The Martlet

What do you get when you bring together members from every B.C. school that’s a member of the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS)?

A lot of discussion, as I discovered when I attended the CFS-BC Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Nanimo on Jan. 14-17.

I attended not as a media representative, but as a student delegate from the UVic Students’ Society (UVSS), known as Local 44 within the CFS. Attending as a delegate meant I was able to participate in the entire meeting, not just observe the parts that were open to media.

The UVSS sent a five-person delegation, including myself, Director-at-Large Christine Comrie, Director of Services Heather McKenzie, Native Students’ Union Fire Keeper Trish Palichuk and Director-at-Large and Local 44 CFS Representative Brodie Metcalfe.

It’s unusual for a member local (a student society which is a member of the CFS) to send a delegate who is not on their board of directors or a staff person, but UVSS Director-at-Large James Coccola nominated me to join the delegation.

It’s no secret that a group of UVic students circulated a petition last semester which asked students if they were in favour of having a referendum to question the future of the UVSS’ membership in the CFS. I’m pretty sure if this was not the case I wouldn’t have been sent to the AGM.

The caucuses

The AGM gave students a forum for discussion and facilitated the sharing of ideas across campuses. This was most evident to me in the caucuses and in the campaigns committee. CFS-BC has several caucuses that meet: students of colour (which was changed to racialized students during the AGM), queer students, aboriginal students, students with disabilities, grad students and women’s caucus. I attended the queer and women’s caucuses.

Women’s caucus is the largest caucus, and meets separately from the other caucuses so all women can attend. Each caucus is held twice and, at the second women’s caucus, a guest speaker, Rose Henry, was present. Several men asked permission to attend woman’s caucus to hear her speak.

Henry spoke about the Stolen Sisters Memorial March, which honours missing women from across Canada. She told stories of missing and murdered women who are friends, mothers, sisters and daughters. After she spoke, more women shared their stories. It seemed almost every indigenous woman in attendance had a stolen friend or family member.

Women’s caucus provided a safe place for women to share their stories, and to listen and reflect. It was an atmosphere of support where women could come together. Women’s caucus was a powerful emotional experience, and hopefully delegates can bring back and share with their campuses, so the learning gained there doesn’t end at the AGM.

The committees

Campaigns committee was a much more light-hearted atmosphere. We spent a good hunk of time making plans for a province-wide tour that the CFS-BC executive will take in February to garner attention for the “Education Shouldn’t Be a Debt Sentence” campaign. All Vancouver Island student unions met to brainstorm a co-ordinated approach for the tour together.

It was interesting watching the plan of action unfold. The tour, which will start in the north Island, will end in Victoria, along with the accumulated debt of students along the way. The group planned the best way to symbolize this, by bringing the symbolic “debt” to the lawns of the legislature.

The troubles

However, the AGM wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies.

The national AGM, held last semester, had several delegations composed of defederalists who weren’t shy about voicing their dissatisfaction with the CFS. At the provincial AGM, there was only one — the Kwantlen Student Association (KSA), otherwise known as Local 26.

KSA isn’t currently seeking a referendum on their CFS membership, but they have in the past, and they’re currently involved in a legal dispute with the CFS. KSA brought Kelsey Hannan, a UVSS Director-at-Large who worked on the referendum petition, as a delegate to the AGM. KSA delegates weren’t at the AGM to make friends, but rather to seek reforms they thought necessary within CFS-BC.

These delegates were either met with rudeness, or complete unacknowledgement. I was astonished when, during the election forum, now-chairperson elect Nimmi Takkar said she knew nothing about member locals that felt alienated.

In regards to member locals having a referendum, Takkar stated that while she believes in having choices, she does not support those which undermine our current organization. Takkar was far from the only delegate to be expressing those feelings.

The students

Anytime dissent was acknowledged, delegates I spoke to said the KSA had an “agenda.” Yet, don’t we all have agendas to do what we think is best for the members of our students’ societies? Isn’t that why we attend these kinds of meetings?

Overall, the conference portrayed a strong ideological perspective. One could develop a fairly successful drinking game on the words “solidarity” and “social justice.”

While I agree with a lot of the ideology presented at the AGM, such as the social justice campaigns and most of the “Education Shouldn’t Be a Debt Sentence Campaign,” I wasn’t comfortable with all of it, such as advocating for the elimination of all “flat” taxes (like GST and PST) in favour of “progressive” taxes (like our bracketed income tax system).

And it was a little creepy when people called me “sister.”