CFS Legal Wrangles Update

The first week of the UVic's referendum campaign on our membership in the Canadian Federation of Students seems like a good time to revisit some court cases and referendum disputes in which the national organization is currently embroiled.

Today pro-CFS campaigners were arguing that the UVic Student Society took the initiative in suing the CFS, not vice versa. This is true, but the CFS had denied a referendum at UVic, so the UVSS didn't have a lot of choice. The CFS also claimed that the UVSS over $100,000 in unpaid membership fees from the 1990s (see my analysis here) and according to the Martlet, this claim was first made before the UVSS voted to pursue a referendum by legal means.


In the recent court hearing in January the CFS tried and failed to introduce the supposed debt in order to stop the referendum. The judge told the CFS they would need to file a separate court petition if they wanted to pursue the issue. Today I talked to CFS-BC chairperson Nimmi Takkar, who maintains that the UVSS does owe money from the 1990s–money we don't have and can't afford to pay. I find it very hard not to believe that the CFS will be suing us over this in the near future.

Simon Fraser Student Society

Students at Simon Fraser voted with a 66% majority to leave the CFS in 2008, but the CFS has never recognized the results. Since then, the SFSS has continued to collect CFS fees, but is holding them in trust rather than remitting them. The CFS and SFSS have both brought legal claims against each other and a court case has been brewing for two years. A trial date has now finally been set in February 2012–the trial is expected to last twenty days with over 2,500 pages of evidence.

Concordia Student Union

Last spring Concordia students also voted to leave the CFS, and the CFS claimed the referendum was invalid. The CFS has also alleged that the CSU owes them over $1 million in unpaid membership fees. The CSU is now suing the CFS in an attempt to leave, as well as demanding that restrictive bylaws passed in 2009, which makes leaving the CFS extremely difficult, be considered null and void, and that the million dollar debt claim be dropped. Furthermore, the CSU is also calling for $100,000 in damages for violation of their freedom of association under the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms

The McGill Post Graduate Student Society, which held a referendum to leave the CFS at around the same time as the CSU, has filed a similar lawsuit, also demanding that the results–over 80% voted to leave the organization–be recognized. Once again, the CFS argues that the referendum was invalid since some regulations in its bylaws weren't followed. The PGSS is also raising concerns based on financial statements which show the national organization spent over $2 million on a new office building and that CFS-Services is in debt to CFS National.

Another protracted legal battle going on in Quebec involves the Rassemblement des associations étudiantes, formerly CFS-Quebec. Last year CFS-Quebec sued CFS National for $400,000 in provincial component fees which they claim were improperly diverted to CFS National instead. The CFS responded with a counter suit claiming that CFS-Quebec was no longer part of the CFS and demanding the provincial group stop using the CFS name and logo. CFS-Quebec agreed to this but CFS National is still claiming $50,000 in damages. The landlord of the former CFS-Quebec office also filed a lawsuit against both the CFS and RAE for $24,000 unpaid rent. Each organization claimed the other was responsible for the bill and asked the courts to decide who would pay.

University of Regina Student Union

The URSU held their referendum on CFS membership in October 2010 and the results were not released for nearly six months. This was due to a dispute between the CFS and URSU over the status of ballots cast by some students at First Nations University of Canada. The CFS representatives on the Referendum Oversight Committee, which governs the referendum process under CFS bylaws, left for Ottawa before this issue could be resolved. In December the URSU applied to court to try to get the CFS reps to return and finish counting the ballots.

The FNUC issue is complex: FNUC students are members of both the URSU and the FNUC Student Association and pay URSU fees as well as FNUSA fees. However, FNUSA is a separate local of the CFS, so the CFS fees which FNUC students pay are not paid through the URSU. According to the URSU, both parties in the ROC–URSU and CFS–initially agreed that FNUC students weren't eligible to vote in the referendum, but the CFS later changed their mind.

On March 11, the CFS unilaterally released the referendum results. In an email to the Regina student newspaper The Carillon, CFS National claimed the URSU had tried to "disenfranchise" FNUC students and stated that that the vote was 1,414 in favour of staying in the CFS versus 1,326 in favour of leaving.

The URSU responded with a statement titled "Clarity not Controversy" explaining why they had taken the position that FNUC students were ineligible to vote in the referendum:

The FNU Student Association is a separate member local (Local 90) whose membership in CFS will remain intact no matter what the outcome of the URSU (Local 9) referendum. URSU contends that this should mean members of local 90 should not vote in the Local 9 referendum, as their votes will not be germane to the outcome of another member local. In effect, this is not a URSU referendum; it is a local 9 referendum.

The CFS maintains that according to URSU's constitution (URSU's set of rules, which are not in force by virtue of the fact that it is a CFS referendum) all URSU members should be allowed to vote in all URSU referenda.

However, the situation is still far from clear. According to the Carillon, an update on the ROC's website in January stated that the provisional (ie, disputed FNUC) ballots had now been counted. If FNUC votes are being included in the tally released by the CFS–which I would suspect is the case, since the CFS has taken the position (since October anyway) that FNUC students were eligible to vote–then the alleged "results" coudl very well be disputed in court.

The Carillon doesn't specify whether the CFS figures include FNUC ballots, but reports that the URSU has dropped the lawsuit and will be ratifying the "results" as released by the CFS.

UWO Society of Graduate Students

The SOGS is holding a referendum on its CFS membership on April 5 to 7. The vote was originally scheduled for January but a dispute between SOGS and the CFS caused it to be postponed. SOGS president Duncan Sutherland said he worked out an agreement with the CFS to avoid going to court.