Now is the wrong time for the University of Toronto to join the Canadian Federation of Students.
If you’re a full-time undergraduate student, you’ll have the opportunity, from Nov. 5 to 7, to vote in a referendum on whether approximately $12 should be tacked on to your tuition next year, and every year thereafter, to support this organization. That’s a lotta dough: if the CFS is victorious, it’s an extra $500,000 lining their pockets each year.
The goals of the CFS are admirable enough. With U of T’s students funding their agendas, they say, they’ll be able to mount effective campaigns against provincial and federal governments to reduce tuition. Their ultimate goal is to do away with tuition entirely. Not such a bad idea.
But it never helps anyone to throw good money after a poorly-structured organization. For the amount of cash the CFS collects from its members ($1.58 million in 2001) we’ve seen very little evidence that they are able to achieve the sort of goals they aspire to.
The CFS readily admits they have encountered difficulty in promoting their agenda. This is good. Any organization should fully disclose their shortcomings if they hope to gain popularity and respect. But the only response we’ve heard from them with regards to improving their track record is: “Just give us your money and you’ll see the good we can do.” Not to be too blunt, but this language is typical of the addict, and the CFS is addicted to the cash cow that is a student levy. After numerous failed attempts at reformation, what does the addict say? “Just give me another chance. I promise I won’t let you down.” Sorry. Not this time. Not until you show some measure of improvement.
Yes, the CFS looks good on paper. They claim to have been directly responsible for freezing tuition fees in several provinces. Yet they offer no evidence to show how they effected these changes. For all we can tell, these reductions were made at the sole discretion of several provincial governments
But it’s the CFS’s campaign tactics that truly discredit them. First, the referendum is overseen by a board (the Joint Referendum Committee) which is dominated by two paid CFS employees. All campaign material opposing the CFS must be approved by this board—and they can reject any material they wish with total impunity. They have already rejected several totally innocuous no-side campaign posters.
And the actual vote-counting in the referendum will be overseen by this same committee. And let’s not even get into the legal punishment CFS tends to inflict on student unions that try to back out of membership.
If U of T joins, they’ll end up financing 22 per cent of the CFS budget while only receiving two per cent of the voting power within the organization.
The CFS won’t work for U of T. If you doubt that, ask some typical undergrads coming out of a Con Hall lecture what CFS stands for. And when they say, “I dunno… chronic fatigue syndrome?” you’ll understand why.
