CFS: Democracy When Convenient

The CFS has made it official, they are denying that they received CBU’s petition to de-federate. The CBU Students’ Union is not alone in their troubles; the Kwantlen Student Association in Surrey, British Columbia is also getting the CFS run around.

Last week, CFS members from around Canada attended the National Convention. You would think with the heads of every CFS local in one spot, that they would take some time to hear the concerns of their members.

That was what I thought. At least until I received an e-mail from the Kwantlen Students Association.

The Kwantlen Students Association submitted a resolution that would have raised issues concerning the CFS’s loan to the Douglas Students’ Union.

In 2005, the CFS gave a $600,000 loan to the Douglas Students’ Union because their university refused to release the union membership fees that they collected on their behalf. The reason that the university refused to release the membership fees was that the union had not undergone a financial audit in several years. When they finally opened their books to an auditor, the auditor found that the union was suffering from “gross financial mismanagement.”

What did the CFS do to ensure they collected on the loan? CFS’s legal council appointed Marne Jensen, the general manager of the University of Victoria Students’ Society, as the receiver-manager. She was given this position even though she already had a full time job with the UVSS and even though she lacked professional qualifications as an accountant.

The CFS National Executive decided to remove the Kwantlen Student Association motion from the agenda. A press release from the Kwantlen Student Association says that they managed to make phone contact with Amanda Aziz, the National Chairperson of the CFS, and she said the resolution was removed because it made “false statements” and the CFS National Executive felt the resolution was “out of order”.

The CFS has attempted to once again silence concern surrounding the Douglas Students’ Union controversy instead of sincerely dealing with the issue. If the KSA’s resolution was really making false and misleading statements, the CFS National Executive could prove the statement’s errors through discussion and the rest of the membership could see that.

Since they are unwilling to enter into discussion surround the KSA’s resolution, it means one of two things: the Kwantlen Student Association is right and the CFS is operating under a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy or they do not think their membership is intelligent enough to pick out logical flaws and lies that are propagated by another group.

Since the CFS is obviously in favour of urgent, practical, relevant, and uncontroversial discussion, what issues did make it through to the national agenda?

There is a resolution from the Ryerson Students’ Union to label Israel as an “Apartheid State”. I may be wrong, but I fail to see how this has any relevance to student life in Canada. It seems that the CFS is content debating topics without relevance to their organization in an attempt to draw attention away from the actual state of the organization.

The CFS thinks that if they yell loud enough and silence everyone else, their version of the truth will take hold and become dominate one. What the CFS fails to realize is that the more you suppress the truth, the more you create dissent, and the truth gains more force, power, and volume. Eventually suppression of the truth reaches a point where so may have become disenfranchised and alienated by an organization that makes “false statements” and acts “out of order” that the truth explodes into the public sphere.

The CFS is sowing the seeds of their own demise and the truth will surface with more force and volume than could ever be predicted. When this happens, they have only themselves to blame.

Originally published in the Cape Breton Post on Monday, November 26, 2007.

A ghost named Amanda haunts CFS national headquarters

The Cape Breton University Students’ Union (CBUSU) is not the only student group getting a hard time from the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS). In a press release dated November 16, 2007, the Kwantlen Student Association (KSA) announced that the CFS National Executive had decided to excise several of their resolutions from the agenda of the upcoming National General Meeting of the CFS. The CBUSU is suffering as well; they are tied up and tripped up by CFS red tape.

Bureaucracy and the death of democracy

When organizations start to develop into bureaucracies, the evolution happens because it is supposed to make the organization more efficient. As the organization grows, the bureaucracy thickens and what happens in the name of efficiency ends up being inefficient and frustrating.

The CFS started as a grassroots organization, it grew, and it now has around 500,000 members across Canada. Its beginning in the 1980s was humble, they promised to fight for students and to unite students from coast to coast. In the 1990s, they became more political, they took stances on such issues as the Gulf War. This politicization of the CFS resulted in some members leaving to form the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations and a power struggle began.

The CFS and CASA have continued to fight for membership across the country effectively dividing the student movement into two camps; no longer were students united, they were divided and looking for more members to give them more revenue and more power. To ensure they did not lose their power and their revenue base, the CFS changed their bylaws to make it harder for members to leave their organization.

The CBUSU is experiencing this right now. CFS bylaws state that written notice must be submitted six months prior to the de-federation attempt and a petition must be submitted. The CBUSU submitted both, but the CFS is trying to argue that they did not receive the petition sent by the CBUSU.

That would be believable, except someone named “Amanda” signed for the package. Now, I am not calling them a liar, but when the National Chairperson’s name is Amanda Aziz and someone named “Amanda” signs for the package, something smells fishy.

Of course, there could be perfectly logical explanations. Maybe a ghost named Amanda haunts the CFS National Office in Ottawa and she has a thing for delivery boys.

This is just an example of how the CFS looks to tie up de-federation attempts.

The CFS lines up hoops through which dissatisfied members must jump before they can leave, and if they do not jump through each hoop perfectly, the CFS will not cooperate.

If unions manage to get the letter and petition into the CFS, they are forced to work with a committee composed of two union representatives and two CFS representatives; the committee makes the rules for the de-federation referendum. This means that if CFS wants to push a rule through the committee that will help them and hurt the union, the CFS will have the upper hand. If union does not give in to CFS favourable rules, the vote will be two “for” the rule and two “against” the rule. This tie would serve the CFS because as long as the committee cannot come to an agreement the de-federation referendum cannot progress.

