BURNABY, BC (CUP) – After three years of conflict and more than $450,000 in legal fees, the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) has officially left the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS).
The membership issue goes back to 2008, when 66.9 percent of SFU students voted to leave the CFS. The CFS, which is the largest student lobbying organization in Canada, contested the referendum’s legitimacy, and the SFSS has been dealing with a series of legal disputes ever since.
Although a court date had been set for February 12 for a lengthy and expensive trial that was expected to last approximately six weeks, the dispute was settled out of court in late December. Both parties released a short statement that described the settlement as “amicable.”
It further stated that neither party would make any public statements regarding the settlement. There was no mention made of the amount of the settlement.
“I’m glad that it’s over,” said former SFSS president Ali Godson.
B.C. Supreme Court judge Richard Blair, in an official court document released in August 2010, explained that he was unable to reach a conclusion about the case at that time, citing an overwhelming amount of evidence.
Blair advised that either a second referendum be conducted, or that the dispute be settled out of court, as either option would be more financially feasible than going to trial in February.
Late last year, the SFSS board argued that the society was running a projected deficit as a result of the pending lawsuit, for which funds had to be set aside in the event the case was lost. The loss of the trial could have resulted in a payout of approximately $1.5 million in unpaid membership fees to the CFS, not including legal fees.
The dispute began as a result of a 2008 referendum question, which the CFS claimed was not done in accordance with CFS bylaws, since it was performed by an SFSS-appointed independent electoral commission and not the CFS-mandated oversight committee. The referendum, therefore, was not considered by the CFS to be legally binding, and for the SFSS to accept it breached their contract.
Although the amount of the settlement has not been disclosed, the total amount spent by the SFSS on legal fees from the beginning of the dispute until November 2011 was $454,149.
There was an electoral commission of two people from the SFSS and two people from the CFS. However, the CFS reps acted in bad faith by vetoing about half of the electoral media from the SFSS on the grounds that it was “defamatory” or “false.” That CFS used this to veto a button stating “I don’t do what the CFS tells me to do,” was ironic but not exceptional.
The SFSS by contrast, didn’t block anything from either side. As I recall, the SFSS concluded that the the CFS electoral commission was clearly designed to deadlock, thus gagging anyone trying to leave, and asked the university to send a non-student staff person to act as a deciding vote.