The Martlet

The UVic Students’ Society (UVSS) and the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) are poised to see more legal action before a referendum comes to campus.

According to CFS bylaws, all outstanding debts must be paid before a referendum is held. During a January hearing in the B.C. Supreme Court, an affidavit from CFS staffer Lucy Watson claiming the UVSS is indebted to the CFS was thrown out by Justice Malcolm Macaulay. Still, the CFS is maintaining that the debt must be paid before a referendum is held.

“The CFS has filed a petition against the UVSS claiming that we owe them $129,058 in outstanding membership fees from the 1990s,” said UVSS Chairperson James Coccola.

“They have really provided no evidence or any sort of documents supporting their claims other than a claim that in 2004 Director of Finance Joanna Groves agreed the CFS was entitled to apply the current CFS membership fees paid by the UVSS against a debt until such a time that the debt was paid in full.”

Coccola added that, to his knowledge, there is no documentation supporting the claims surrounding Groves, other than an affidavit.

“The CFS has independently petitioned the courts. So they are in a sense bringing the UVSS to court,” explained Coccola. “They’re seeking an order that we owe them this debt, or an alternative that the UVSS pay the court the amount equal to the outstanding fees as security . . . So we’d basically have to set that money aside and deal with it at a later date, is one of their suggestions.”

However, Coccola restated the position that the UVSS does not owe the CFS outstanding fees.

“We of course have always taken the position that we are fully up to date in our fees,” he said. “We can track back our fees paid 10 years, every single penny that we paid to the CFS. So we can account for our money.”

The CFS has not shown the UVSS where the $129,058 figure has come from, according to Coccola, and the UVSS is unsure how the CFS internal accounting system works.

“They’ve made no documentation,” he said. “They haven’t shown any real evidence of where this number’s coming from.”

The CFS’ petition cites a 1995 Martlet article written after a referendum failed to increase the CFS fee paid by UVSS members after the national organization had increased its membership fees. The article, entitled “‘No’ vote to CFS fee means UVSS must find $30,000 next year,” states that, “according to UVSS Chairperson Tina Walker, the student society is ‘legally obligated’ to pay the $30,000 owed to the CFS, regardless of students’ vote against raising student fees to help cover the amount.”

“In the ’90s we held a couple of referendums to increase CFS fees, which failed. This article came out after one of them,” said Coccola. “The argument is saying that the UVSS still owes this money which, obviously, I wasn’t there at the time so I can’t really comment on. So they’re saying that because it failed, the UVSS would still owe the money that was increased through the national organization.”

The statute of limitations for outstanding debt in B.C. and Canada is six years.

Coccola said he couldn’t comment on the statute of limitations on this specific debt because the matter is before the courts.

The UVSS is expected to head to court on Feb. 17 or 18.