Another aspect of bureaucracies is that they are terrific for helping someone avoid responsibility. They can claim that it was not their department, they were not aware of the action, they did not approve it, or they did not supervise the person that committed the act. Bureaucracies are as transparent as a Jack and Coke and that is what the KSA is experiencing with their resolution that was pulled from the CFS National Conference agenda.

The DSU Boogeyman

The resolution CFS pulled from the National Conference noted a $600,000 loan that CFS British Columbia and CFS National gave to the Douglas Students’ Union, a union that had not produced financial statements, or underwent an audit, in four years.

CFS BC and CFS National receive a significant chunk of their revenue from its membership, this includes you and I, and they felt it was responsible to turn over our hard-earned dollars to the Douglas Students’ Union. They turned over our hard-earned dollars even after a forensic audit accused the Douglas Students’ Union of “gross financial misconduct”.

National Chairperson of the CFS, Amanda Aziz, said that they removed the resolution from the agenda because it included “false statements” and was “out of order”; however, Ms. Aziz failed to explain what statements were false and out of order and why.

In contrast, the CFS National Executive left a resolution from the Ryerson Students’ Union that accuses Israel of being an “apartheid state”. There is not enough room in my column to get into this; however, if the CFS is willing to let statements such as this stay on the agenda it means only one thing: they are perfectly comfortable criticizing other groups, but they do not want that sharp critical eye glaring at them.

The opinions expressed by the KSA’s resolution are growing in popularity and if they were false, you would think the CFS would have more to gain than lose by bringing them to an open debate. If, indeed, they were false, the CFS would have the moral, political, and strategic high ground; however, their continued adherence to the Harper communication playbook denies its membership transparency and continually draws negative attention to controversies in which the CFS becomes involved.

In light of growing criticism, the CFS is reverting to primitive political tactics: downplay and deny. It works like this, someone accuses you of doing something and in response you argue that the issue is not as big as your detractors are trying to make it seem and you try to remove yourself as far as possible from the controversy; this works to a point. Once someone proves your connection to the controversy, the downplay and deny strategy has to go out the window and honesty is the only possible way out; admit you screwed up, admit you realize it was a mistake, and say how you are going to fix it.

Does the CFS do this? No, they do not.

As it stands, their strategy concerning the DSU controversy is the five year old versus the boogeyman strategy: cover your eyes, repeat the boogeyman is not real, and hope as hard as all hell that your repetitive incantation will come true.

I can hear the National Executive Committee now, “The DSU controversy didn’t happen, we didn’t give them all that money, we didn’t get busted on national television, we didn’t really screw us this badly. The DSU controversy didn’t happen, we didn’t give them all that money, we didn’t get busted on national television, we didn’t really screw us this badly…”

Well, I hate to say it, no matter how hard you try, your words will not erase the past or create a new reality. You have one option: fess up.

There are many changes needed to the structure of the CFS. They need more transparency, otherwise they cannot slam the government for a lack of transparency; they need to be less bureaucratic, something they slam student loan for being; and, apparently, they need an exorcist or a priest to get rid of that ghost at their National Office.

Originally published in the Caper Times, November 21, 2007

Athletic Divide

If you hold a national soccer tournament and no students see it, does it really happen?

Sure, I may be exaggerating, but I do not think my point is lost. I spoke with CBU Students’ Union President, Ian Lindsay, the Monday after the CBU Women’s Capers won the CIS national title.

Lindsay said that many people from the community came to the games, but he was surprised because very few students attended. Many other faculty and staff members shared Lindsay’s surprise.

Personally, I do not know why everyone was so shocked.

Students on campus perceive a huge divide between themselves and athletes on campus. They believe that they are treated differently than athletes and they receive less attention for their accomplishments.

There is also a divide between varsity athletes and non-varsity athletes on campus. Non-varsity teams feel like the varsity athletes draw all the attention and funding while they are left looking for scraps. For example, the men’s rugby team at CBU recently won the Maritime Championship; there was no mention of this on the CBU webpage.

The perception of this divide, and the extent to which students perceive the divide, was evident at the CIS championships. Whether this divide exists to the extent that it is perceived is irrelevant. Students feel it, they believe it, and their actions reflect it; the university must take action to deal with this perception in a genuine and sincere manner.

If the university administration attempts to fix this with hollow words and false promises, the level of alienation the general student body perceives will get worse. If this happens, all of the national sports events in the world will do nothing to improve life on campus for the vast majority of students.

One recent bit of news provided students with some hope that the administration will make a genuine attempt at narrowing the gap.

On November 15, the Cape Breton Post reported that, “Charges have been laid against a 23-year-old member of the Cape Breton University Capers men’s basketball team after the schools soccer field was damaged days before a national championship.”

Jordan Wyse, a BACS student at CBU and a guard on the men’s basketball team, is facing two counts of mischief under $5,000. Students’ reaction to this announcement was one that echoed their perception of the athlete-student divide; people were shocked he was facing criminal charges.

On top of facing criminal charges, Wyse is suspended from the team and was one of four players who sat out the Caper’s season opener at MUN.

Wait, four minus one is three; something is not adding up. Why were four players benched that game? Were there other people involved? If so, who were these people? If other people were not involved, it seems odd that three players, aside from Wyse, were benched around the same time as the incident of vandalism.

These questions are floating around campus.

Until these questions are definitively answered and until this issue is treated with more transparency, students will be left to wonder; a cynical black cloud will form around any decision made and any punishment handed down.

I did not write this to re-cast that black cloud over the women’s victory; I write this with the hope that something will happen to correct the perception of disproportion that exists. If those responsible are treated no differently that any other student would be, all are held accountable, and the administration is up front with students, things will begin to change.

This is what students are hoping for; this is what students deserve.

Originally printed in the Cape Breton Post, November 19, 2007.