Executive members of the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) released a statement on Jan. 24 supporting leaving—or defederating from—the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS).
The statement was released two days after the end of the CFS-Ontario annual general meeting, and was signed by four members of the UTSU executive committee, including president Jasmine Wong Denike.
“Continued membership of the Canadian Federation of Students is something that we, as executives, can no longer support,” the statement reads. “We still believe in a progressive, national student movement, but the CFS as an organization is beyond reform.”
The CFS was founded at Carleton in 1981, and lobbies the provincial and federal governments to support student issues, in addition to providing advocacy campaign material for student unions, according to their website.
The statement cites a “hidden” CFS bank account and the failure of all but three motions brought forward by UTSU at the CFS-Ontario annual general meeting as reasons for defederation.
In November, delegates at the CFS annual general meeting were asked to vote to approve the audit of a CFS-controlled bank account without having access to the audit itself. The bank account was hidden from auditors for years before its discovery in 2014, according to a report by The Varsity.
UTSU is unable to initiate the defederation process itself due to CFS rules, instead requiring undergraduate students to initiate any potential referendum efforts. The statement reads that UTSU would “actively support” such efforts.
Three UTSU executives did not sign the statement supporting defederation, and have released a response calling the original statement a “brazen abuse of power” by the other executive members.
The response alleges the defederation statement had never been shown to vice-president (campus life) Shahin Imtiaz, vice-president (equity) Farah Noori, or vice-president (university affairs) Cassandra Williams, and that the statement did not reflect the opinions of those executives.
Bilan Arte, national chairperson of the CFS, said in an email that the statement released by UTSU “is not an accurate picture of the proceedings of our most recent general meetings.”
Arte said the motions put forward by UTSU at the CFS-Ontario annual general meeting “were debated thoroughly” in caucuses and subcommittees, and that the membership voted to adopt three of UTSU’s five proposed motions. Of the 14 motions brought forward by UTSU at the CFS annual general meeting in November, Arte said that 11 remain on the agenda for the national general meeting taking place in June.
“We will continue to engage in discussions with the executives and general membership of UTSU,” Arte said. “We take the concerns of our members seriously, but we also hope that the UTSU executives understand that the decisions of the organization are made by themselves and their peers through open, transparent and democratic mechanisms.”
Student health insurance
Up until the 2015-16 academic year, UTSU members were paying into a health plan provided by Green Shield Canada. The CFS negotiates with Green Shield on behalf of its members for health plan rates, according to The Manitoban.
The arrangement in place with Green Shield, known as refund accounting, placed the risk on the UTSU.
The refund accounting system meant that if UTSU collected more money from premiums paid by member students than the costs of claims made by member students, the student union could keep the surplus. But the system also made UTSU responsible to Green Shield for any costs that exceeded the premiums being paid. The difference accumulated with interest put UTSU $1.6 million in debt to Green Shield, acting as a de facto contract that locked UTSU into their Green Shield plan.
Carleton students were under the same Green Shield coverage plan until the Carleton Universty Students’ Association (CUSA) switched to Studentcare as its health plan provider five years ago.
“In our [current] plan, the risk is on the insurer,” CUSA president Fahd Alhattab said. “We don’t benefit, but we don’t lose, so we stay clean. To us, that is the best model.”
Alhattab called the refund accounting system negotiated by the CFS with Green Shield a “vicious cycle” that can lead a student union into “crisis mode,” where they are forced to lay off staff and shut down services because of the debt.
Reflecting on UTSU’s statement supporting defederation from the CFS, Alhattab said CUSA “is in a very similar position.”
“I think it’s time for us to de-federate from the CFS, to reassess our values, reassess where student money is going, and be able to commit to students’ local values here,” Alhattab said. “The social justice activism that the CFS has taken on is good work. However, no amount of social justice justifies misspending money.”
Speaking on the hidden CFS bank account, Alhattab said “it’s no longer a discussion of good work or not good work, it’s legal or not legal.”
“It’s to a point where we’re no longer comfortable with students’ money going there,” Alhattab said. “It speaks a lot to the leadership of the organization. The CFS has lost its way in how to represent students as a whole. The one thing we can’t debate is missing money. That’s the line. Enough is enough.”
