The University of Victoria Students’ Society and the Canadian Federation of Students have finally parted ways for good.
On Saturday (March 9), members of the B.C. component of the federation (CFS-BC) voted to expel the UVSS, claiming payment on some $160,000 in past membership fees remain outstanding.
“Members were left with very little alternatives but to have them removed from the organization,” said Zachary Crispin, spokesperson for CFS-BC.
The expulsion doesn’t come as a blow for the UVSS, which was scheduled to hold a referendum on terminating CFS-BC membership later this month.
“We are glad to see the question of UVSS membership in CFS-BC finally come to a resolution,” said UVSS chairperson Emily Rogers.
UVSS members voted to leave the national CFS in a March 2011 referendum.
According to a release from the UVSS, the student society believed “that its membership in the provincial component of the CFS, the CFS-BC, had also come to an end” with the 2011 referendum. But the CFS-BC disagreed, and a hearing in the B.C. Supreme Court in 2012 supported the federation’s position.
Crispin says the weekend decision stems from current UVSS directors “refusing to acknowledge the debt.”
Rogers says that despite cutting ties with the CFS, “the UVSS will continue to work on post-secondary issues.”
kslavin@saanichnews.com