The Canadian Federation of Students’ (CFS) National General Meeting (NGM) on June 9–12 ended with a six-hour closing plenary that succeeded in going through a two-year backlog of motions. During the plenary, members voted against releasing an audit report, rejected online voting, and passed a motion to condemn the proposed university-mandated leave of absence policy at U of T.

The CFS is a national student organization that represents almost 80 member local student unions across Canada, including the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU), the University of Toronto Mississauga Students’ Union (UTMSU), the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union (SCSU), the University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union (UTGSU), and the Association of Part-Time Undergraduate Students at the University of Toronto (APUS). Its goals are to lobby for accessible postsecondary education and advance student interests.

Indigenous perspectives

Prior to the plenary, Phyllis McKenna — a delegate from the Continuing Education Students’ Association of Ryerson (CESAR) and Chair of the Circle of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Students at the CFS — criticized the lack of Indigenous students at the Federation. McKenna called on the CFS to “do better,” saying that “silence is violence. We all know that.”

CFS Chairperson Coty Zachariah told The Varsity afterward that he is “fully in support” of McKenna’s statements.

“I think the CFS isn’t perfect. That being said, we do a lot of great things, and I think we’re striving and recognizing some of our shortfalls, and that’s the kind of transparent organization that we’re fostering moving forward,” said Zachariah.

Budget review and audit of hidden bank account

The plenary included a report from the budget committee. CFS National Treasurer Peyton Veitch said that, during the committee meeting, delegates were able to take a look at the audited statements and the budget for the upcoming year. Of note in the report was that student unions voted to reduce the number of meetings from twice to once yearly.

Also on the agenda was a contentious motion regarding details of a hidden bank account that was revealed by the CFS in 2014, but the details of which only emerged in 2017. A summary of the account showed that an unauthorized total of $263,052.80 in deposits and $262,776.13 in withdrawals were made between July 2010 and December 2014. The motion proposed releasing the full forensic review of the account.

During the discussion on the motion, Veitch said that if the report were released, confidentiality would not be guaranteed, even with an in camera session of the member locals. As such, releasing the full forensic review would open the federation up to litigation, according to Veitch.

Munib Sajjad, Executive Director of the UTMSU, said that Veitch had done a thorough job with the report and the handling of the hidden account, encouraging members to defeat the motion.

Soon after, the question was called and the motion failed.

“I think what members appreciate is the fact that the National Executive has done its due diligence to initiate a forensic review of the accounting question,” Veitch told The Varsity after the plenary. “The fact that individuals associated with that account are no longer employed by the federation and were held to account for their actions, and that a summary report of that forensic review has been made available to all members at the past several general meetings now.”

The summary of the forensic review discloses that there were five recipients of the unauthorized disbursements — “two of whom, are former employees of the Federation, a further individual, one law firm and a consulting company” — although the summary does not say who they are.

“I think people have been satisfied with that level of disclosure, recognizing that providing the forensic review report in full would actually put the federation in a position of legal liability,” added Veitch. “I think people are now ready to turn the page on that issue. They know that due diligence was done.”

Mandated leave of absence policy

One of the last items on the agenda was an emergency motion brought forth by the SCSU, asking members to condemn the proposed university-mandated leave of absence policy at U of T. SCSU Vice-President External Hana Syed spoke on the motion, mentioning that it had been signed on by all five CFS locals at U of T. Syed called the proposed policy “an infringement on human rights.”

Many other locals supported the motion, including the Mount Saint Vincent University Students’ Union and CESAR. During her speech, Amanda Lin, Vice-President Services and Finance of CESAR, passionately spoke against the proposed policy, saying, “I am my own person. I have autonomy. I know myself best.”

An amendment to the motion was also introduced, asking the National Executive to pen an open letter to the U of T administration to express their opposition to the policy, with space for member locals to sign on. Both the amendment and the motion itself passed.

Postmortem

Once the closing plenary had ended, CFS Deputy Chairperson Charlotte Kiddell told The Varsity that she believed that “it was a really productive decision-making space.”

“We saw delegates coming together, discussing motions, sharing diverse perspectives, and ultimately making decisions with a strong feeling that the majority of students felt represented,” she added.

