The Harder Line: Federation blues
Derrick Harder
Scott Payne, chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students, B.C. component, is quoted in this week’s Georgia Straight in regards to the successful SGM, stating, “What’s occurring with the SFSS is entirely an internal issue . . . It would be wholly inappropriate of us to get involved.” That’s true, Scott, but for you to claim as you do in the same article that your organisation hasn’t been involved is total bullshit.
Rumour flies constantly about the Federation’s involvement in running campaigns for candidates in local elections, but little evidence is ever produced. To correct that, I’d like to relate my own experience running on a Federation slate. I first ran for election at SFU in 2003 for an at-large position on the Board of Directors, following several months as the first labour studies Forum rep. I ran as part of a slate called the Access Coalition. Our posters were made off-campus, and we had no involvement in their creation. Our platform was a cookie-cutter list of Federation campaigns and slogans. We had a strategy meeting at the house of a then-Student Society staffer, who we referred to by the code-name “Peter” throughout the campaign. Our campaign plan was drafted by a former BC-CFS chairperson. Our Student Society posters were printed at Quad Books, per elections rules, but our Senate posters were delivered with the same former B.C. chairperson in a Kinko’s box — again, we had no involvement in their creation.
It was even more direct the previous year, when the posters for the similar Access All-Stars slate were made by members of that slate at the BC-CFS provincial office.
It was my involvement in that Federation-backed campaign that made it easy to spot the same involvement in the last two years’ Common Sense campaigns. Close friends of mine who were initially working with Common Sense split with that slate, in a large part because of the Federation’s involvement. This time, it was a staffer from another Federation local bringing in poster designs and laying out campaign plans. The heat that the Federation has come under for assisting and supporting local campaigns has caused them to back out somewhat — I’d be surprised if most of the members of this year’s Common Sense slate know who made their posters or where their glossy, colour Senate posters were printed.
As far as extra-election meddling goes, my favourite example is the Board meeting last June when we voted to sign a contract for the graduate benefit plan with Gallivan and Associates. Unannounced and uninvited, representatives of the Ontario component of the CFS and the former Okanagan University College Students’ Administrative Council (Local 3 — first in B.C.!) came to the meeting, apparently on request of disgraced former president and then-External Relations Officer Shawn Hunsdale. These impromptu guests proceeded to lobby us for several hours to reject the recommendation of the Grad Health Plan Working Group and sign with the National Student Health Network instead.
Four member locals of the Federation in B.C. are currently in some degree of internal crisis — the student unions of Vancouver Community College (Locals 73 and 76), the Kwantlen Student Association (Local 26), and the Douglas Students’ Union (Local 18), in addition to our own SFSS (Local 23). Do your research on the last few years of governance at these societies, with an eye to familiar names and patterns of behaviour.
One of the best outcomes of the SGM is the amount of questions currently being asked about the Federation’s involvement with our internal affairs, the links between controversy at the SFSS and other local student societies, and what benefits we accrue from our membership. As I’ve said many times before, I believe in the principles of the Federation and unquestionably support the concept of a national student organisation. I also firmly believe that the Federation has gravely lost its way as an organisation that purports to represent my interests. At SFU, we give the Federation approximately $400,000 per year, split between the B.C. and National components. It’s important to remember that our membership in the Federation is not a decision of the SFSS’ Board — we’ve joined as individual students, not as an organisation. That means that we can’t leave by a vote of the Board; only by a membership-wide referendum. It also means that the onus is on us, as individual members, to decide whether our interests are really being served by this ethically challenged insider’s club. Do your research.