In the wake of this year’s federal budget, we hear demands to the government from a student federation that claims to represent all students. In reality 16 student unions wish to leave the federation—the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS).
The CFS is an organization that has only ever proven effective in fighting the very students it claims to represent, even whilst having been a failure in fighting for them at various levels of government. Its demands were completely ignored in the latest federal budget.
And while they haven’t received their levy from the undergraduate students association in a couple of years, the student body pays $300,000 each year to the CFS. It’s time we had a discussion about this organization and whether it is justifying the investment we have made to it.
The CFS is so divisive that at its annual general meeting there were widely-noted protests, covered by the Toronto Star and other news outlets. These protests were organized by students who felt the CFS did not represent them or their interests. No wonder some student unions are signalling they want out.
And why are they so eager to get out?
Perhaps it is because of the evident failure of the methods and tactics of the CFS to deliver results to students.
The CFS was founded in 1981 with the goal of ensuring affordable post-secondary education. Since then, the CFS has engaged in radical political methods to attempt to protest tuition fee increases, including sit-ins and rallies on Parliament Hill.
Indeed, in October 2013 the CFS rallied on Parliament Hill to pressure the government to adhere to its demands regarding matters of tuition and student debt.
Perhaps it is a mark of the complete ineffectiveness of this organization that only a few months later, in the federal budget, there was absolutely no effort to address their demands.
Carleton students still pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to this organization to allow it to engage in its failing advocacy. Since its inception, it has failed in its goal to control the rise of tuition fees in Canada, which rose by 207 per cent in Ontario between 1990 and 2006, according to the CBC.
I say it’s time to talk about the CFS on our campus. It’s time to engage students in a conversation about the value and worth of the CFS for our community.
We can’t cower in the face of difficult issues like these forever.
