Motions to decertify a communist student club on Carleton’s campus were defeated after a heated debate at the last Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) council meeting of the school year.

The April 3 council meeting heard motions against the Carleton chapter of the Revolutionary Student Movement (RSM) after posters and brochures had been seen promoting the club and its mission around campus.

The RSM is a communist student initiative with chapters across Canadian universities that aim to fight for anti-racism, feminism, anti-capitalism, and LGBTQ+ issues.

The Revolutionary Student Movement (RSM) uses a hammer and sickle as the symbol for its initiative in chapters across Canada. (Photo provided).

Students-at-large Oleksandr Shvets and Pavlo Kucher’s decertification motion stated the RSM’s logo—a hammer and sickle—represents totalitarian regimes that were responsible for multiple genocides and mass deportations around the world.

Shvets and Kucher first brought forward the motion to council at a meeting held in March, but councillors voted to push the motion to the next meeting since RSM members were not in attendance to present their side of the debate.

At the meeting, CUSA council chair Shawn Humphrey gave equal speaking rights to students-at-large, proxies for councillors, and councillors in attendance.

“Given the controversy and the two very different sides to this issue, I’d like people to be civil and obviously, I’m going to be keeping a strict eye on that,” Humphrey warned councillors before debate on the motion began.

But, the council meeting became heated shortly after Humphrey’s remarks.

The question period for the motion—which aimed to have councillors ask any questions about motivations behind and against the motion—turned into an animated round of debate where attendants of the meeting began to take quips at one another.

 In the debate period, a member of the RSM clarified its stance about the motion to councillors.

“Banning us would reflect very poorly on CUSA in general because this is about free speech and not about the symbolism, and it sets a dangerous precedent,” said an RSM member who did not wish to be named for publication due to repercussions from their family about their sexuality and gender identity, which they disclosed to council. “We don’t even currently get funding from CUSA as a club, so all this is showing is bad faith from CUSA about free speech on campus.”

“We understand that there are several horrible things that happened under communist regimes—the RSM vehemently and openly criticizes them,” they said. “But, being someone who has lived in a communist country, I understand that the symbol (the hammer and sickle) is the best way to represent communism and our messaging.”

“We know that there is phobia against communism and all we aim to do is highlight free discussion on campus and speak for marginalized groups who don’t have a voice,” they added. “We don’t want this to be part of a broader attack from the right against the left.”

But, Ahmed Abdalla, a CUSA councillor who supported the decertification at council, told the Charlatan he didn’t agree with this being a partisan issue.

“I consider myself quite left-leaning, and I don’t think this was about that,” he said. “I knew this motion would get heated because people are obviously very passionate about this issue.”

“I’m really glad though that there was a healthy debate that took place at council with people from both sides that got to say how they felt about it,” Abdalla added.

After about 50 minutes of debate, CUSA president David Oladejo said the debate “was going in circles,” and suggested a closed ballot to vote in favour or against the motion.

“I think everyone’s already stated what they feel about it, and we should have a closed vote so people are not unfairly influenced in any way,” Oladejo told councillors—who unanimously approved a closed ballot vote.

Seven councillors voted in favour of the decertification, six voted against, and five abstained.

According to CUSA’s bylaws, a two-third majority vote is required from the council to decertify a club or society at Carleton. While a general majority was achieved, two-thirds of council did not vote to decertify the RSM.

Shvets told the Charlatan a closed meeting for negotiations was held with members of the RSM prior to the council meeting. He said CUSA executives, the CUSA clubs and societies’ commissioner, Kucher, and himself met up with members of the RSM on April 1.

“But, it didn’t end up well at all,” Shvets said. “At first, we all just shared our perspectives on the symbols, and very soon, it went in circles and it became clear our arguments meant nothing to the RSM members.”

Several other student clubs and societies—including the Carleton Conservatives, Carleton Ukrainians and the Carleton University Japanese Association (CUJA)—supported the motion, according to the meeting’s agenda.

Shvets said when he brought up other clubs that supported their decertification motion at the negotiations on April 1, “things got highly inappropriate and peculiar.”

“When I mentioned CUJA, a member of the RSM, who was also there at the council meeting later, she said ‘Fuck the Japanese,’” Shvets said. “We were, of course, shocked. And after that comment, negotiations ended. This was a literal case of hate crime, racism and ethnic nationalism being said out loud against a specific group of people—what she said was racist.”

Natalie York, CUSA vice-president (internal) who was also present at the debate over the motion, said she heard the RSM member at the negotiations become visibly upset that CUJA supported its decertification. But, York said she didn’t hear them say, “Fuck the Japanese.” 

“I believe what they’re referring to was a mumbled response that to me sounded more like ‘what the fuck’ but wasn’t entirely audible,” York said.

A letter from CUJA was also debated at council, which chair Humphrey didn’t believe was legitimate at first. But, after a motion to challenge the chair was raised by Abdalla, Humphrey asked Shvets—who presented the letter to council—to call an executive from CUJA to determine its legitimacy.

After confirmation from the CUJA executive, the letter was then allowed to be read out loud to councillors.

“These comments, witnessed by CUSA, said on April 1st during negotiations, were insulting, racist and bigoted towards the Japanese community,” the letter, retrieved by the Charlatan, said. “Such comments cannot be tolerated on Carleton campus (sic).”

 The Charlatan independently reached out to members of the RSM who were present at the negotiations and at the council meeting for comment, but were declined after multiple requests.

“The truth will defend itself,” a member said in an emailed statement to the Charlatan.

Currently, the RSM remains an active club at Carleton’s campus, but members of the group did not comment on whether the group would apply for CUSA funding next year. Several incoming CUSA councillors said they’re looking to re-propose motions to decertify the RSM next year.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to remove the Carleton Liberals from the list of groups that supported the decertification motion at council. An earlier version of this article included them as per their mention in the council meeting’s agenda, but Carleton Liberals president Rachel Campbell—who was also a CUSA councillor—told the Charlatan in an email, “Although I expressed interest in the motion as a councillor, I did not confirm an endorsement on behalf of the Carleton University Young Liberals as I had yet to approach the rest of team on their perspective on the motion. I, however, failed to clarify this when discussing the motion with those that brought it forward.”

Photo Illustration by Spencer Colby and Jasmine Foong

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