The Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) will be releasing a statement in early March on the settlements the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) put forward four months ago regarding two ongoing lawsuits.
The GSA filed a lawsuit against CUSA in October 2012 after the undergraduate student union withdrew from a joint health plan between the two student associations.
In January 2013, CUSA sued the GSA over three years of unpaid student service centre fees, also known as the Unicentre fee.
CUSA received $105,000 from the GSA in payment for Unicentre use from 2011-12. The amounts from 2012-13 and 2013-14 are still owed.
CUSA did not include the fee in its 2014-15 budget.
On Oct. 23, 2014, CUSA offered two settlements to the GSA for each of the lawsuits the two groups are engaged in: the health plan and the fee payment.
While the GSA has not commented on the settlement so far, GSA vice-president (academic) Michael Bueckert said the offer “is under the review of legal counsel” and that the student association intends to release a comment soon.
“I think it would be appropriate not to comment any further until after CUSA has received our response,” Bueckert said in an email.
CUSA’s legal council offered the GSA a two-part settlement for each of these issues and it now falls to the GSA to decide whether to accept their terms or continue the process in court. This is not the first agreement made between the two groups and their relationship has recently been strained.
The statement of claim that Alexander Golovko, CUSA’s former president, served to both the GSA and Carleton in January 2013 was in reaction to a published letter which announced the termination of the Unicentre fee payment.
The contract was a business relationship between the two groups, where the GSA would provide CUSA with a lump sum, collected through student tuition, for student services. This money would then be used to support Carleton’s services, clubs, and societies. This was under the condition that graduate students would have access to these services, terms which the GSA’s then-president Kelly Black said CUSA failed to meet.
After a CUSA referendum to depart from the shared health care plan in 2012, a series of policy changes occurred, which the GSA said they found discriminatory in nature, Buekert said.
In September 2012, CUSA executives ordered service centre co-ordinators remove Canadian Federation of Students’ materials—the same materials the GSA uses—from CUSA service centres.
GSA executives, including Bueckert and president Christina Muehlberger, said graduate students have been barred from participating in clubs and societies, so the GSA held a referendum in September 2014 to cancel the $25-per-student Unicentre fee.
However, CUSA president Folarin Odunayo said graduate students were and continue to be welcome to access service centres.
“You don’t present your student ID or any identifying material as a graduate or undergraduate student when joining or actively participating in these clubs,” he said.
He added he has no knowledge of any student coming forward to make claims they were barred from participating in a club or society.
In response to the GSA withholding the money from CUSA, Carleton’s senior administration suspended the GSA’s access to the fees until the two parties can come to an agreement.
As of yet CUSA has ratified no proposed draft, according to Odunayo.
Bueckert said the GSA remains guarded against any new contract with CUSA.
Suzanne Blanchard vice-president (students and enrolment) said in December 2014 negotiations between the two groups were continuing.
However, Bueckert said Blanchard is representing only CUSA affairs at administrative meetings.
“The university administration has offered to help by providing guidance and possible solutions,” Blanchard said in an email, but since the dispute is a legal one, she could not comment further.
