The Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) is an organization plagued with corruption, inefficacy, and gross mismanagement of student funds.
It is time for Carleton to defund the CFS. Our money has been wasted for long enough.
Right now, Carleton students pay $389,000 per year to the CFS. This works out to just over $16 per student.
What do we—the students unwillingly funding the CFS—get in return? We receive a few posters, buttons, and t-shirts promoting different causes. That’s it.
While the CFS does advocate for minority rights and lower tuition, it does so with incredible inefficiency and lack of results. Carleton could easily get far more minority rights materials for a fraction of the $389,000 price tag. And last time we checked Carleton Central, our tuition fees have still been going up.
In addition to taking $389,000 of Carleton students’ money and offering us CFS materials, this organization uses our money in regrettable ways.
Recently, during an audit of the CFS, a hidden bank account containing over $600,000 in student funds was discovered. It was allegedly used to fund ideologically-aligned, radical candidates in student union elections. This is a flagrant abuse of power. No wonder it was condemned widely across Canadian campuses.
Moreover, the CFS supports the divisive Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and harbours anti-Israel biases. The messages communicated by the CFS indicate to many Jewish students on Canadian campuses that their views are not welcome in the CFS—an organization claiming to represent “the collective interests of students.”
The CFS is also consistently entangled in a series of self-interested lawsuits that cost students thousands of dollars every year. In 2014 for example, McGill University held a referendum to defund the CFS, which saw 86 per cent vote in favour of leaving. However, the CFS refused to recognize the democratic results, and proceeded to waste student funds on a drawn-out court battle. This is just one case of many.
A year before the McGill controversy, a student at Concordia University (another school that escaped the CFS after a gruelling legal battle) called out the organization in the National Post by likening it to “a creepy ex-boyfriend who can’t let it go.” Although comical, these words have never been more true.
The CFS is doing everything it can to protect itself: establishing a hidden bank account to misappropriate funds possibly for political gain, mobilizing radical supporters through endorsing BDS, and attacking the democratic will of student unions in court. This organization has even been caught purchasing (with student funds, of course) anti-CFS domain names to proactively fight de-federation campaigns. Clearly, the CFS realizes it has lost the support of students, and has resorted to playing dirtier than ever to try and maintain power. Students have been cheated for long enough.
The CFS is not helping students, it is hurting them. It has devolved into a self-serving, money-squandering, ideological oligarchy of well-paid executives that is disconnected from the needs of students.
The time is now to defund the CFS.
Carleton students deserve better than hidden bank accounts, a few posters, and divisive rhetoric.
– Photo is provided
