Members of the McGill University Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) took to the polls to determine if they would continue their membership with the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) on Jan. 15-16.
The preliminary results were largely in favor of separating.
The vote came back with 2014 votes not in favour of continuing their membership, and 56 voted to remain with the CFS.
“We understand that our members have a lot of work on their plate and often don’t have a lot of time to devote to student politics. We were therefore extremely happy to see that they genuinely cared,” PGSS’ external affairs officer Julien Ouellet told the McGill Daily.
PGSS held a disaffiliation referendum in 2010 that was not recognized by the CFS.
This led the PGSS to sue the CFS, to attempt to make them acknowledge the referendum. This year’s referendum was ordered by the Quebec Superior Court in September 2014.
This occurred after the society’s internal affairs officer Gesa successfully sued CFS for the right to hold a disaffiliation referendum.
Gesa filed his case after CFS failed to acknowledge a petition submitted in 2014 that had over 20 per cent of PGSS’ member’s signatures. This petition requested CFS permit PGSS to hold a disaffiliation referendum.
According to CFS bylaws, PGSS has to pay all its outstanding membership dues to hold the referendum, which amount to more than $300,000 since 2010.
The case over the 2010 vote is still going on, as PGSS seeks to recover the fees since the last referendum.
They expect a court hearing in 2017 to settle this.
Now that they no longer have the CFS to represent them at the national level, the PGSS is considering other groups to affiliate with.
“It might be worthwhile to create a formal research [study] on the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations to weigh the pros and cons of affiliating with them,” Ouellet said.
CFS national chairperson Jessica McCormick said in an email “the Federation respects the right of individual members to vote on the question of continued membership through the democratic processes set out in the Bylaws.”
“The outcome of the vote will be put before the voting member local students’ unions at the next national general meeting pursuant to the Bylaws,” she said.