Zachariah echoed Kiddell’s statements, saying that “this is one of the best meetings we’ve had in four years.”

UTSU delegate and former UTSU Vice-President Operations Daman Singh later told The Varsity, “I think it was the worst of the five experiences that I’ve had,” referring to previous NGMs he had attended.

Singh was particularly unhappy with the fact that the question was called on “almost every substantial motion.”

According to the rules of order that govern CFS meetings, calling the question can be done by any member at any time during the debate, and it means that members must immediately vote on whether they want to end the debate and vote on the motion.

All of the calls to question passed because, according to Singh, “There are so few schools left after BC was expelled that are actively seeking reform.”

In response to dissatisfaction expressed by members like Singh, Veitch said that “in a democratic organization, people disagree about the outcome of decisions. That’s fine. That’s why we have the structure that we do. It allows for people to express their disagreement or their support for motions in a productive way.”

“I think it’s a very convenient argument when you’re on the winning side to say, well, we have 80 per cent or 90 per cent of the votes — this is just democracy,” responded Singh. “I don’t think the Federation leadership actually believes that. I think that’s a clever talking point; I think it’s a sexy talking point, but I don’t think that coincides with their beliefs, and if it does, that’s kind of disappointing.”

The Varsity has reached out to the APUS, SCSU, UTGSU, and UTMSU for comment.

In a sweeping move that simultaneously cuts off 10 per cent of its funding and almost 20 per cent of its members, the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) voted at its National General Meeting (NGM) this weekend to expel all member unions belonging to both the British Columbia Federation of Students (BCFS) and the CFS.

The action comes after a multi-year conflict between the CFS and the BCFS over the withholding of membership dues. The two sides disagree over which started the dispute and which still owes fees.

The vote took place during the opening plenary of the NGM on June 9 in Gatineau, Quebec, and was passed after less than 10 minutes of debate. The motion to expel the BCFS members was put forth by the CFS National Executive as a special item that outlined how the Executive viewed the conflict between the two organizations.

CFS Chairperson Coty Zachariah said that the move was “no victory.”

“That’s a very solemn thing but we all realized that for the sake of moving on… that sometimes you need a bit of a cooling period,” said Zachariah.

In an interview with The Varsity, BC Representative of the CFS Jenelle Davies said, “I think it’s regrettable. I don’t think anybody wanted it to come this far.”

“I think at this point, the bridge was too burnt to go back across it, and so this seems to be a positive step in allowing both organizations to do the work that they’re doing in their respective places,” added Davies.

Fee dispute

The motion states that the dispute between the CFS and the BCFS has reached a “clear impasse with the BCFS continuing to withhold the national membership fees… the Federation withholding BC Component allocation fees, and a large and growing majority of BC member locals petitioning the Federation for decertification.”

This withholding of fees dates back to 2014, when according to the BCFS, the CFS stopped giving the province its allotted membership dues.

“It’s frustrating that the CFS paints it as like we withheld money,” said Davies. “It was in reaction to something they have already done.”

CFS Treasurer Peyton Veitch told The Varsity that to his recollection, the BCFS is incorrect in claiming that the CFS was the first to withhold fees. “Our understanding is that the BCFS withheld national membership dues for three years,” said Veitch, beginning in about 2014 or 2015.

CFS Deputy Chairperson Charlotte Kiddell said that, when it comes to the fee dispute, since it occurred before her term, “it’s a little bit difficult to pinpoint a start.”

“What ultimately happened was that a few years back, there was a major shift within the organization to become less litigious, more financially transparent, more progressive and bold in our advocacy points. And this was a shift that then caused internal conflict in terms of what folks wanted to see out of the Canadian Federation of Students,” continued Kiddell. “It’s not super clear to me which came first, fees-wise.”

According to Davies, the BCFS hasn’t “spent a cent of the CFS money.”

“It’s all sat in a trust account with the intention of having a resolution to this issue,” said Davies. “We’ve kept all of our money. I don’t know if the CFS has spent ours.”

