WEB EXCLUSIVE: CFS referendum date set by court
UVic Students' Society (UVSS) members will have a chance to vote on their Canadian Federation of Students' (CFS) membership on March 29, 30 and 31.
After a second day in the B.C. Supreme Court on Feb. 18, the UVSS was granted a referendum date, despite the CFS’s claim that the society owes them more than $100,000.
“The Canadian Federation of Students had granted the UVSS a referendum contingent on us paying $120,000. The UVSS has always denied that we owed that money so we went to court seeking an order that the referendum date be set for the 29, 30 and 31 of March,” said UVSS Chairperson James Coccola. “At the same time the CFS put forward their own motion to the court asking the court to declare that we owe $120,000.”
While the court granted the UVSS petition and set a referendum date, the question of the alleged debt is still up in the air.
“The court did not rule on whether or not he UVSS owed that money,” said Coccola, adding that the judge felt the CFS had several earlier opportunities to bring up the alleged debt with the court and hadn't. "But the judge also allowed the opportunity for them at a future point to bring forward a petition for those fees.”
Stay tuned to martlet.ca for further developments on this story.
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Kelsey H Feb. 21, 2011, 11:25 p.m.
Just to clarify for interested students: The UVSS has paid the CFS every cent that students have ever paid to the organization. The CFS's claim of debt originates from the early 1990's when the CFS unilaterally increased its membership fee. In the 1990's, the UVSS responded by trying to get the money in good faith via a fee referendum twice. Both times students democratically voted against raising the fee that the CFS imposed on them. In 1999 the UVSS finally succeeded by passing a referendum that increased the CFS fee while decreasing the capital fee.
The CFS has never brought up this issue publicly since. Now all of a sudden, when students finally attempt to hold a referendum on CFS membership, the CFS waits until literally two days before our court hearing to bring up a claim over this supposed debt.
The CFS is trying every method it can think of to try to stop UVic students from having vote on their CFS membership.