acknowledge it. When that happens, CFS will have 60-90 days to schedule the referendum.
UVic is just one of several schools across Canada currently attempting to call a referendum questioning their students’ societies continued membership in the CFS.
Barrios, who is in contact with petition organizers at other schools, says that the CFS has already received 10 petition packages requesting referendums and that they will receive an additional three this week. As of press time, CFS was not available to confirm that 10 petitions had been received.
Though Barrios is excited by the progress the petition has made, he says that there are ways to avoid a referendum.
“We’re willing to reconsider the petition because we want the CFS to be effective. We’re still hopeful the reforms will pass,” said Barrios, referring to the package released by the CFS’ Quebec branch CFS-Q earlier this month.
The package consisted of three parts and called for major changes to be made to the organization. When it was announced that there would be a reform package coming forward, CFS-Q received a letter from the CFS’ lawyer saying that they were no longer a part of CFS because they had caused damage to the organization.
The CFS will refuse to acknowledge the existence of the petitions for AT LEAST another two weeks.
No, I didn't say "confirm their validity," I said acknowledge that the petitions even exist and were delivered to your office.
Sadly this time, your dirty tricks won't work. We, and every student union trying to leave, will simply process serve you another "package" if you continue with these childish games of claiming to not receive these petitions.
Only this time, the process server will be delivering you a court date and notice of a criminal investigation into your open corruption. The petitions will be the least of your worries at that point.
Why would the CFS lawyer tell the CFS-Q that they are not longer part of the CFS? That seems a bit of an over reaction. It's one thing if you, for some reason, don't agree with the reforms or change in general, but to exclude and not welcome the entire province of Quebec... that is hardly democratic !
Simon: Welcome to the CFS :P
Hey, I thought this was just a right wing conspiracy of white males.. :(
Nice job UVic!
Congrats Victoria!
And for shits and/or giggles...
Why it Might be a Good Idea to Send Things to the CFS by "Process Server" :
http://cusatruth.com/post/222201693/why-it-might-be-a-good-idea-to-send-things-to-the-cfs
We will NOT have a referendum, half the students on campus do not even know what the CFS is, how can you ask them if they want to leave if they aren't even aware what the CFS is?
Apparently it's not a problem asking them to pay for it...
Christine-
So, by your logic, because some students aren't aware of the CFS, they should not have a referendum on it- something that would raise awareness of both the pros and cons of the CFS- and instead continue to pay money to an organization they don't know about?
Yeah. That makes tons of sense.
Maybe if the CFS actually did something useful for the majority of students, they would know what it is, Christine.
Christine, what do you mean we won't have a referendum? The required # of signatures have been verified and will be received by the CFS soon. The CFS will soon be legally obliged to conduct a referendum.
ok, so now it seems like a referendum may be happening soon.
petitioners, why do you want to sever UVic students from the other 500,000 student members of the CFS? considering close to half of government funding from universities comes from the federal government, who will represent U Vic students in Ottawa? Who will be at the table when questions come up in Parliament about federal student loans, grants, and research funding? Who will speak for us if they choose cut funding for aboriginal students, or remove the rights of international students to work off campus?
I'm wondering what your backup plan is?
Amelie, I dont know why you wouldn't consider that perhaps there are other PSE lobby groups in Ottawa that are actually effective. CASA regularly meets with MPs, Senators, and Party leaders. Last march, they actually sat down with the PM....CFS can't say that they have done this because, frankly, the government does not like working with them, as they only care about making a spectacle, not what is actually good for the student movement. CASA has traction with the government, and in the past, has been successful with most of their lobby/advocacy priorities. If the UVic students actually want to be represented federally, they should join an organization that works
SFU and UBC seem to be doing just fine without the CFS.
So Amelie what your saying is that you would ignore the corruption, lack of transparency, and their blatant disregard for student union independence because they "represent UVic in Ottawa?"
I hate to burst your happy little bubble but tuition fees are at the purview of the provincial government; never has there been a time when the federal government has mattered so little in post-secondary education. As Emma pointed out we aren't a united student movement. UBC and SFU are not part of the CFS and I doubt SFU would ever consider working with us after the way the CFS has treated them. The CFS led student movement is broken in BC - it's time to bring in a real student movement!
