I recently found myself reading through the report from the Student Societies Summit from this past year. That I read the report should give an idea of how bored I was at the time because it is about as dull as only administrative reports can be. Indeed, from the tenor of the report, a casual reader might suffer the misimpression that the summit was a pro forma part of a policy review regularly scheduled by the university.
This, of course, could not be further from the truth. The facts behind the current crisis between the UTSU (University of Toronto Students’ Union) and dissenting colleges and faculties are remarkably simple and utterly outrageous. U of T collects mandatory fees from each of us as students, and distributes them to the UTSU, ostensibly to provide services for all U of T students. All other bodies at the university that receive mandatory fees from students use those fees solely to provide student services such as funding for clubs, the maintenance of athletic facilities, and the facilitation of academic programming. These are exactly the sort of things any incoming student would expect to be a part of a liberal education, and an intellectually diverse university experience.
Every year the UTSU pays fees to the CFS (Canadian Federation of Students), a national political lobbying organization whose website advocates ideological positions on a variety of issues from opposition to free trade to a ban on bottled water.
U of T students who disagree with the positions espoused by the UTSU still saw money walk out the door, in part from their paid fees to the UTSU.
In recent years, the CFS has been engaged in a series of lawsuits from British Columbia (SFU and UVic) to Quebec (Concordia) all centering around individual universities’ student unions’ rights to leave the CFS.
Even more distressing than the day-to-day conduct of the CFS at a national level is its quid pro quo relationship with a group of students at U of T itself. Every year, the UTSU sends membership fees to fund the CFS’ political wars, and every year the CFS endorses a slate of candidates running for the UTSU executive and sends in political operatives from universities around the GTA to assist its chosen slate electorally. Since the UTSU joined the CFS, the CFS-endorsed slate has held near complete control of the UTSU executive every single year.
The crux of this issue is plain. There is a place on campus for political organizations funded by those who support them. There is also a place on campus for mandatory fees to be devoted to the services that naturally complement the sort of diverse education that attracts international students. There is no place for an organization that misappropriates our student fees and uses them to support a national political faction in its many struggles across the country. Fundraising for political causes is why we have donations.
The use of student fees for political purposes violates the basic social contract upon which Western society is founded. The conduct of the CFS-related UTSU is morally wrong. Personally, it offends me and it should offend you too.
Jeffrey Schulman is a second-year student at Trinity College studying classics.
