92% VOTE YES

The unofficial results are in from the CBU Students' Union's referendum to leave the CFS and 92 per cent of students voted to leave the national organization.

Total votes: 366 (10.7% of student body)

Yes votes: 337 (92%)

No votes: 23 (6%)

Spoiled: 6 (2%)

The unofficial results are in from the CBU Students’ Union referendum on its membership with the Canadian Federation of Students: 92 per cent of voters said that they wanted to leave the CFS. This reverses the decision made by CBU students in 2001 when they voted to join the CFS.

It is hard to tell what happened during the referendum in 2001, the only available documentation was a pamphlet from the side in favour of joining the CFS and a press release stating the results. Even though the students’ union is required to keep minutes from all meetings of the student representative council, the board of directors of the students’ union, there were no minutes on record from the period when the union decided join the CFS. Students from CBU and current and former union employees that were with the union in 2001 have stated that there was no side against joining the CFS during the initial referendum.

This means that when the initial referendum to join the CFS was held only one view was represented. Based on current students’ union regulations, this referendum would have been in violation of the union’s by-laws and elections act, as there must be a side in favour and opposed to the motion upon which the membership will vote.

At the beginning of the 2007-08 academic year, the CBU Students’ Union decided it wanted to ask CBU students whether they wanted to continue with their membership with the CFS. The idea was first brought to the student representative council and they voted in favour of the referendum and approved the dates and times of polling. Their notice was submitted stating the dates and times of polling and the CFS acknowledged receipt of the document. CFS by-laws also call for a petition signed by 10 per cent of the student body to be submitted. Even though this would have only required approximately 300 students, a petition with the signatures of 500 students was submitted and this was when the troubles began.

At first, the national chairperson of the CFS, Amanda Aziz, said that even though someone named Amanda signed to acknowledge the receipt of the petition, it never showed up at their national office. Then the CFS admitted that it was sent to the right building but to the wrong office and another person named Amanda signed for the package. Finally, in 2008, several months later, the CFS admitted that they received the petition, but they said they received the petition too late and, therefore, refused to acknowledge the referendum. The CFS said that they would give CBU permission to hold a referendum in the fall of 2008. However, there is no reason that the union should have waited until the fall of 2008 because there is no way to tell if the CFS would have cooperated then either.

To say that a petition was late would imply that there was a clear deadline in CFS by-laws, however, that is not the case. The only deadline mentioned in the by-laws of the CFS is the deadline for the notice of the referendum. The notice is defined as the dates and times of polling and the notice must be delivered at least six months prior to the polls opening; there is no deadline stated for the receipt of the petition.

Several students, including myself, have spent the last week and a half speaking with students about CFS and their relevance to CBU students. Unlike the referendum when we joined, there was a side against de-federating in this referendum and a side in favour of de-federating, of which I was a part.

The message resulting from the referendum was clear: CBU students want out of the CFS and if they refuse to acknowledge these results, it is nothing more than democratic meddling on the part of the CFS and another example of them ignoring the needs of CBU students.