Kiddell said that the CFS does not currently hold any funds belonging to the BCFS. Veitch said that the CFS doesn’t “have fees that were withheld from the BCFS… We never received the vast majority of the fees over this last three year period from BC so we did not have a provincial allocation to provide.”

However, Zachariah’s response differed: “There was definitely a clash of two sides about fees and money was owed on both sides,” he said.

“What I’m trying to explain is that we provide a one-sixth provincial allocation based on the total amount of fees collected based on that particular program,” added Veitch. “We communicated to the BCFS that we would make a one-sixth allocation available upon the receipt of those outstanding membership fees.”

While Davies agrees that the fee dispute stems out of the provincial allocation, she maintains that it was the CFS who withheld fees first.

“In October 2014, when we started to have some grievances with the organization, they didn’t send us the allocation — provincial allocation or membership fees. So they’re actually holding onto fees that members submitted to the BCFS,” she said.

In response to the disagreement over the timeline, Zachariah said that he is interested in looking into what exactly happened because “everybody deserves clarity on that and when this happened and kind of how we got here.”

In a letter published shortly after the vote, BCFS Chairperson Aran Armutlu wrote, “Though we would have preferred the organization become transparent and democratic, the motion of expulsion at this meeting was a way to resolve the ongoing dispute without going through the expensive and problematic referendum processes. It also avoids the inevitable lawsuits that have arisen from nearly every recent referendum process the CFS has overseen.”

Membership fees from the BC unions amounted to roughly $400,000 of the CFS’ total dues, which exceed $3.8 million. The 12 student unions that were expelled also represented over 120,000 students of the CFS’ 650,000 total membership.  

Canada’s largest student organization, the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), held their 71st semi-annual National General Meeting (NGM) in Gatineau, Québec this weekend. The meeting on June 9 began with the opening plenary, which included the admission of new universities and the expected expulsion of 12 institutions from British Columbia.

The CFS represents more than 650,000 students in approximately 80 student unions across the country, including five from U of T — the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU), the U of T Mississauga Students’ Union, the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union (SCSU), the U of T Graduate Students’ Union (GSU), and the Association of Part-Time Undergraduate Students.

Before the plenary began, co-founder of the Disability Justice Network of Ontario and keynote speaker Sarah Jama shared her experience as a community organizer. Jama did not hesitate to speak about the contentious topic of decertification, which is the process member institutions must take to leave the federation.

The CFS has had multiple disagreements in the past with member locals over the process of decertification, including a recent lawsuit with the GSU over the validity of the union’s referendum to decertify. The UTSU executive has also endorsed a referendum on the question of decertification. Multiple motions put forward for the NGM address simplifying the process of decertification, which the judge in the GSU lawsuit called “antiquated and impractical.”

Jama challenged the growing decertification movement by saying that “maybe people who continue to be uncomfortable should just leave… Unless there’s a change in the CFS, it’s going to be a waste of everybody’s time.”

Jama argued that the CFS should be used as a platform to combat the growing trend of racism and white supremacy. “We have an opportunity here today to change the direction of the Canadian Federation of Students.”

Following roll call, the opening plenary passed a motion to admit l’Association des étudiantes et étudiants de l’université de Hearst as a new member. According to the agenda, 95 per cent of the 100-member institution voted to join the CFS. Another successful motion granted the Dalhousie Students’ Union observer status. This move is the penultimate step to becoming a full member of the organization.

Discussion then moved to the special motion to expel members of the British Columbia Federation of Students (BCFS), which include all but two members from the province, from the CFS.

The special motion was announced to members in an email from Chairperson Coty Zachariah, Deputy Chairperson Charlotte Kiddell, and Treasurer Peyton Veitch on April 17. The move was unanimously decided by the National Executive and representatives from BC, though Zachariah stressed that “this is not a direction we hoped for.”

The debate lasted less than 10 minutes, with delegates from the University of King’s College Students’ Union and the Graduate Students’ Union of the Memorial University of Newfoundland speaking in favour. The motion was passed and enforced effective immediately, with BCFS locals asked to leave the room.

The motion’s success means that the CFS has lost approximately $400,000 in membership dues, or 10 per cent of its annual budget. Only two unions in the province are left in the federation — the Kwantlen Students Association and the College of the Rockies Students’ Association.

