Led by a blogger, critics of the Canadian Federation of Students’ (CFS) campus organizing practices are cheering last Friday’s ruling by a Saskatchewan judge annulling the results of a contested student union referendum.
The lawsuit revolved around the University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union’s (USSU) bid to join the CFS, a union of student unions that lobbies governments on behalf of students. U of T joined CFS in 2002.
In November 2004, USSU executive members passed a motion to join the CFS, and USSU was made a prospective member. But according to CFS bylaws, to become a full member the student union needed to hold a binding referendum of its members to approve the student fee increase to pay for membership. This referendum was eventually set for October 2005.
However, during the run-up to the vote, it became apparent that there were “operational conflicts,” according to a court document, between CFS and USSU rules on the running of referendums. The CFS required that a committee consisting of two of its organizers and two local student union members certify a vote. USSU’s rules, meanwhile, stipulated that its own election board would have to ratify a referendum.
The student union attempted to dovetail these sets of rules by altering their election policies eight days before the vote. The CFS committee would have authority over the referendum, but USSU’s election board would also have to ratify the result.
In October 2005, 55 per cent of USSU members voted “yes” to the question “are you in favour of membership in CFS?” But a fracas erupted this spring when USSU’s election board refused to rubber-stamp the result, recommending the vote be re-run instead.
According to the court judgment, “the [USSU executives] decided to ignore the protocol it had established for the referendum and dismissed the decision of the election board. It then substituted its own judgment and ratified the referendum.”
Then, in May, Robin Mowat, who was then an USSU member, filed a complaint against USSU, seeking to have the referendum’s results thrown out. The CFS was later added as a defendant. In his judgment on the matter last week, Justice R. S. Smith ruled “the referendum held by the USSU on the issue of whether it should join the CFS of absolutely no force of effect.”
USSU’s dealing with the CFS, however, are far from over.
“The referendum essentially did two things-it was essentially two referenda,” said CFS national office treasurer David Hare. The first was on the question of joining CFS, as defined under CFS’s bylaws.
“It also served as the basis for the Saskatchewan university student union seeking to collect the federation fee on behalf of the federation,” said Hare. And that’s now in question in light of this ruling.”
But Mowat’s suit, Hare argued, relied on issues that pertained to USSU internal procedures for referenda.
“That has no bearing on a CFS membership referendum, as defined in the bylaws of the Canadian Federation of Students.”
Since the referendum’s results were certified by the CFS’s Referendum Oversight Committee, as required by the bylaws, USSU has now been a full member of CFS since October 2005, he said.
“[USSU] will remain a full member of the CFS until the students there vote to withdraw, or they’re expelled as a member,” said Hare.
The USSU is considering an appeal. “Everything is on hold,” said USSU president Ryan Allan. “We’re going to be meeting with a lawyer in about a week.”
Opponents of CFS at the U of S say they want a referendum re-run, instead. And they’ve learned a lesson from last year’s ordeal.
“When they want to take over your campus, they will put you under siege, is what it felt like,” said Evan Cole. Cole lead a “no” campaign last year, and resigned as USSU president this summer, after pressure from CFS partisans on USSU’s executive, he claimed.
And CFS critics are also finding guidance from voices in the blogosphere.
“They’re well-organized and they have a campaign machine that they move from school to school and quickly override local opposition,” commented Joey Coleman, a student from the University of Manitoba who follows Canadian campus politics.
His blog, he said, is an accumulation of evidence about the CFS’s “underhanded” organizing tactics. “Many people have read it and researched it and realize that the same things are happening at their school.”
“I see CFS looking back, and seeing where their strategy failed at the U of S. Primarily what it was is that they did not have full control of the executive. Hence, they had to negotiate with non-CFS people, and that’s where you got this mix of CFS rules and local rules, which resulted in this court ruling.”
