The Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) is on track to submit their defederation petition to the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) in April.
Following the first CUSA election in February, CUSA president Zameer Masjedee said the “CU Later CFS” campaign was falling behind in collecting signatures. While CUSA had planned to use the month of March to table for their petition, Masjedee said they instead had to spend time preparing for the byelection.
“The byelection was never planned for,” he said
However, according to Masjedee, the campaign is now back on track. During the CUSA byelection nomination period—March 7-10—the incoming executives collected signatures for their CFS defederation petition, while One Carleton candidates collected signatures for their nomination forms. After the candidates had completed their forms, they also joined in the efforts to collect “CFS signatures,” Masjedee said.
Masjedee said he checked that there were no rules against this in the election bylaws, and okayed the practice with the Elections Office.
“We just saw it as an opportunity to collect CFS signatures because that was sort of our plan for March anyways and it got a little bit messed up with the byelection,” he continued. “We’re pretty comfortable with where we are right now.”
He also said those involved in collecting signatures are ensuring that “students know exactly what they’re signing for.”
Masjedee said the CU Later CFS campaign is putting more effort into talking to students on campus, rather than into online advertising. He said they don’t want to overestimate the effectiveness of social media.
“We’re going to shift our focus to actually just being on the ground, and collecting signatures and engaging in conversations,” he said.
CUSA plans to collect all the necessary signatures by April. Currently, they’re not revealing the number of signatures they’ve collected.
Photo by Meagan Casalino