The NGM also marks the end of the current term of the National Executive. Although Zachariah will return as Chairperson, Kiddell was defeated in her bid for re-election by National Women’s Representative Jade Peek, and Veitch will be succeeded by CFS-Ontario Treasurer Trina James.

The Varsity has obtained a copy of the motions that will be presented at the Canadian Federation of Students’ (CFS) National General Meeting (NGM) this weekend. Among the more than 30 motions up for debate are proposals to expel all BC unions, to simplify the decertification process, and to approve over $100,000 in spending on various projects.

The CFS is a national student organization that represents almost 80 student unions across Canada, including the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU), the University of Toronto Mississauga Students’ Union, the University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union, and the Association of Part-Time Undergraduate Students of the University of Toronto. Its goal is to lobby for accessible postsecondary education and advance student interests.

Expelling BC unions

In a motion put forward by the National Executive, the CFS is proposing to expel all shared members of the CFS and the British Columbia Federation of Students (BCFS). The 12 unions to be expelled would remain members of the BCFS and continue to have access to the International Student Identity Card program.

The CFS and the BCFS have had a difficult working relationship since 2014, when the national organization and its provincial counterpart began withholding fees from each other. Since then, a large number of BC unions have petitioned to leave the CFS.

In the motion presented for the NGM, the National Executive stated that the dispute has “served as a distraction from the CFS and the BCFS core mandates of serving member students and fighting for progressive change.” As it is impossible for the BC unions to initiate decertification until they pay all their fees, the CFS is proposing to summarily expel all the BC unions to bypass the process altogether.

The motion further states that this action is “not intended to be punitive… but rather serve as a mechanism to allow both the BCFS and the CFS(-S) to continue their work independently from one another, to the mutual benefit of their members.”

Simplifying decertification

Of the 30 motions to be presented at the NGM, seven of them touch upon the process of decertification, which has been criticized in the past as being “antiquated and impractical.”

Among the motions are proposals to lower the number of petition signatures needed for a referendum from 20 per cent of students to 15 per cent, to allow online voting, and to shorten the time given to schedule a referendum from 90 days to 60 days.

A motion forwarded by the Student Union of Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (SUNSCAD) also proposes loosening regulations on waiting periods between decertification votes. As it stands, universities must wait 60 months between votes, which SUNSCAD calls “absurdly drawn-out.” They propose lowering the timeframe to 18 months.

The UTSU has also put forward a motion proposing to abolish the petition process altogether. Instead of requiring a petition signed by students to initiate a referendum, they recommend that member unions vote to hold a referendum.  

Approval for spending

In response to what it calls a trend of “terminal decline” in the CFS, the Selkirk College Students’ Union proposed a motion to allocate $100,000 to fund a “congress of student unity.”

The motion states that since “support for the Federation has arguably collapsed in British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec, and New Brunswick,” the CFS needs to bring together all student unions across Canada and “find common ground.”

The Selkirk students’ union also proposed to donate $1,000 to a political podcast, Sandy & Nora Talk Politics, hosted by Sandra Hudson and Nora Loreto. Hudson was a former Executive Director for the UTSU who recently settled a lawsuit with the union regarding allegations of civil fraud.

The donation is in response to “political attacks on Nora Loreto” from what they describe as “fascist and ultra-right groups in Canada and North America.” These attacks occurred in response to Loreto’s tweets about the Humboldt Broncos hockey players’ accident in April 2018.

Two more motions further propose allocating $3,000 to the Decolonizing Conference taking place at U of T in the fall, as well as $3,000 to fund travel for care workers attending the Reclaiming our Bodies and Minds Conference.

The NGM will take place from June 9-12 in Gatineau, Quebec. Be sure to follow along closely with The Varsity‘s reporting from the scene.

The Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) National, the country’s largest association of students’ unions and a group of which the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) is a member, may have violated its own bylaws in pursuing litigation against one of its member student unions, according to UTSU Vice-President Internal Daman Singh.

