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Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

With over 10 student organizations across Canada having delivered or organized petitions to re-examine their membership in the CFS, there’s been a lot of discussion surrounding Canadian Federation of Students membership in recent months. Deciding as a student body that you want to review your membership within CFS or question what the CFS has done for you does not mean you’re ill-informed or part of a small group of people with questionable motives—it means you care about your representation. Ultimately, this decision should be placed directly in the hands of students via a referendum. Unfortunately, an upcoming motion at the CFS Annual General Meeting (Nov. 25-28, 2009) will erect even more barriers to impede what should be an easy and straight-forward democratic process. Local 78—Carleton University’s Graduate Students’ Association—has put forth motion (2009/11:N06) which seeks to: • change the number of signatures on a referendum petition from 10 % to 20% of your student population; • increase the period between referendum votes to 60 months (5 years); • and limit the number of referenda on continued membership to a total of 2 referenda every 3 months. Carleton’s claims having more than two referenda on “continued membership” at a time is “anti-democratic” and that it would stretch CFS’s resources too far. They further suggest placing a limit on the number of organizations that can vote to leave the organization, but do not limit the number of referenda that can be held for joining the organization at any given time. Please note, these kinds of reforms don’t come from the Carleton GSA’s own best practices. Article 14.2 of the Carleton GSA’s Constitution states: “The Executive, Council or any graduate student may initiate a referendum of GSA members. Council shall have the power to approve or amend questions, set a voting date, and give public notice of the question at least 2 weeks prior to the voting date.” As well, no petition is required to initiate a referendum and only 6 per cent of their population needs to vote to make the referendum binding. Why do they require more stringent rules of others than they do of their own student organization? The U of C GSA is so concerned about these proposed changes that we’ve sent similar letters to every single student newspaper with a CFS local across Canada. We will, of course, discuss this issue with the Carleton GSA directly at the upcoming CFS AGM. Likewise, we invite you to question Local 78 as to their rationale for these changes, and to question how your local CFS representatives will vote at the AGM. After all, what Local 78 is proposing will not only affect our future, but that of all student organizations who seek to question their representation.

In Solidarity, Matt Musson & David Coletto University of Calgary Graduate Students’ Association