14 Comments

• Rick says:

  Let me get this straight. The misleading petition drive was “democratic,” while giving people the option of rejecting that petition is “undemocratic.” Right, okay, got it.

• Philip Dalehunds says:

  Wait, since the only text on the petition was directly out of the CFS bylaws, are you saying the CFS bylaws are ‘misleading’?

• Josh says:

  Does this have anything to do with why I was approached by employees of the Canadian Federation of Students this morning?

• Philip Dalehunds says:

  Yes Josh, we are in the great presence of Katherine Giroux-Bougard, National Chairperson of the CFS and Federico Carvajal, field worker for CFS, and former ontario graduate caucus chair for CFS. I am glad that they are campaigning on campus against graduate students signing petitions to have the right to hold a referendum next term on whether graduate students at UWO should continue their membership with CFS or not. By the way, the majority of campaigners on the anti-petition campaign are paid employees of the CFS. This anti-petition looks like a real grass-roots campaign!

• Steven Beasley says:

  i find it most interesting that the petition mandated by CFS has such a narrow window of only a few weeks in which it could be feasibly implemented, but the anti-petition may go on indefinitely to potetntially ‘invalidate’ any effort to hold a real referendum. cfs democracy indeed. i smell cfs litigation pending. they do that so well.

• Jonathan Meyer says:

  Let me clear something up. Mr. Telfer claims that students told him that they were misinformed about the original petitions and that the petition was dishonestly run. This is simply untrue. No one was lied to, mislead, tricked, coerced, or forced to sign the document. Graduate students can read and ask questions if they wanted background. The top of the documents were in clear large print and text was exactly as follows, “We, the undersigned, petition the National Executive of the Canadian Federation of Students to conduct a referendum on the issue of continued membership in the Canadian Federation of Students” for the national petition and, “We, the undersigned, being members of the Society of Graduate Students, Local 47 of the CFS , petition for and hereby give notice of a referendum to be held on the issue of continued membership in the Canadian Federation of Students – Ontario Component on March 29, 30, and 31, 2010, with polls open from 10:00am to 7:00pm on each day” for the Ontario petition. Both sets of text are written as per the bylaws of the CFS. The petition is only calling for a vote. Signing the document does not mean you are for or against the CFS, it ONLY means you wish to call a referendum i.e. open debate and have a vote. The petition allows the most basic democratic right of all individuals to occur; TO VOTE. CFS bylaws require that at least 10% of the population sign a petition just to have a vote on continued membership. Think about the referendum this way: This will allow the students to learn about the CFS and alternatives. It will then give students the chance to voice their opinion. This is where the problem lies: If there is a campus debate and vote (like what Mr. Telfer suggested in the Sept. 24th Gazette), and the students wish to leave they cannot properly leave the CFS at that time. It doesn’t make sense to have a vote that doesn’t count! Since this petition is the only proper way to vote within the CFS to leave, it makes sense to start the “defederation” process. Because then if the students do VOTE to leave the CFS they will have the opportunity to do so WITHOUT having to go through the process; wasting more student time. If they want to stay with the CFS then that is great! They more than certainly have the right to VOTE that way.

  Think about this: if indeed all the individuals that signed the petition wish to leave the CFS that is only 10% of the population who would for sure vote YES to leave. The other 90% can vote however they want, they will have that opportunity. No one was lied to or mislead, this isn’t a sneaky attempt to defederate the students under their own noses. Everyone was made aware of the petition, at least attempts to get the information to everybody to the best ability was employed. As stated before several times, the petition simply allows students the basic democratic right to VOTE on an issue. However, what is misleading, dishonest, and frankly appalling, is that the CFS must circulate counter petitions at schools who wish to have a vote on continued membership (Western is not the first, this has also been reported at Carlton). Mr. Telfer claims that other graduate students are helping him with the counter petition, however he failed to mention that CFS staff also were recruited for this job. I personally saw Federico Carvajal, who is a field worker for the CFS, on Western’s campus. He was knocking on doors asking students to sign a petition that could potentially deny other students the right to vote. Shouldn’t they, CFS employees, be worrying about lobbying the government for the things they say they advocate for? What kind of organization who claims to advocate democracy for students tries to squash democracy within its own ranks??? That doesn’t even make sense to me.

• Joel Eckert says:

  I was leaving the Engineering CMLP today at @ 1225h, was on the first floor of the building, and heard bits of a conversation with CFS while walking by. It reeked of a professional lobbying effort.

• Jonathan Meyer says:

  Hey Rick, tell you what. Because I’m reasonable and wish for democracy to be served, why don’t you send every individual that does not want their name on the petition to me. And I will personally scratch off their name from the petition in front of them! I’m not even kidding. I will gladly remove individuals from the petition if they want it off.

• Steph says:

  I don’t understand what the problem is? Last time I checked, the CFS has been hearing my voice in terms of student issues at the graduate level.

  You criticize Rick as being unfit to be President because he heard the concerns of students and is ameliorating the situation?

