The Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) B.C. chapter voted March 9 to expel the University of Victoria’s (UVic) undergraduate union after two years of growing tensions between the two groups.
The expulsion came right before a referendum scheduled March 25-27 asking UVic students if they wanted the University of Victoria Students’ Society (UVSS) to remain a member of the CFS-BC.
UVSS chairperson Emily Rogers said in a press release following the expulsion that UVSS was “glad to see the question of UVSS membership in CFS-BC finally come to a resolution.”
“The majority of UVSS members felt that the works done by the federation could be done independently,” Rogers said, adding that UVSS supports the concept of a united student movement, but cost-effectiveness took priority.
“It just wasn’t a healthy partnership for us anymore,” she said.
The UVSS had been trying to defederate from the CFS-BC since a referendum two years ago indicated that about 70 per cent of voters were in favour of leaving the CFS.
However, the referendum question did not specify whether the term “CFS” was meant to refer to the national or provincial body. The B.C. Supreme Court ruled in August 2012 that the referendum results would only terminate the UVSS’ relationship with the national body of the CFS.
In September 2012, a petition signed by 10 per cent of UVSS members was served to the CFS-BC to initiate the process of defederating provincially as well, Rogers said.
“CFS-BC made the decision to expel us because they knew that the expense of a referendum they would likely lose wasn’t going to be worth the resources and would ultimately portray a bad public image of their organization,” Rogers said.
But CFS-BC chairperson Katie Marocchi said the organization terminated its relationship with the UVSS because of UVSS’s unpaid fees and decertification from the CFS National in March 2011.
The issue started in the mid-1990s when members decided to increase the membership fee to $3 a semester, Marocchi said
The UVSS failed to pay the correct fee from 1994 to 1999, accumulating about $159,000 in unpaid membership fees, according to Marocchi.
Various UVSS officials have acknowledged the issue in the past, however the organization’s current leadership has not, Marocchi said.
“They’re refusing to meet their obligations and it just left us with no other choice but to expel them,” she said.
But Rogers said CFS-BC hasn’t provided them with documentation outlining these fees, saying they have sent both formal and informal requests multiple times over the past year.
“We’ve heard rumours about these fees for the last year but the first number we saw was on the motion to expel us,” Rogers said. “We’d really just like to know what we allegedly owe and why we owe it.”
Carleton University Students’ Association members are preparing to circulate a petition to ask if students want to defederate from the CFS. Rogers advised wording on a potential referendum be as clear as possible.
