The Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario (CFS Ontario) has filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the Ontario government for the Student Choice Initiative (SCI).
CFS is the largest student organization in Canada. The group is citing “lack of legal authority” and “bad faith” as reasons for the lawsuit.
The SCI was announced by the provincial government in January, and will allow post-secondary students to opt out of paying fees that are deemed “non-essential.”
Those fees help pay for student clubs and service centres such as food banks and LGBTQ+ centres.
Kayla Weiler, the national executive representative for the CFS-Ontario, said the lawsuit is to call on the Ford government to “repeal the [SCI], in its entirety.”
She said the lawsuit was filed because the SCI oversteps the autonomy of student unions and organizations in Ontario.
Weiler said CFS Ontario is unsure of how the lawsuit will affect the implementation of the SCI, but that the best possible outcome would be for the government to “put protections in place to protect student organizations from similar attacks.”
“This is a direct attack on students, so we need to protect the students of Ontario, regardless if they’re members of the federation or not,” she said.
Weiler said the government has yet to respond to the lawsuit.
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article referred to Kayla Weiler as the chairperson of CFS Ontario. Weiler is in fact the national executive representative for the CFS-Ontario. The article has been corrected to reflect this.
