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
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