The Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) has confirmed to Nexus that the referendum for Camosun students to decide on whether or not to defederate from the CFS has been cancelled. Students will continue to pay CFS membership fees until the referendum is rescheduled, which can now happen no earlier than September 15, according to CFS bylaws.
Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) executive director Michel Turcotte says he was frustrated to find that the referendum had been cancelled; it isn’t happening because of a dispute over Camosun students’ CFS fees that the British Columbia Federation of Students (BCFS) is holding instead of remitting to the CFS.
“I almost threw up my hands in frustration,” says Turcotte. “I don’t know how to describe it, but it hardly seems like it’s the proper exercise.”
A spokesperson for the CFS says the national student organization set April 11 to 13 as dates for the referendum. But because the CFS has a bylaw stating that a member local must remit outstanding membership fees no later than six weeks before a referendum date, the CFS is saying the referendum can’t happen, as that fee deadline was Wednesday, February 28, and the CFS claims Camosun has outstanding fees.
“Even if we had the power to pay the fees, there’s no way we could pay the fees in that timeline,” says Turcotte.
The CCSS feels that because the fees were remitted to a provincial component of the CFS, the referendum should still happen.
Each Camosun student pays $2.25 per month for membership in the CFS and the BCFS; the money is collected from Camosun students by the CCSS. The CCSS then remits half to the CFS and half to the BCFS, a provincial component of the CFS.
There have been periods in the past where the CCSS has remitted the full membership fee to the BCFS, which then remitted half to the CFS; there have been other periods where the CCSS remitted fees to the two organizations separately. In 2017, the CCSS began remitting the fees to both organizations separately again, but the BCFS is still holding over $200,000 of Camosun students’ CFS fees instead of remitting them to the CFS. The BCFS is holding the money because the CFS owes over $746,000 in fees, about $18,000 of which is Camosun students’ money, to the BCFS.
CFS treasurer Peyton Veitch has told Nexus in the past that the CFS can’t remit the money to the BCFS until it gets fees from the BCFS, as the amount the CFS owes the BCFS is a percentage of the total national fees collected.
The CCSS feels that none of this should stop Camosun students from having a referendum.
“Our position is that we don’t have control over the outstanding fees,” says Turcotte, “and that the Canadian Federation of Students would need to take some action against the British Columbia Federation of Students in order to retrieve those fees, as they were collected in their name.”
Veitch says the CFS has suggested to the BCFS that the two organizations exchange full amounts of outstanding debt to each other, and has provided Nexus with an email dated April 18, 2017 where he made this request. He says that member locals of the BCFS requesting that the BCFS remit the fees to the CFS could have a profound impact on the situation, because the CFS, he says, has tried that but hasn’t been able to get the Camosun student fees. The BCFS did not respond to requests for an interview for this story.
“The CCSS is a member local of the BCFS,” says Veitch, “and I think, certainly, if all of the member locals of the BCFS came together and said, ‘Look, we need this issue to be resolved, and that involves the BCFS actually remitting the fees that have been withheld now for the last couple of years,’ I think that that would carry a lot of weight. For our part, we’ve certainly tried and are continuing to try to make sure that those outstanding membership fees are remitted, but, thus far, those attempts have fallen on deaf ears.”
Turcotte says the CCSS is “being held hostage” in a situation over which they have no control.
“The Canadian Federation of Students is holding us accountable for the actions of their provincial component,” he says. “The ball is pretty much in their court because we don’t have the ability to do what they want in relation to the outstanding fee issue. By the same token, we believe it is therefore unfair to deny the petitioner—who signed the petition—the referendum that they’re entitled to.”
Turcotte says the CFS isn’t recognizing that the CCSS has already remitted its fees in a manner that has been historically accepted.
“The Canadian Federation of Students does not want to recognize that providing the fees to their component, as has been historically done in the past at various points, constitutes payment of the fees,” he says.
Veitch says the CFS bylaws are the only documentation that would clarify the relationship between the CFS and BCFS, if the BCFS are entitled to the fees, and if the BCFS holding the fees can stop the referendum from happening.
Those bylaws state that the BCFS is a provincial component of the CFS and that those fees must be remitted to “the Federation” (defined in the bylaws as being the CFS) six weeks prior to voting. Whether or not a provincial component counts as being part of “the Federation” is not in the bylaws.
The BCFS has told Nexus that it is both a separate legal entity from and a provincial component of the CFS.
Veitch says the BCFS has “engaged in a pretty deliberate process” to distance itself from the CFS by changing its name from the Canadian Federation of Students-British Columbia and passing a bylaw to increase its membership fee “presumably under the assumption that locals won’t be paying the CFS national fee down the line,” he says.
“It’s a little bit odd to assert on the one hand that they’re one and the same with the CFS,” says Veitch, “and then on the other hand make a very conscious and deliberate effort to separate themselves.”
In regard to the referendum, Turcotte responded to an email from the CFS on February 8 indicating the CCSS’ willingness to accept other dates, “which would have provided a more fair window of time,” says Turcotte, adding that Veitch did not respond to that email until February 26, when he informed Turcotte of the new dates, at which point the BCFS had less than 48 hours to transfer the fees to the CFS.
Camosun students signed a petition—which was delivered to the CFS in June of 2017—to get the referendum process started.