UWSA execs fed up with CFS
By Michal Tellos
Lance Writer
June 15, 2010
“It was pretty horrendous to watch and participate in.”
That was how Andrew Bell, UWSA vice-president administration, described the latest Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) conference, which he attended with two other members of the executive team.
Members of the UWSA arrived with an open mind, only to be greeted with mistreatment and isolation.
“I entered the conference with a positive attitude, ready to work closely with the CFS,” said Laine McGarragle, UWSA president, who, as last year’s external policy chair, has worked closely with CFS policies.
Both McGarragle and Bell described being isolated at the conference. Indeed, UWindsor is the only Ontario school that is a member of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, (OUSA), while retaining its CFS membership.
Any voices of dissent expressed by the UWindsor contingent were quickly quashed, and sometimes greeted with calls of “shame.”
Bell was even personally mistreated at the conference. After being shamed at the microphone, he was told that he did not understand the student movement, to the point of being racist and homophobic. As an open homosexual, Bell found this accusation to be “incredibly ironic.”
According to the executives, the CFS conference was one of self-promotion for the Federation, which voted to increase membership restrictions. This would decrease the organization’s transparency, said McGarragle, an issue the CFS has already become nationally infamous for. Among these issues of transparency included the CFS voting down a motion to put all of the organization’s meeting minutes online.
In light of such actions, McGarragle described the meetings as “a well-rehearsed play - a charade of democracy.”
As has been the issue for the past few years, ideological differences between the UWSA and the CFS started to show themselves.
“The CFS serves student unions with a very specific political outlook and the UWSA serves all of their undergraduate students regardless of their political agendas. The UWSA also allows open access to all of their meetings, documents and events, whereas the CFS has bent over backwards to ensure that nobody outside of the organization is privy to this information,” said Bell.
The UWSA pays approximately $180,000 of students’ fees annually to be a part of the CFS, and both Bell and McGarragle are beginning to question its worth.
“With the recent sale of the highly unprofitable Travel CUTS franchise, and the lack of quality new campaigns that are actually relevant to students on this campus, coupled with the lack of a voice that Windsor has within the organizations, I personally do not believe that we are justified in asking our students to contribute thousands of dollars to an organization that reported a $3.5 million deficit and that does not appear to be representing our interests,” said Bell, who added that most educational legislation takes place at the provincial level anyway.
“I cannot in good conscience continue to ask my constituents to pay fees to an organization that operates under a horrendous democratic deficit. The ideas behind CFS initiatives are of value, while in application, the organization strips its members of any autonomy,” said McGarragle. |
