U of Guelph votes to leave CFS!

By a RESOUNDING margin, students at the University of Guelph have voted 74% in favour of leaving the left-wing controlled CFS.

More to come...

Sent from my Blackberry

UPDATE: The UoG paper "The Canon" has a few more details.


UPDATE II: Welcome Guelph Communists! Just a helpful hint though... in future, you might not want to draw attention to yourselves by linking to this website from Facebook pages that contain anti-Semitic rants. Just a helpful suggestion. Oh, and one more suggestion Drew... don't bother running in the next election.

Concordia votes 72% to LEAVE CFS

Students at Concordia have voted 72% in favour of severing their ties to the increasingly left wing CFS. Score one for the good guys.

The vote to leave the CFS, which both slates had campaigned for, will almost certainly set up a legal battle between the CSU and the CFS, with the CFS claiming the CSU owes them over $1 million and calling the referendum illegal, but tonight was still a victory for the anti-CFS movement. "I'm more than happy about the CFS referendum results," said Osei, who had made leaving the CFS his main campaign point.

Now, let's see if the CFS tries to pull any procedural fast ones.

UofG's CSA takes CFS to court

It's FANTASTIC to see a student government who refuse to be bullied by the thugs who run the CFS.

Despite all the underhanded tactics that the CFS has tried to pull to quash a democratic vote, the University of Guelph's CSA has refused to back down, and has gone to court in order to ensure that their students have the right to vote on whether or not they remain a part of the CFS.

You might recall that I reported the other week that this referendum on the CFS at UofG is supported by the campus clubs of ALL MAJOR PARTIES. Once again, it's GREAT to see students working together for a common and worthwhile goal.

The CFS is in serious trouble... and they know it. There's a serious movement going on at Carleton, in the anti-CFS "We Want Out" campaign. They've also done a fantastic job of compiling a list of over 100 CFS related articles they could find, documenting all the antics of the CFS for everyone to see. Just give a read through a few of the articles, and I pretty much assure you that if you were pro-CFS before, you won't be after reading those articles.

CFS - a $1.8 million dollar student funded renovation tab?

Was doing some searching online, and I stumbled across this... can anyone make heads or tails of this? It looks to me like a $1.8 MILLION dollar project that was put out to tender to renovate their Ottawa headquarters. What does it look like to you?

Of course this got me curious, and so I did a bit more digging. I found the CFS shown as a "satisfied customer" in a brochure for Cole & Associates, who I guess did a major reno for their spiffy HQ. Anyone know off hand what the tab (paid for with student funds, I'll remind you) for that little project was?

Proposing to spend $1.8 MILLION dollars of student money on renovations to their HQ is a big deal in my books... especially when there's a whole lot of dissatisfaction with their organization, and several schools who want out.

Maybe that's why they're so desperate to stifle any form of dissent as soon as it rears its head... because looks like they need to keep picking the pockets of Canadian students in order to keep up with their "entitlements".

CFS attempting to kill UofG's CFS Referendum

Well, so much for "democracy" from the folks at the CFS. No sooner do I post that previous article about all party support for a referendum on the CFS, do I learn of the CFS-O's attempt to squash it like a bug.

No wonder the UofG's NDP pulled out... the article is reposted here in full...

CFS-O referendum denied to student organizers
Posted by The Ontarion On February - 11 - 2010
Written by Daniel Bitonti

According to the chairperson of the Ontario component of the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS-O), there will be no referendum held at the University of Guelph in March on continued membership in the federation.

In September, Guelph student organizers had circulated a petition requesting a referendum to be held on membership in CFS-O on March 29, 30, 31. According to CFS-O bylaws, the federation must receive a petition initiating a referendum process six months in advance of the referendum date.

The Ontarion confirmed in October that a process server delivered a package to CFS Ontario on Sept. 29, including the petition and a letter from the University registrar verifying the signatures of 10 per cent of the undergraduate student body, a CFS-Ontario de-federating requirement.

But CFS-O bylaws stipulate that petitions must be delivered by registered mail.

Shelly Melanson, CFS-O chairperson, told the Ontarion on Tuesday that the Guelph petitions had arrived by registered mail on Nov. 9.

“Any petition that is going to initiate a referendum process must be received six months prior to the date of the referendum. Because this petition failed to meet the notice provision under Article 5 bylaw 2, the petition is not in order,” said Melanson.

Melanson also explained there had been problems verifying signatures and student numbers on the petition, a problem that currently mirrors the situation with the University of Guelph petitions sent to CFS-National.

In October, Gavin Armstrong, the CSA’s communications and corporate affairs commissioner, told the Ontarion, “that it would be very poor of CFS-Ontario to deny the petition based on the fact that it was served by a process server and not registered mail.”

“We are currently looking into our options and into the bylaws,” Armstrong told the Ontarion on Wednesday.

UPDATE: Looks like it's not the first time that the CFS has used dirty tricks to attempt to stifle any sort of democratic review of a school's membership in their organization.