On March 21, 2017, CFS National filed a civil suit against the Selkirk College Students’ Union and its Executive Director, Zachary Crispin, claiming that Selkirk failed to properly follow the process of holding a referendum on membership. This suit, however, was apparently not approved by the National Executive, the body representing both federal and provincial CFS leadership, prior to being filed, according to Jenelle Davies, British Columbia representative on the executive. This contravenes CFS Bylaw IV.2.1, which stipulates that the National Executive “shall have exclusive authority” to initiate legal action on behalf of the federation.

CFS Executive Director Toby Whitfield indicated the suit was discussed in camera at a National Executive meeting on March 23, two days after the claim was filed. Davies claimed she was unaware of this meeting.

If the National Executive had approved the claim, it would have been marked on record, which is not reflected in the minutes, said Davies.

Although the suit has been dropped by CFS National, the Selkirk College Students’ Union cannot administer a referendum without CFS cooperation.

Santanna Hernandez, chairperson of the union, said that Selkirk College students filed a second petition for a referendum on terminating membership with CFS National in November 2017, after they indicated that they would like to leave the CFS in a plebiscite. This petition has been verified by CFS National, but a referendum on the union’s membership has yet to be scheduled.

CFS National did not respond to The Varsity’s request for comment.

The University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) is hiring students to help with You Decide, a student-led campaign to hold a referendum on leaving the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS).

The position, titled Outreach Associate, will be responsible for “handling outreach strategies to make members aware of [You Decide], collecting signatures on physical petition sheets, and coordinating class visits in large lecture halls to speak to students.” There is not a set amount of Outreach Associates being hired, said UTSU President Mathias Memmel. “It’ll be based on the availability of those who are selected.”

The CFS is an organization that represents over 70 student unions across Canada, with the mandate of lobbying provincial and federal government on behalf of students. The federation and the UTSU have had a turbulent relationship for years, with current and previous UTSU executives endorsing leaving the federation, citing lack of accountability and opaque financials.

A referendum of the UTSU’s membership must be held in order to leave the CFS. In order to hold that referendum, a petition in favour of it must be signed by 20 per cent of students in the membership. You Decide is in the process of collecting those signatures.

Memmel said that the UTSU is hiring for this job because “You Decide has been endorsed by the UTSU, so it’s appropriate that we do what’s necessary to support the campaign. As we said last year, we’ll support any student-initiated effort to leave the CFS.”

UTSU Vice-President External and U of T’s CFS-Ontario (CFS–O) representative Anne Boucher echoed Memmel’s statements, saying that since the UTSU has already endorsed You Decide, it is going to do everything it can to help.

“It’s also nearly impossible to leave the CFS, so we’re going to do what we can to leave. It’s in students’ best interest to do so,” wrote Boucher. “Compared to the amount of money that CFS takes from students, the amount we’ll be spending to leave (i.e. by paying student collectors) is microscopic.”

In 2016, U of T student unions, including the UTSU, contributed $598,678 in membership fees to CFS–O, which amounted to about 38 per cent of the federation’s budget. The position of Outreach Associate will pay $14 per hour for a three-month term, with a minimum of five work hours per week.

On whether this new position would affect the UTSU’s relationship with the CFS, Memmel said he “couldn’t care less what the CFS thinks.”

“The CFS is just another nasty, self-serving corporation. It doesn’t do anything for U of T students, except for those on the CFS payroll,” said Memmel. “We’ve spent three years demonstrating that we don’t need the CFS, and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise.”

Boucher said that the two groups’ relationship is already strained, and that she’s experienced that strain in her own dealings with the federation.

“You’re immediately othered when you enter CFS spaces just for being from local 98 (UTSU), due to our efforts of keeping them accountable and presenting motions that would force them to be more transparent (eg take minutes, adopt online voting, etc),” she wrote.

The CFS and You Decide did not respond to The Varsity’s requests for comment.

Canada’s sesquicentennial anniversary, while widely celebrated, has also raised critical discussion regarding what it means to celebrate the past 150 years as seen through the lens of colonialism.

On November 11, the Centre for Integrative Anti-Racism Studies hosted a workshop and symposium event titled “150 for Whom, Canada? Colonialism and Indigeneity across Lands” at U of T’s Ontario Institute of Studies in Education.