  Circulating a second petition is real democracy. Are you afraid that students might change their mind? Are you afraid Meyer? Are you worried that students may actually want the work of the CFS to continue.

  And you know, as former VP of Finance, you understand that holding a referendum will require student money. Did you stipulate that on your petition? Did you ask them if they want to take valuable resources to have a referendum?

  Real democracy is presenting students with all the options. You’ve misled students by presenting a negative angle on the whole thing, and you know what, I can almost guarantee that there were negative connotations about the CFS in your interactions with students upon collecting signatures.

• Kai Pisters says:

  Hi Steph,
  just a quick comment about running a petition with Graduate Students, they are very reluctant to sign a petition. In fact, if you put your own opinion on it, they are even more reluctant.
  What we did it is give the people the sheet to read, because at the end of the day, that’s what they are signing. They aren’t saying that they are pro or against CFS (which is why even some people in sociology signed the petition), but that they will give graduate students the CFS given right to hold a referendum on voting on our continued membership within CFS.

  You may not know but this is the process required by CFS to hold a referendum. Steph, I would like for you to attend a CFS conference for 4 days and spend half the time there listening to discussion on ‘if the national executive should write a letter to Obama, Clinton, and Bush to request the release or fair trail of the Cuban Five’. You may want to really speak of wasting student fees then. These conferences cost money outside of our CFS fees and actually come out of the SOGS budget, i.e. your SOGS fee. I’ve attended these conferences and I wish you would and then analyse the effectiveness. But maybe you find it effective, and that’s quite fine, but I know that most executive (including former president Shannon Dea) came back and thought it was the biggest waste of 4 days for them.
  I’m not saying CFS isn’t doing good things, but I believe some of its actions (and I’m not talking about tuition lobbying on behalf of us) but rather issues that marginalize members of its own fee-paying student body.
  Last but not least, and not a response to Steph, but I’m not sure where the CASA thing came but some people are missing the bigger picture, that there are a few dozen schools in Canada working a student movement that can work together in the future!
  Anyhow, happy counter-campaigning!

• Jonathan Meyer says:

  Hi Steph,

  No I am not afraid. That is a ridiculous rhetorical statement. I want to hear what the students have to say. If they want to stay in the CFS that is fine with me. I believe that it is more likely that Mr. Telfer is afraid of allowing a democratic process that could potentially lead to SOGS leaving the CFS.

  If I was scared, why would I be offering to remove people from the list if they desired? The petition is pretty clear what it is for, and it is to hold a vote.

  I just want to open the topic up and get graduate students involved.
  We have not had any sort of say on our membership in more than 20 years.

  I think the idea of CFS is great. But I don’t know how the rest of the students feel. Lets allow SOGS to voice its opinion on membership, what ever that may be, and if it is a negative vote then we might as well make it count. This is the only way to do it.

  I do not tell students, unless they directly ask me, what my personal opinion is, and those are few and far between. I do however explain to them that the only way to have a vote that counts is to hold a referendum.

  I want, and I fully support all other schools that are doing this for the same reason, to have an actual opinion on the CFS come from its members. We are automatically enrolled in the CFS when we joined grad school. We had no say in it. Maybe not everyone cares as much as you or Mr. Telfer to be part of that specific union. Do you know? please share if you do.

  What if 90% of students here at western would rather be united with our brothers and sisters in undergrad here at Western? I don’t know this; it would be nice to know. Individuals talk about uniting students across Canada, but were not even united in our own house.

• Craig Steinback says:

  This is the first that i am hearing about a “counter petition” but the petition that I signed (and I asked its purpose)was to “open debate on SOGS membership with CFS”. Would it not then be reasonable to assume that a counter petition would then CLOSE debate on the subject?!

  This certainly does not appear democratic – or am I missing something here?

• Rick says:

  QUESTION: Who’s leading the attack on the Canadian Federation of Students?

  ANSWER: http://tinyurl.com/yjj93zv

• Steve says:

  Telfer should be careful using straw men because he also has partisan connections. Is the CFS merely a front organization for the NDP?

  Telfer is a “prominent NDPer/CCFer at the municipal level”
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ontario_CCF/NDP_members

  Listed as NDP municipal candidate:
  http://members.shaw.ca/alexehng/ndp.html

  Contributor to “L.E.F.T.”, “A Western New Democrat Publication”
  http://tinyurl.com/yfqj6fq

  These links are provided to take “partisanship” off of the table because it is Telfer’s red herring.

  Now that we’ve done that we can address the terrible inefficiencies of the CFS as a student “movement”.

  Question: How many years has the CFS run drop fees campaigns in Ontario and what has their success rate been? Have fees dropped?

  Also, students should be aware of the empire building that goes on within unaccountable organizations:

  http://tinyurl.com/ya6kg2l
  http://tinyurl.com/y987ls2
  http://tinyurl.com/63lcny

  Now, that we’re debating the issue (the CFS) rather than some students who had a summer job working for the Conservative Party, what say you graduate students of Western?

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