The Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) will not be sending representatives to the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario’s (CFS-O) activist training assembly in Toronto, according to CUSA vice-president (student issues) Hayley Dobson.
“[T]he CFS has lost its way and has become far more concerned with holding onto power and making money to maintain its bloated organization rather than truly working for the the student movement,” she said.
CFS-O is organizing the Ontario Activist Assembly in Toronto from Oct. 12 to 14. They say it’s unfortunate that CUSA has decided not to attend.
“I think all students from across the province should be attending,” CFS-O national executive representative Toby Whitfield.
Whitfield said the assembly will allow “students from across the province to come together, strengthen [the] student movement and build coalitions of like-minded students […].”
According to the website for the assembly, the event will provide students with the information needed to get involved in a number of activist campaigns.
Whitfield said he thinks that Carleton students could benefit from meeting other students across the province and help them better organize against tuition fee hikes and running campaigns challenging homophobia or racism.
The assembly will include both campus and community activists who will be talking about issues including education, social justice and environmental issues, according to Whitfield.
While both groups CUSA and the CFS believe in student activism, they disagree on how to approach it, Dobson said.
“Real activism needs to be based on individual campuses,” Dobson said. While she says there is strength in numbers, Dobson said the CFS has not managed those numbers over the years to create a true show of strength.
CUSA will be launching its own campaigns built by Carleton students for Carleton students, Dobson said. They will also be attending the lobby week put on by the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA), Dobson said.
According to Dobson, since the assembly is run by the CFS it’s unlikely that it will be useful.
“Students in Ontario pay the highest tuition fees in the country and are seeing privatization of their campuses,” said Anna Goldfinch, Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) vice-president (external).
“Students continue to face racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia and other forms of discrimination at school.”
The GSA will be attending the CFS-Ontario-run assembly, Goldfinch said. “I think that this year more than ever it’s important that students are working together in Ontario,” Whitfield said.
“The government is on the trajectory of doing a big system wide change, as significant as when they introduced colleges in the ‘60s, and so students have to be working together and united to put forth our vision for post-secondary education.”