The event included a panel discussion featuring Sandra Hudson, former University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) Executive Director and co-founder of Black Lives Matter – Toronto; Coty Zachariah, current National Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS); George Elliott Clarke, former Poet Laureate of Toronto; Eve Haque, associate professor at York University; and Jennifer Mills, a postdoctoral researcher at York. The event was moderated by Alissa Trotz, an Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies.

The discussion focused in large part on the ways that the panelists perceived Canada to have failed racialized and Indigenous communities, and how, as Hudson opined, Canadians should not be celebrating 150 years of conquest, violence, and settler colonialism.

“When I think about Canada 150, I’m thinking of 150 years of what?” she asked. “As a Black person, I don’t see myself reflected in anything about Canada 150 at all.”

The panelists also discussed the basis of Canada’s foundation, asking why Canadians are celebrating the past 150 years when the country’s history stretches far beyond that.

Zachariah, who is Afro-Indigenous, argued that the sesquicentennial celebrates the erasure of the history of Indigenous peoples who have been here much longer than European settlers. “When I think about 150 and 10,000, there’s just no comparison,” he said.

Clarke stated that it was also important to remember the original reason for Confederation, saying that “Canada is, in my opinion, the result of the British empire’s need to establish a bulwark against American manifest destiny, nothing more and nothing less than that.”

There was also discussion about the role of language in Canada’s history with Indigenous peoples.

Haque, who teaches in York’s Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, spoke about the “importance of language” and how colonialism has destroyed parts of Indigenous culture.

“It is also through the imposition of colonial languages and the violent expunging of Indigenous languages and other languages that are here that colonialism is trying to break Indigenous relationship with land,” she said.

Zachariah echoed Haque’s point, saying, “They stole your language and your culture and they charge you $10,000 a year to get it back,” referring to the tuition some students might have to pay in order to learn Indigenous languages.

When asked by The Varsity how he plans to use his position as CFS National Chairperson to educate students on these issues, Zachariah said that it would be “by having this conversation, by being open to talking to places like The Varsity about what it means and what it could mean, and how we can form better relationships moving forward.” He said his role as chairperson can be to help foster those conversations.

He also said that he was “very open to working with any school,” including U of T, despite the UTSU’s current anti-CFS stance.

Hudson declined to comment.

The Varsity has obtained copies of four motions that were submitted but not added to the agenda at the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) National General Meeting (NGM) last June. The motions in question, submitted by the the Vancouver Island University Students’ Union (VIUSU) and Douglas Students’ Union (DSU), alleged that the CFS breached their fiduciary duty and engaged in unlawful conduct.

According to Mathias Memmel, President of the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU), the motions had been distributed to the member locals present prior to the NGM. Memmel confirmed that the Selkirk College Students’ Union received a letter from Gowling WLG, a law firm, explaining why their submitted motion was ruled out of order.

Memmel could not confirm if the VIUSU and DSU had received similar emails from the CFS. “In this case, it was more important that the information be made public. That’s what the movers set out to do, and they were successful,” Memmel said of the information provided in the motions.

Student union elections interference

The first motion, submitted by the VIUSU, alleges that the Canadian Federation of Students–Ontario (CFS-O) has been interfering in university and college student union elections “for well over a decade.”

This includes, but is not limited to, recruiting pro-CFS-O candidates and putting together slates composed entirely of pro-CFS candidates; producing campaign materials; and interfering in the hiring of returning officers while receiving confidential information from those officers, and in turn instructing them to induce fines on unfavourable slates.

The VIUSU alleges that the CFS-O interfered in student union elections for the UTSU, University of Toronto Mississauga Students’ Union, University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union, and Association of Part-time Undergraduate Students, among others in Ontario.

York Federation of Students

The VIUSU’s second motion alleges that despite membership fee increases that have taken place since the 1996–1997 academic year, students belonging to the York Federation of Students (YFS) still pay only $2 per semester, whereas students from CFS member locals across Canada pay $4.43 per semester, over twice as much.

According to the motion, “The shortfall between what the YFS should have remitted in membership fees over the years and what it actually remitted now exceeds $1,000,000.”

