February 16, 2010 News

$1,033,278.76 owed: Canadian Federation of Students

Concordia Student Union says claim is unfounded ‘We don’t know what it’s for,’ says student union president

by Justin GiovannettiTerrine Friday

CSU President Amine Dabchy would be hard-pressed to pay the CFS over $1 million from his $1.6 million annual budget. PHOTO JUSTIN GIOVANNETTI

In a legal memorandum sent to the Concordia Student Union on Feb. 10, the Canadian Federation of Students—a national lobby group—claimed that the CSU owes them $1,033,278.76 in unpaid membership fees, equivalent to two-thirds of the CSU’s yearly operating budget.

Although the memorandum was delivered to the CSU last week, it was accompanied by an acknowledgement signed by 2008-09 CSU president Keyana Kashfi dated April 19, 2009.
The demand for outstanding fees comes in the midst of the CSU’s campaign to defederate from the CFS. The CSU has not been granted a referendum—where Concordia students will be given the opportunity to vote—due to new bylaws adopted by the CFS at their Nov. 25 to 28 Annual General Meeting. The petition was delivered to the CFS’s national offices on Oct. 19.
“When you look at that amount, you can’t believe it,” said CSU President Amine Dabchy. “Are you serious? A million dollars? It’s like a couple of them just sat together and chose what seemed like a good number.

“I think this is how they’re going to alienate more and more Concordia students,” Dabchy continued. “Because now, there’s not only one reason to leave the CFS, there’s 1,033,278 reasons.”

The problem could have arisen from the ambiguity between payments made to the CFS and the CFS-Q, its Quebec component. Payment records from the university indicate that cheques were made out either to the CFS or the CFS-Q every year from 2000 to 2009. According to the documents provided by the CSU, the total amount paid between those dates was $1,558,332.92, or an average of almost $200,000 per year.

“Undergraduate students of Concordia University have enjoyed the benefits of membership since joining the Canadian Federation of Students in 1998,” said CFS National Treasurer David Molenhuis.

“One responsibility associated with membership in the [CFS] is the paying of annual membership dues to ensure that the collective work of Canada’s national student movement can be advanced.

“The Concordia Student Union has failed to remit the entirety of these membership dues to the Federation for an extended period of time.”

According to Molenhuis, there were years since 1998 where the correct fee amount was not collected by the CSU. However he could not go into details about what years the student union had been delinquent and by how much.

“This is not a nice organization,” Dabchy countered. “Seeing what’s going on, people should be informed. Our role as a student union is to inform the students of what’s happening.”

Motion Six

At the CFS’s AGM, the controversial Motion Six was accepted according to the CFS executive. At the time, members of the CFS-Q protested that only 44 of the 68 members had voted for it—less than the two-thirds required for quorum.

Motion Six of the CFS bylaws requires 20 per cent of the student body to sign a defederation petition and allows “no more than two referendums on continued membership in any three-month period,” even though there are currently 13 petitions filed with the CFS. The CFS now also requires the repayment of all outstanding fees “no less than six weeks prior to the first day of voting [in a defederation referendum].”

Although the CFS emphasized the importance of following Motion Six, it still recognizes the CSU’s defederation petition, which garnered only 18 per cent of the student body vote.
“We sent them successive letters to give us a [referendum] date,” Dabchy said. “At least four. Give us a date. Give us a date. Give us a date.”

The legal memorandum sent to the CSU on behalf of the CFS, states McGill University’s Post Graduate Students’ Society and the Alberta College of Arts and Design Students’ Association—both small member organizations—are already slated to hold CFS referendums between March 30 and April 1, 2010.

Kashfi responds

According to former CSU president Keyana Kashfi, part of the missing amount was caused by the student union’s failure to adjust the fees to the consumer price index—an indicator that calculates the costs of goods and services based on inflation.

“It was brought to my attention in late March of last year by a university official that the CSU had not been collecting the right amount of fees,” said Kashfi. “The fees are supposed to be adjusted every year with the CPI. That’s problem one because it never happened.”
Kashfi said the other issue was that students enrolled under the John Molson School of Business and the Engineering and Computer Science Association had only started paying fees after a 2007 referendum, even though the agreement with the CFS states all undergraduate students are members.

“Since the CSU never adjusted the fees with the CPI every year, and the JMSB and ECA were not paying fees for so long, that amount had accumulated,” Kashfi said. “It was closer to $1.6 million, but we negotiated it down to [the current amount].”

Kashfi maintains that she would not have signed the document stating the CSU owes the CFS $1,033,278.76 if it were not true.

“The reason why it’s coming to light now is because the CSU, within their own right, has decided to defederate [from the CFS] and before you can defederate [...] you have to pay what you owe,” concluded Kahfi.

The CSU has the option to repay the outstanding amount six weeks before a defederation referendum, get locked in to a 10-year payment plan or head to court.