CFS Watch: Corruption and Incompetence

When students are forced to pay levies, whether it’s for student unions or the CFS, students have the right to know that their money is in good hands. This is the exact same principle as accountability of taxpayers dollars.

Unfortunately, in the case of the CFS, students give their money away to an organization that is dedicated, not to students or their interests, but to their own political agenda and their own self-interest.

Your money goes towards:

• Paying for lawyers to threaten lawsuits and carry out lawsuits against student journalists, student activists and student unions
• Flying CFS staff and other student union executive members across the country to campaign for themselves
• Strikers at York University
• Downpayment on the home of the girlfriend of the Financial Director of the Douglas College local
• To bailout, using unauthorized loans, the student union that mismanaged its funds by spending money on the above and other things that indicate “competent” fiscal management
• To pay the legal fees of CFS staffers that get arrested

The list goes on and on. It would be comical if it wasn’t so enraging.

It’s time for accountability. Speak out against CFS corruption and incompetence.

Case Studies

Trust Us, Your Money is in “Good” Hands: The Douglas College Loan Scandal

The following case about financial scandal at Douglas College is a very complicated one, involving incompetence and corruption both at the local level and at CFS-BC and CFS-Services. The following motion by Kwantlen College and videos on the scandal by Global News do a good job in outlining the main issues.

Here is a brief summary:

• Douglas Student Union (Local 18) falsely informed Douglas College that it had performed financial audits from 2002-2005, as a result Douglas College voted to stop the remittance of student fees so long as the student union remained non-compliant with the College and Institution Act
• A forensic audit of the Student Union revealed gross mismanagement – twenty cheques were issues to Finance and Services Coordinator Joey Hansen without proper documentation, and a 20 000 dollar loan was issued to Hansen’s girlfriend for the down payment on a house with student money
• The College turned over $855 400 for health and dental premiums, while only $343 184 was used for that purpose, the rest went to finance the purchase of a building no one authorized worth 1.9 million dollars
• Auditors could not account for 243 000 dollars from the Performing Arts Fund
• CFS-Services loaned 416 000 dollars to the Douglas College Student Union to cover the shortfall in the health and dental insurance premium due to the Student Union purchase of the building they couldn’t afford. This loan was unsecured and without the approval of the CFS National Executive
• CFS-BC loaned another 200 000 dollars to the Douglas College Student Union, also unsecured (until a year later) and without Executive authorization, despite Douglas College being in violation of the College and Institution Act
• The Douglas College Student Association did not authorize any of the mentioned loans, and they lacked proper documentation
• The Student Union sued the college for withholding funds, while the college sued the union to force it into receivership
• The Receiver-Manager that was appointed at the behest of CFS did not have experience as an accountant, and failed to complete the required audit statements months after it was promised to be completed

What a mess! CFS at it’s finest.

Not so Much of a Grassroots Student Movement After All: CFS War Plans Leaked

In the 2007-2008 school year 4 student unions in Canada coordinated referendums on withdrawing from CFS: Kwantlen College, Simon Fraser University, Cape Breton University and the University of Victoria Graduate Students Association. The latter three were successful in their endeavor.

In the midst of the referendum struggle a campaign plan drawn up by CFS-BC was accidentally leaked to Kwantlen College. What is interesting about the plan in particular is the section for volunteers. CFS-BC had plans to fly in volunteers from from the rest of the country; parachuting these staffers and student union executive members in, to campaign on behalf of the CFS (much like the York executive campaigning at uOttawa during the strike, see below).

This should put to rest any illusion that the CFS is in any way a student movement or a grassroots organization. They are flying in outside union executives and staffers using your money, because they have practically zero real grassroots support in most campuses across the country.

This tactic of coordinating referendums worried CFS as it split their resources, and as a result they tightened the referendum rules to demand 10% quorum on petitions and to set their own referendum dates, and bars student unions from distributing literature prior to the campaign, while exempting their own.

Quite the democracy we have on CFS campuses ain’t it?

In addition to that is the blunt intimidation that CFS uses by suing literally everything that moves. If a student union wants to separate it has to prepare itself for the possibility of a long, drawn out, court battle, because odds are the CFS won’t recognize the separation. In the free speech section of this website it also shows an example of the CFS using lawyers to intimidate student journalists. This extends to ordinary activists on the ground. If you oppose them, be sure to get your lawyers ready.

It can be argued that the linchpin of the “grassroots student movement” are the lawyers hired by the CFS with student money to sue students and student associations that oppose their agenda.

So much for democracy on campus, and you are paying for it!

Related Articles

BC Referendum Campaign Plan
“So much for being a ’student’ movement” – Macleans Blog
“Deny, deny, deny” – Macleans Blog
“CFS Secret Plans Revealed” – The Eyeopener
“Getting good at predicting CFS litigation” – Macleans Blog
“CFS brass accused of interference in student union elections” - The Varsity

From November 6th through to January 29th a strike by faculty in CUPE local 3903 ended classes for thousands of students at York.

You would think that a student union of a university would work its hardest to end such a strike, which threatened to ruin the academic year of York undergraduates. Instead, the 7 dollars per year the students of York paid towards their CFS local was spent, not on standing up for student interests and a resumption of classes, but in supporting the demands of the strikers.

It gets worse.

In the middle of November students became concerned as to why their student association was seemingly absent from the university and providing leadership on the issue of the strike.

Not to worry! YFS President Hamid Osman assured students he was “doing everything possible to bring York University and CUPE 3903 back to the table in order to end the strike.”

Phew! That’s a relief. The CFS is on the case! Oh wait, where was the President of the York Federation of Students? He, along with members of his staff and executive were in Ottawa campaigning for the CFS for the referendum campaign at the University of Ottawa.

Instead of standing up for their fellow students at York, they were campaigning for a 300 000 dollar windfall in students money for CFS at the University of Ottawa. I wonder who paid for their travel to U of Ottawa? Perhaps the students of York? Ever grateful for the actions (lack-there-of) of their student union in fighting for their interests (from afar) to bring an end to the strike.

YFS does not represent the students of York.

Oh and if thast didn’t get the point across, CFS-Ontario donated $2500 dollars to CUPE 3903 to prolong the strike – sure sounds like they are looking out for students interests

Related Articles

Doing everything he can from afar – Macleans Blog
Donation to CUPE – Macleans Blog