Both sides firing at each other

The Canadian Federation of Students wants to disassociate itself from its Quebec component. Lawyers representing the CFS sent a letter demanding CFS-Q board members cease operations under that name, one the federation said is intended to be used to promote the interests of students in Quebec.
Recent activities of CFS-Q board members have allegedly damaged the CFS name and reputation. As such, the board members are in breach of the licence allowing them to use that name, the letter says. The Quebec chapter would not be permitted to collect or deposit any membership fees since it would no longer be recognized as an affiliate.
The letter is dated one day after the president of CFS-Q Gregory Johannson published a letter in the Concordian calling for a reformation of the CFS.
Students at 12 universities in Canada, including Concordia, are currently petitioning to put their membership with CFS to question.
Adrian Kaats, the board chair of the CFS-Q said he sees no viable reason for the national component to be taking this action. “They see some action, some loss of control in Quebec,” he said. “So they try to shut us down and take our fees.”
The Concordia Student Union, as members of the CFS, pays membership fees to both the national and provincial components.
President of the CSU Amine Dabchy said his office received two letters concerning membership fees; one letter telling the union to forward all collected fees to the national office in Ottawa.
A second letter, which Dabchy described as threatening, said it would be in the union’s best interest to ensure all fees go directly to the national office, since “the CFS-Q does not exist,” Dabchy said.
The second letter, which was carbon copied to the CSU, threatened legal actions against the union if it paid any fees to the Quebec chapter, Dabchy said.
The CSU is seeking legal advice to determine where their fees should go.
In the meantime, all student money intended for the CFS is being held with the university, Dabchy said.
Kaats said these letters are “yet another move” by the CFS national board members to try to take over. “It’s the M.O of the CFS. They’re either suing you or forcing you to sue them.”
Board members of CFS-Q said they intend to make a trip to the courts this week to file a judicial order against Noah Stewart-Ornstein, current CFS national deputy chairperson and former chairperson of CFS-Q.
Among other obligations, Stewart-Ornstein was supposed to resign his former position when he took on the new one, hand over office space and surrender company books to incoming board members, according to an agreement signed in July.
While he has “implicitly” fulfilled two obligations, Kaats said, the new board members feel they are still unable to conduct business, since they have no access to websites, or documents needed to pay off outstanding liabilities.
“So we have to go to court,” he said. “They were supposed to transition the Quebec chapter over to us, but he still hasn’t lived up to the agreement.”
Messages left on Monday night for Stewart-Ornstein and CFS-National treasurer David Molenhuis were not returned by press time.

• Facebook Comments
• Site Comments

4 comments

Frank

Tue Oct 27 2009 01:54

Its funny that you are all mentioning that there is no critical information. Welcome to the CFS National!

Doesn't it bother any of you that they have effectively shut all democratic communication with students through CFS-Q, the same component of CFS-National that was calling for reform? Doesn't this strike you all as weird? CFS-N shut down CFS-Q because they proposed reform under democratic initiatives. I think you're all directing your concern at the wrong branch of the CFS right now. Look at the bigger picture for student rights. Again CFS-N has blocked CFS-Q because they proposed democratic oversight and reform.

Good job CFS-Q! Fight the tyrannical and fascist leadership of CFS-N! Let's get the hell out of the CFS while we still can.

John

Tue Oct 20 2009 14:27

The way I read this, it said CFS National wants to disassociate from the people acting as board members of CFS-Quebec, not separate. National doesn't want to let the former editor-in-chief of the Concordian, and his "teammates" to operate under that name.
And at least the reporter was honest about how little time was given to CFS to respond.

Yves

Mon Oct 19 2009 17:17

My understanding is that the national membership voted to end the CFS-Quebec as was requested by the student unions in Quebec. I think they wanted to reduce the fee for students in the province as well, as there would be less money needed to spend on provincial campaigns and other work. However now, the former editor-in-cheif of the Concordian has been elected Vice-President of the CFS-Quebec and wants to do all kinds of stuff and doesn't want the money to dry-up so he and some other legal types are suing the National CFS. But to address your actual question, I am pretty sure the CFS will still offer services to Concordia students, well if the CSU lets them on campus to give out ISIC cards.

Though I agree, this article is some sloppy journalism. I mean its like we have all these quotes for people against the National office, but the people from the office didn't return our calls after we left them messages on "monday night" and printed the story Tuesday a.m. - whatever.

Natalie

Mon Oct 19 2009 15:41

The CFS National and CFS Services want to separate from CFS Quebec? Does this mean all Quebec members would no longer be members of CFS National and Services or that they would no longer be members of CFS Quebec? Would members from Quebec still have a Quebec representative on the National executive? How would the representative be chosen? Would local student unions have to work directly with the National Office to implement National campaigns?

This article seems to be missing some critical information.

Add comment


I am not posting spam. I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.

Enter the characters in the image above:

log out