Photo by Ryley White

The Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) hosted their annual general meeting (AGM) in Gatineau from Nov. 18-21. Student union representatives from across Canada gathered to vote on a variety of issues affecting students who pay levy fees to the CFS.

The final day of the meeting consisted of about eight hours of voting, and while some motions passed unanimously with little discussion, others sparked debate, caused tension between members, and evoked emotional responses.

What was on the table

Earlier this year, 10 student unions including the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) signed a letter criticizing the CFS, and urging the organization to be “more transparent, effective, and accountable.”

Some of the proposed motions included: a motion to ensure CFS budgets are online no more than one week after each general meeting, a motion to make meeting minutes and information available on their website, and a motion to refund membership fees if a student union feels it did not receive sufficient financial information for a given year.

Due to time constraints, these motions, along with several others, were tabled for the June meeting and were not voted on.

“The majority of reform motions that we put forward were shut down . . . we were very disappointed,” CUSA president Fahd Alhattab said.

Bilan Arte, national chairperson of the CFS, said in an interview the agenda for this year was much more ambitious than in the past.

“I think having the opportunity to get through 30 [motions] was particularly productive and impressive,” she said. “The few resolutions that we did not have a chance to debate  are going to just be considered with more notice . . . There’s more opportunity for members to go back and consult students on their own campuses.”

Defederation

Delegates voted in favour of lowering the threshold needed for a student union to defederate from, or leave, the CFS.

Previously, if a student union wished to defederate, they would need to get a petition signed by 20 per cent of the student population in order to hold a referendum, which would decide whether the union could leave the CFS. The threshold has been lowered from 20 to 15 per cent.

Alhattab said this was a “significant” victory.

“That’s thousands of students less that it takes to initiate [defederation] and get it going,” he said.

New Campaigns

Delegates voted unanimously to develop a campaign to promote access to healthcare for transgender people, as well as to send letters of condemnation to members of the University of Toronto (U of T) administration and professor Jordan Peterson, who has provoked debate on campus regarding the usage of gender-neutral pronouns.

The CFS will also host a Racialized and Indigenous Student Experience summit sometime in 2017, though details were sparse on when and where it would take place. A motion to develop pro-choice materials and resources for campuses was also approved.

Tension and debate

A motion proposed by the University of Manitoba Students’ Union (UMSU) sought to “lock” international tuition fee increases to the same percentage as domestic fee increases.

The motion was met with disapproval from some attendees, who argued there was already a better policy in place to advocate for the elimination of the discrepancy between international and domestic tuition fee increases.

However, representatives from the UMSU said they heard concerns from international students and felt the motion they were proposing was necessary. The representatives argued they did not feel comfortable silencing the voices of international students, and two of the UMSU members teared up while speaking to the room.

A CFS anti-harassment officer had to step to the front of the room to remind people to “not attack each other” and talk in a “civil manner” after a UMSU delegate said she felt she had been harassed by another student union member during the debate.

The motion wasn’t voted on and was tabled for the June meeting for further discussion.

Alhattab said he felt all of the CFS chairperson candidates acknowledged that “some real steps towards change, some real steps towards openness, and some real steps towards actual discussion must be had.”

Confusion and accessibility

Some members appeared to be confused about the rules of the meeting and how the voting process worked. CFS national chairperson Bilan Arte told attendees someone had asked her to project motions onto the screens at the front of the room to make things easier to follow along.

Arte said she had heard concerns about projecting minute-taking in the past, but that the CFS was still trying to figure out a “system that works” due to a bilingualism requirement.

Short on time

As the final day of the meeting carried on, several delegates raised concerns about the limited time left to discuss and vote on certain motions. A fire alarm at the start of the closing meeting caused delays as well.

Members voted in favour of delaying the dinner break to squeeze out extra time for discussion.

Blake Edwards, president of the University of British Columbia Students’ Union Okanagan, tweeted earlier in the day that the union had “been denied their vote at the CFS AGM because [it] is running behind schedule and we have to catch a flight.”

Arte said the CFS could not have planned in advance for the emergency fire drill delay.

“I think we’ve actually gone above and beyond what we could do to try and facilitate a space where members could participate in the democratic process, within the constraints of whatever travel time [members] had indicated to us,” Arte said.

People were informed near the end of the meeting that the event’s translators had to leave, which would signify the conclusion of the AGM. Members tried to extend the length of the meeting by asking if any of the CFS executives could translate instead, to which they refused on the grounds that they were not professional translators.

As a result of time constraints, all remaining motions were tabled for the next CFS meeting in June.

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