An open letter from Progressive Students on the recent attack on the Canadian Federation of Students

November 10th, 2009

Dear fellow students,

The recent announcement of petitions circulating on thirteen campuses affiliated with the Canadian Federation of Students calling for de-federation has caused justifiable concern among many progressive students. This attack comes at a time when the Conservative government is spending billions on an imperialist war in Afghanistan while students face a crisis in tuition fees, student debt, youth unemployment, poverty minimum wages and now the so-called “jobless recovery” from the recession.

From our perspective, the need for unity to confront and reverse this attack on students and youth is urgent.

Students have long rejected the parameters of Canada’s flawed Constitution, placing education as a provincial concern, and fought hard for a federal-level student movement. And although the federal government’s role in funding post-secondary has been shamefully abandoned, the necessity for that role hasn’t changed. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the deeply mistaken demise of the Canadian Union of Students in 1969. Even after the formation three years later of the National Union of Students (renamed the CFS in 1981) the student movement took years to recover from this disastrous fracture. Those claiming the CFS can’t be reformed and must be destroyed don’t address the objective necessity for students to have a cross-Canada organization.

This debate is not sterile, and will have lasting impact on the student movement in Canada. Certainly there are criticisms to be made of the CFS – it is an imperfect organization. In writing this letter we don’t want to close any doors to discussion. But lets get real, sisters and brothers. After smashing the CFS, what’s next? We would wake up with a horrible hangover and have to rebuild. At best, the defederation campaigns are an incredible waste of time and distraction; at worst they make all students, well beyond CFS members and including the Quebec’s student unions, incredibly vulnerable to the right’s agenda.

We think students are correct to be vigilant against attacks on free speech against Palestinian solidarity activists, the heavy-handed approach of many university administrators to student demonstrations, and the exposure of cross-Canada Conservative Party youth training workshops with sitting MPs – on establishing front groups and working with Zionists and anti-abortion activists against local student unions, Public Interest Research Groups, and the CFS. It is regrettable that some on the “left” find a home with these folks. Intertwined into the struggle of students has always been solidarity with other youth and progressive forces in Canada and around the world, for peace and solidarity and against imperialism and war. An injury to one is an injury to all! Although sadly inactive, we fully support the CFS’s membership in the International Union of Students and reject the so-called dichotomy between narrow student struggles and the broader fight for environmental and social progress in Canada and around the world.

In our view, CFS should not make a strategic retreat from its core policies now but rather place greater emphasis on mobilization and resistance than communications strategies and lobbying, not forgetting its long-term policy: the elimination of tuition fees. It needs to continue essential work with labour and other broad coalitions, from equity to peace to climate change, and on Aboriginal students’ issues. It needs to outreach better to the Quebec student movement, including ASSÉ. None of this can be achieved by de-federation. In fact, we know countless genuine CFS grass-roots militants across the country are already debating and engaging in these struggles.

There are real problems, so let’s get to work to solve them. Unity is the only strength we have. And that’s not only for our generation of students, but the youth of the future.

In peace and solidarity,



Robin O'Kane - Selkirk College
Zachary Crispin - Selkirk College
Monica Underwood - Selkirk College
Natalie Bocking - Simon Fraser University
Rafiq Rahemtulla - Laurentian University
Garry Sran - York University
Mathieu Brûlé - York University
Nila Zameni - York University
Rekha Sharma - York University
Alastair Woods - York University
James Clark - York University
Shone Bracken - York University (Glendon College)
Brian Latour - University of Manitoba
David Tymoshchuk - University of Winnipeg
Bobby Chavarie - University of British Columbia
Cameron McKenzie - Carleton University
Meera Chander - Carleton University
Melanee Thomas - McGill University
Alexandra Dodger - McGill University
Alex Anderson - McGill University
Jamie Burnett - McGill University
Gilary Massa - Ryerson University
Mohammed Ali Aumeer - Ryerson University
Rebecca Granovsky-Larsen - Ryerson University
Annie Hyder - Ryerson University
Liana Salvador - Ryerson University
Emily Shelton - Ryerson University
JoAnne Gordon - University of Ottawa
Taiva Tegler - University of Ottawa
Michael Cheevers - University of Ottawa
Julia McDonald - University of Ottawa
Andrew Brett - George Brown College
Ryan Thurlow - George Brown College
Kaley McKean - Ontario College of Art and Design
James Wardlaw - University of Toronto
Ryan Hayes - University of Toronto
Sara Suliman - University of Toronto
Peter Hogarth - University of Toronto
Igor Shoikhedbrod - University of Toronto
Sandy Hudson - University of Toronto
Taylor Rothebell - University of Toronto
Jessica Denyer - University of Toronto
Alex Kerner - University of Toronto
Marianne Breton Fontaine - Cégep du Vieux-Montréal
Daniel Mozarowski - Algoma University
Stephanie Kelly - University of Western Ontario
Rick Telfer - University of Western Ontario
Travis Frampton - University of Western Ontario
Alissa Mazar - University of Western Ontario
Brendan Oliver - Concerned Student
Drew Garvie - OPIRG-Guelph board member
Alex Holtom - University of Guelph
Caitlin Smith - University of Guelph
Eduardo Huesca - University of Guelph
Denise Martins - University of Guelph
Erika Marteleira - University of Guelph
Zafer Mamilli - University of Guelph
Dominica McPherson - University of Guelph
Sarah Amber White - University of Guelph
Abby Wilson - University of Guelph
Demetria Jackson - University of Guelph
Shayne Sangster - University of Guelph

