The real business of CFSWhen you invest a little money over the short term in order to get a bigger payout over the long term, it’s called smart business sense.That is, unless you’re part of the small but cranky group trying to keep U of T students from joining a national student organization. This adamant group portrays the Canadian Federation of Students with such spite that you almost picture a bloated beast with twenties stuck to its teeth roaming the study carrels in search of the next student to rob.Don’t be misled.The reality, as anyone with either business sense or a simple calculator can tell you, is that students immediately save when they join. The savings is not huge, mind you: the CFS membership fee ($12.54) is less than an ISIC card ($16, but free with membership), which most students need for cheap travel and student discounts around town.We wouldn’t be playing Mathman if this oversight were not just one of many on which the shoddy tower of the No campaign has been built. From our experience as editors of this paper last year, we know the CFS was one of the most eloquent, active and informed promoters of your interests.Beyond the free ISIC cards, joining the CFS makes smart financial sense. How could that be, you ask, when the $12 membership fee means U of T students will be paying almost $500,000 a year to the CFS?What the No side forgot to mention is the $5,000 you pay in tuition each year. Multiplied by 33,000 undergraduates, students invest almost $200 million in U of T annually. As members of the public we invest even more through taxes. Investments like these require a strong watchdog to look not only at this campus, but at the provincial and federal governments as well. Twelve bucks per student is a small price to pay for such an essential precaution.No other student union in the country is doing the in-depth analysis that gives students a strong bargaining position. They watch university education so that you don’t have to. Just ask anyone from the Business Council on National Issues to the Canadian Health Care Coalition.While The Varsity has diligently reported on the concerns of the small band of students attempting to convince you to vote No, they have, unfortunately, overlooked the growing body of students that have vowed to vote Yes this week. From every major student union, the official position has been a resounding “Yes.” This includes the Students’ Administrative Council, the Graduate Students’ Union, the Association of Part-time Undergraduate Students, the Arts and Science Students Union, the Scarborough Campus Students Union, the Student Teachers Union and numerous student groups such as the Muslim Students Association.What’s motivating them? Perhaps frustration over paying higher tuition fees every year, or having their access to education threatened by privatization. Most important, it’s a recognition of how counterproductive it is to get sucked into a debate about whether the CFS is shooting too high with its goals. You can miss a target by shooting too high as well as too low. But the only way to surely miss is not to bother to take a shot at all—which is exactly what the No side proposes. We strongly encourage you to vote “Yes” to the CFS.Jeremy Nelson
Former Varsity editor-in-chiefKelly Holloway
Former Varsity news editorNo CFS (too bad it don’t rhyme)It’s not that I don’t want my tuition to freeze, go down, or disappear. In fact, I really would like to be paid for attending university—and I think it would be reasonable if writing essays after 2 a.m. were considered overtime. I won’t vote to joining the Canadian Federation of Students for an entirely different reason: the mere thought of the CFS’s slogans representing my opinions is extremely embarrassing.Posters urging us to vote for joining the CFS can be seen all around campus. They promise two free discount cards (one of which—the “studentsaver”—I got for free at the beginning of the year), and for just twelve bucks a session, the CFS promises to mercilessly fight tuition fees. I don’t know how it intends to do that, but from the posters it appears that, other than “uniting students,” and getting them to chant slogans like “Free education—not free trade,” there is not much planned.Nothing can be planned, in fact. Tuition fees vary significantly across Canada, and therefore a general demand to lower tuition fees across the country cannot be taken seriously. The CFS doesn’t appear to have any specific ideas about how much tuition should amount to, nor does it have any plans as to where the money it demands should come from. They just figure that if the “students of the world unite” and demand something, it will happen.Generally, the CFS asserts that given a catchy enough slogan and enough people, anything can be achieved. For example, the CFS seems to believe its “No means no” campaign can eliminate date rapes, if only enough students wear the T-shirts. If a bunch of T-shirts can convince rapists to correct their ways, convincing Canadians to pay more taxes in order to lower tuition must be a piece of cake.Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think this is the way things work and I don’t really want people who believe otherwise to represent me.The referendum starts tomorrow, and I still haven’t seen a single reasonable argument in favour of joining the CFS (other than “Yes CFS,” that is). All I have heard and seen is a ridiculous mixture of empty slogans, demagogy and half-truths. There is no reason to suspect that the public will see any reasonable arguments in favour of lowering tuition, either. The allegations about the CFS’s lack of commitment to values such as truth, democracy and free speech, as well as their lack of success in lowering tuition, are probably true, but they are very hard to prove. You can be certain of one thing: the CFS makes the “united student voice” heard. It is the voice of simple-mindedness. “Great Minds” stay away. You’ll save some money toward your tuition fees, too.Michael Guerzho
