The Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) initiated a lawsuit against the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) Jan. 17 after formally filing the legal papers in July 2013.
In the court document, called a statement of claim, CUSA alleges the GSA owes them more than $113,000 in unpaid fees, but the GSA refuses to pay.
Each year, a mandatory fee is collected from graduate students, given to the GSA, and earmarked for CUSA in return for CUSA providing service centre use to graduate students and advertising those services to them.
“Providing services costs money and that’s why CUSA and the GSA had an agreement in place,” CUSA president Alexander Golovko said. “A certain amount of fees have to be collected from the student population to run those services.”
However, the GSA has not paid the fee transfer for the last three academic years, according to CUSA’s statement of claim, while the undergraduate association has continued to offer the services to graduate students.
In September 2012, the CUSA executive demanded service centres discard materials from the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) and replace them with CUSA materials in an effort to distance itself from the federation.
The GSA is an active member of that federation, attending its meetings, promoting campaigns and materials, and including their CFS membership number on their logo.
The GSA also took issue with incidences of graduate students not being able to ascend to leadership positions in clubs and societies.
In an email from former clubs commissioner Kingsley Munu to a graduate student, Munu states that the majority of club membership should be undergraduates and the club in question “should be run by undergraduates.”
Golovko said there is no policy on this and Munu no longer works for CUSA.
The GSA has not provided the University Centre fees for these reasons, according to GSA vice-president (finance) Justine De Jaegher.
They were holding out to mediate what portion of the fees they should pay, she said, and were looking to use the university ombudsperson to avoid legal expenses.
“Our position has always been that CUSA is eligible for some of the funds as some services were rendered, but there were just too many instances where grad students were not provided with the services that they were paying for,” De Jaegher said.
The two groups were attempting to negotiate the fee settlement during summer 2013 through the ombuds office.
Golovko said he received the “cold shoulder” from the GSA, while GSA president Grant MacNeil said the GSA hadn’t heard anything from CUSA.
In August 2013 Golovko said communication between the two parties was good, and the dispute would not involve any legal action, despite that CUSA’s first statement of claim had been filed July 25, 2013.
“It’s pretty clear there was never any intention to go into good faith negotiation,” MacNeil said.
Now that a formal lawsuit has started, De Jaegher said negotiations in the courtroom will overrule any done outside.
Golovko said CUSA filed the claim at the urging of their lawyers because the limitations period on the fees was drawing closer. CUSA was protecting their interests, he said.
The university was also named in the statement of claim but is not being sued for damages.
This is because they are listed on the fee agreement between the two groups and must therefore be involved, Golovko said.
“We remain hopeful that the Graduate Students’ Association will come to its senses and come to the table in order to have this conversation,” Golovko said.