SFU, UBC and UVic lobbying together would be more effective than anything the CFS is doing. After all, YES, funding may come down from the federal government BUT education is a provincial responsibility.
Christine, if the CFS is so great, why aren't YOU out there educating people on the benefits of it? You'd at least be doing service to the pro side, since the anti-CFS side is already out there justifying why we should leave.
Well too bad you guys wasted your time collecting useless signatures. The referendum is NOT happening, so sorry for you !
So Christine Comrie, why do you think it won't happen? Are you an idiot? All the required steps have been done and the CFS is now bound by its own laws to conduct a referendum. Or are they so corrupt that they won't give us one anyways? And if you know about this that would mean you're implicit in this. So motion to impeach Christine Comrie anyone?
I'm pretty sure Christine Comrie isn't the Christine posting here. Let's not jump off the deep end.
Sounds like a parody of her to me.
"Or are they so corrupt that they won't give us one anyways?"
BINGO!!
The only sane and rational people who could possibly support the CFS are those that are either already on their payroll (ie Christine Comrie), or those who's continued support gives them a good shot at a cushy job come graduation (our current execs).
There is nothing sane and rational about supporting a criminal organization just because you personally benefit.
I hope there will not be a referendum. It's valid if students have concern with the CFS and want to see changes, but those changes are better dealt with from within the organization. The campaigns on both sides of the issue would be very time consuming and a waste of a lot of resources.
A more worthwhile campaign than to keep in or out of the CFS would be to force the real opposition - a government that continues to cut post-secondary funding and raise tuition fees - to change. The real student movement would take on those kind of issues, rather than start a fight among students.
To this self-identitified "student movement": what will you do when this campaign is over? What are the other issues that you're working on? A student "movement" has got to be building something, not only trying to destroy something.
bob: What has the CFS done that is "criminal"? That is quite the accusation. Have people stolen money?
Malcolm L: How do you know the CFS staff people have "cushy" jobs? What do you know about it? What research have you done into the working conditions at the CFS?
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CFS hacks, with a east coast IP address !
Yeah, there are lots of cases of CFS staff stealing money. Look it up. You will be surprised.
As for fixing the CFS, unfortunately, thats impossible. The CFS kicked out their entire Quebec branch for trying to suggest reforms. Besides, you aren't fighting students when you fight the CFS, you are fighting people who are in their 30's or 40's. The CFS is just a giant political lobbying group for the CFS, filled with people who hope to one day be elected with the NDP, or at least working in a well paid job in government.
@ Juliani -> are you a UVic student?
You can look up the CFS salaries here: http://www.sfu.ca/%7Etgregory/cfs/bc/sr13.html
CFS won't release more recent salaries, as these are almost 15 years old. But I'd bet anything that they've gone way up.
Shamus Reid's salary goes up each year based on the Vancouver Consumer Price Index. I really don't have the time nor desire to figure out how much his salary has gone up - but what I do know is that he makes a damn good amount of money for someone with a undergraduate degree.
Salary information is in the budget. You can get a copy from Rajpreet Sall. I'm fairly certain it had the chair salary as its own category.
"To this self-identitified "student movement": what will you do when this campaign is over? What are the other issues that you're working on? A student "movement" has got to be building something, not only trying to destroy something."
If the movement to defederate from the CFS is successful, we would then like to see the commencement of a UVic centered campaign approach. Perhaps a coordinated effort with UBC and SFU should be considered. We do not need the CFS to be able to create and coordinate campaigns.
Based on inflation since 1992, it's a pretty safe bet that Shamus Reid is making about $50 000/yr.
Since UVic checked the signatures and UVic collects the money - they should be used as a check against the usual cheating of the CFS.
The UVSS bylaws have precedence over the CFS bylaws and if takes the UVic admin to make the referedum happen, then that has to happen.
If the FAST/CFS denies the referendum then this should be the only issue of the election and they and their successors should be tossed.
George, you should know as well as anyone that the UVSS doesn't actually work like that. The Fasties could deny the election, walk around taking a dump on each individual student, and still get elected in the spring, because they control the election procedures, and they control the ballots.
The Martlet also reserves the right to use comments in the newspaper.