The allegations follow that the CFS National Executive ensured other member locals were aware of the YFS’ failure to collect the correct membership fees “in the hopes of shaming the YFS into doing the right thing.” The motion goes on to claim that in the past three years, CFS leaders “reversed that effort.”

CFS Bylaw 1, Section 3.c. states that member locals are responsible for upholding the bylaws and for ensuring that the federation’s fee is collected at their institutions.

“We will be working with the YFS to resolve it. As for punitive action, no, it can and will be resolved through dialogue,” Peyton Veitch, National Treasurer of the CFS, said in an email to The Varsity.

Unpaid NGM fees

The DSU alleges that since 2015, Veitch and his predecessor Anna Dubinski have been “extremely lax” when collecting outstanding delegate fees for general meetings.

According to CFS Bylaw 1, Section 3.b.i., “Each member of the Federation will have one (1) vote at and participate in general meetings of the Federation provided all outstanding delegate fees for past meetings have been paid in full.”

The DSU alleges that, according to Jenelle Davies, the current BC Representative on the National Executive, there are “at least ten and as many as fifteen member locals” attending NGMs that have not paid outstanding delegate fees, making them ineligible to vote at meetings.

The motion goes on to state that as a candidate for re-election as CFS National Treasurer at the Fall 2016 NGM, Veitch “had an interest in ensuring that no member local that might be supporting him in the election was deemed ineligible to ‘vote at and participate in general meetings’ due to owing delegate fees for past general meeting.” According to the motion, Veitch did not inform the rest of the National Executive of this conflict of interest, violating his fiduciary duties as treasurer.

Veitch told The Varsity in response that his fiduciary duty “means acting in the Federation’s best interests.”

British Columbia Federation of Students

In its second motion, the DSU gives historical background to an agreement by the British Columbia Federation of Students (BCFS) and CFS National, where the BCFS agreed to allow the CFS to take over the administration of membership fees collected from CFS member locals in BC.

The motion alleges that, in response to the BCFS’ opposition to former CFS National Chairperson Bilan Arte’s candidacy for election, BC member locals were targeted “for retribution.”

During this “retribution,” the DSU alleges that the CFS stole BCFS fees; the amount stolen “likely in excess of $700,000.” In response to this, CFS National member locals from BC stopped paying fees of any sort to the CFS in an effort to force the stolen funds to be returned and for the guilty parties to be punished.

According to the VIUSU’s second motion, this is to protest the “flagrant disregard for the Bylaws and other democratic structures of the Federation.”

“The Federation provides a component allocation totalling 1/6 of the national membership fees collected in British Columbia. Upon receipt of the national membership fees being withheld since 2014, we will send them their provincial allocation,” Veitch said.

The motion alleges that former CFS National Treasurer Dubinski “unlawfully denied” BC Representative Davies access to the financial records of the CFS, a right afforded to “any member of the board of directors of a corporation falling under the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act.”

Davies told The Varsity that she has only been able to gain access to the CFS budgets, including “whatever is presented at National Executive meetings.”

“They said I would use the information to harm the Federation,” alleged Davies.

What is happening now?

According to Steven Beasley, Executive Director of the DSU, the motions, which were originally intended to be presented at the NGM, were presented to the entirety of the BCFS at the BC General Meeting. Members in BC resolved to present the motions to the CFS at the NGM in November on behalf of all of the BCFS.

Juhi Sohani, CFS National Communications Director, told The Varsity that there were some questions to which she could not provide answers. The Varsity asked to speak with CFS Chairperson Coty Zachariah, though Zachariah was unable to comment.

Retraction (Tuesday, October 31): On October 16, 2017, The Varsity reported allegations made by Vancouver Island University Students’ Union that the Canadian Federation of Students (“CFS”) and Toby Whitfield manipulated elections by means of a “slush fund”. No evidence was provided to The Varsity in support of those allegations.

The slush fund was subject to a forensic audit made by independent investigator Grant Thornton LLP. It found that the CFS management and CFS treasurers who took office after May 26, 2010, which include Mr. Whitfield, were not informed that the slush fund existed and did not authorize any transactions on that account. The audit found no direct or indirect implication of Mr. Whitfield in the creation or operation of the fund.