RE: “CFS is worth the fees” – March 28
In her recent letter, defeated Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) council candidate Ruty Skvirsky does her best to explain why membership in the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) is worth hundreds of thousands of students’ dollars every year.
But for several reasons, even her best argument in favour of CFS membership isn’t good enough. They’re the same reasons why numerous student unions, from Vancouver right over to Guelph, have voted to leave the CFS in recent years.
Die-hard fans of the CFS may get a kick out of wearing the edgy “F*$% Tuition Fees” T-shirts with the raised middle finger, but most students would feel stupid in them. The total, self-indulgent ineffectiveness of every CFS anti-tuition campaign is reflected in steadily declining student attendance at annual “Drop Fees” rallies (which now resemble a modest drum circle more than a rally).
Even more discouraging is the simple fact that tuition has not fallen, or even just matched inflation, a single time since the CFS was founded. That’s right: not one single time has the CFS achieved its main stated goal.
The biggest problem with the CFS is one of trust. Elected officials don’t seem to trust the CFS — just try and find out the last time CFS leaders traded their middle-finger T-shirts for normal clothes and met with a top-level decision maker. University administrators don’t seem to trust them — a problem that I believe to be at the root of Carleton withholding student fees from CUSA in recent years.
It’s not hard to understand when you consider that CFS meetings are secretive, high-security affairs that exclude ordinary members and all but one handpicked student journalist (as reported in the blog called Eye on the UVSS). Students increasingly don’t seem to trust them either, which is why student unions are slowly but surely defederating one by one.
But don’t take my word for it. Here are a few simple, easy exercises to help you decide if you want to keep paying into the CFS:
Email the national office of the CFS, or any provincial branch, and ask to see their budget.
Ask the CFS if you can attend one of their annual general meetings. Be sure to mention you’re a dues-paying member.
If they won’t let you in, settle for requesting detailed minutes of the last meeting.
Get in touch with your provincial CFS branch and ask them for a list of the politicians they’ve met with in the past year, and what they achieved from that meeting.
Request a breakdown of CFS executives’ annual salaries, and what they do each day to earn them.
Finally, ask the CFS for an account of how much they spend every year to send their people all over the country to interfere in student union elections.
Let me sweeten the deal for you. I’ll buy you a beer if you get a concrete, honest response to one or more of these questions. If you don’t, I hope you’ll agree that CFS membership isn’t worth a dime — let alone hundreds of thousands of dollars.
— Chris Thompson
third-year public affairs and policy management
PAPM councillor for CUSA