Raizy Marmorstein - University of Victoria

Tania Portillo - Wilfrid Laurier University
Rick Gunderman - Mohawk College
Richard Williams - Memorial University of Newfoundland
Mikael Jensen - Vancouver Island University
Aaron Campbell - Vancouver Island University


If you want to sign your name to the letter please email progressive.students4cfs@gmail.com with your name and campus affiliation!

Unholy Alliance? Conservatives and Ultra-leftists unite against CFS?

by Brian Latour
posted on Canadian Dimensions

Recently, (as always) there has been much hullabaloo about the Canadian Federation of Students in the student media, as well as the usual suspects over at Macleans (here’s hoping the National Post somehow takes Macleans down with it). It’s mostly the usual stuff regarding disaffiliation campaigns, but with a twist this time. The interesting thing is that it doesn’t seem like it is just Tiny Tories anymore. A website titled Dear CFS appears to be run by a section of the Montreal radical left which is opposed to the CFS and actively working for disaffiliation campaigns. Signatoried to the letter include Yves Engler, author of The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy. As someone who identifies as an anarchist (anarcho-syndicalist if you want to get picky) and proudly carries my red card, yet is also active in my CFS-affiliated student union (to the point where I sometimes catch myself referring to it as “Local 103”), I find this interesting. I’m not sure I’m qualified to speak about all of their concerns because my experience with the student movement and the CFS is limited to the colonial backwater of Manitoba, but I think there are a few things which should be addressed here.

First, the CFS is far from perfect. Student union bureaucrats, especially at universities which have an active right, a history of right-wing governance, or a hostile student media, often fear conflict which could threaten the prospects of the re-election of a “progressive” slate and the self-preservation of any sort of official progressive politics at a university. They think that everyone is out to get them and to some extent they are right, as evidenced by the exposure of Tiny Tory plots over the years. However, this understandable paranoia can cause sections of the bureaucracy to start to become insular and bureaucratic, which results in some of the issues that we see in our student unions.

Also, despite what it says on my hoodie, there is a difference between the CFS and a student movement. The CFS is a bureaucratic (meant without any negative connotations) mass membership organization, somewhat analogous to a labour unions, with elected positions, an office, a big (by activist standards) budget, and a lobbying machine. While a student movement, where one has any presence, is a grassroots movement of students organizing in their spare time with every student an organizer – think SDS, or the Palestinian solidarity movement on campus. And as we all can figure out, a bureaucracy detached from a movement inevitably results in all sorts of issues. And perhaps the praxis of the CFS does need a lot of work. This is an organization that needs more organization at the bottom and to move a little from the liberal politics of awareness to the radical politics of disruption and fucking shit up.

All that said, there are things in this supposedly left critique which seriously need to be addressed.

The CFS has alienated real activists by highjacking our campaigns, stamping glossy brands on our hard work, and attracting bad press across the country. So here’s the truth. The real student movement can’t be put on a pin or a sticker, can’t be sold to us in a bus ad, and can’t hide behind superficial and obsolete rhetoric. The CFS has been a driving force behind the active and ongoing co-optation of legitimate social justice organizing for too long.

I haven’t really seen this happening. From “Drop Fees” to “No Means No” to “Target Poverty”, it seems as though rather than hijacking campaigns, the CFS is at the forefront of creating and pushing campaigns. I don’t think the CFS attracts bad press to external campaigns it signs on to, if anything, it grants them a bit of legitimacy, resources and muscle, and may generate some positive publicity or an increase in support for the issues on campus. In Manitoba, instead of attempting to co-opt social justice organizing, the CFS and local student unions are the only mass membership organizations really making an effort to mobilize their members or even lend some bureaucratic support for any sort of campaign these days (oh, the perils of having a “friendly government”). This might be different over in Montreal, but in my experience, I have seen the CFS take part in campaigns, but I have never seen them attempt to co-opt them.

sell shamelessly corporate CFS-Services contracts to our unions behind closed doors

As for CFS-Services, I don’t see any problem with student-run services, especially under the model they have with CFS-Services as a legally seperate branch of the CFS. In fact, I would say that students do benefit from some of these services, especially bulk buying and economies of scale. Incidentally, if I am not mistaken, all of the t-shirts ordered by the CFS or by individual student unions through their bulk buying programs are made by a worker co-op of single mothers in El Salvador – hardly the corporate behemoth that CFS-Services is portrayed as.

Moreover, we consider the adoption of progressive campaigns by the CFS deeply problematic regardless of whether or not we agree with their stance. The reason is simple: the CFS has a clear mandate to provide a voice for all students–on student issues–at the federal level, and no matter what we think about Palestine, copyright, gender, Cuba, abortion, or land claims it is unrepresentative to speak for all students on such divisive issues. Some of us have dedicated our lives to these causes, but it’s inappropriate for a federal lobby organization to adopt these campaigns while matters of urgent importance to all students (rising tuition, accessibility, corporate control of university bodies, declining subsidies) go completely untouched.”

Why should this be “deeply problematic”? First off, there are more to “student issues” than just the ones which are seen as directly affecting students. Attacks on students are just one part of something bigger, capital’s global offensive known as neoliberalism. We should be building coalitions and working in solidarity with people opposing an incredibly brutal intensification of the capitalist system around the world, not dismissing it as “unrepresentative”. The CFS is a civil society organization and a democratic organization of students. Why should it be prevented from taking stances on issues?

Also, copyright is a “student issue” (did I mention I hate this dichotomy of student issues and non-student issues?). We often come across it in our research, and the commodification of knowledge and culture has deep implications for any student doing any sort of research.

Furthermore, the CFS represents a broad cross-section of society – women, LGBT students, students of colour, aboriginal students, and international students from nations oppressed by global imperialism. It seems a little privileged to argue that the CFS, as their representative, should completely ignore their issues and refuse to take positions in support of their rights, especially given what myself and others have seen about the racist nature of our university.

It also seems awkward to complain about the CFS taking stances on issues such as gender when above the authors are complaining that “While quick to pay lip service to marginalized and disenfranchised communities, evidence of actual progress is hardly forthcoming.” The authors decry the CFS for not making progress, then complain about the CFS taking stands on these issues. Do they want this acutal progress or not?

It is also absurd to claim that it is inapproprate to claim that the CFS is adopting campaigns such as Palestinian solidarity. First off, only the CFS-Ontario has a position on Palestine. I wish the national CFS, my provincial wing, or my local student union did, but they don’t (I wrote about this issue a few months ago). Also, CUPE Ontario and CUPW have voted to endorse the BDS movement against Israel – would it be logically consistent for these activists to also call for a decertification of these unions on that basis? Are they opposed to CUPE Ontario and CUPW’s endorsement of the BDS movement as well? Also, as someone who has a bit of experience in the Palestinian solidarity movement, I was under the impression that one of the goals of the BDS movement was to get large organizations to sign on and use their political and economic clout to end apartheid in Israel. It seems absurd to me that any Palestinian solidarity activist would oppose a civil society organization representing hundreds of thousands of students signing on to a BDS campaign. If anything, this only advances the cause and should make genuine Palestinian solidarity activists happy.

Finally, to address the notion that these “matters of urgent importance to all students” are going untouched, that is flat out wrong. It is the absolute height of absurdity to claim that the tuition issue has gone untouched when it is pretty much the biggest thing the CFS has done last year, and the CFS has been routinely and unfairly criticized for focusing too much on tuition. Has the writer of this document ever seen this?

Some people may say that any “other” issues should be ignored until such time as the CFS has won on all the “core student issues”, but when you are a large civil society organization like a student union or a labour union, solidarity and coalition building is not something you maybe get around to at some point when everything is peachy, it is something that you make time for. If we all decided to stop doing solidarity work until we’ve sorted out our own issues, no solidarity work would ever get done.

All in all, the CFS is far from perfect and I am sympathetic to genuine left critiques of the organization. And I am very intrigued by radical student federations such as ASSÈ in Quebec. But all that aside, I think we’re better off with the CFS than without. If you’re going to convince me that opposition to the CFS is a left position, you’re going to need a lot more than recycled Tiny Tory talking points and a rejection of any sort of solidarity campaigns.

Brian Latour is a student, activist, and student activist living in Winnipeg.