University of Regina students began voting today in a bizarre, URSU-backed campus-wide referendum. Weirdly, their student council is advising them to sever ties with the Canadian Federation of Students, the national lobby group representing university and college students belonging to 83 Canadian student unions.
If you’re a student reading this, there are two things you should do. The first is have a beer. Head to the Lazy Owl and have a draft. Domestic beers are $5.25 and imports are $6.50. I’ll wait here. Tum de dum deedoo.
Back? The second thing to do is vote yes in the CFS referendum. You have until Thursday to do this.
Why should you support the CFS? Aha, the real question is, why shouldn’t you? The Canadian Federation of Students is a national lobby group representing 83 university and college student associations coast to coast, including the U of R. The CFS lobbies federal and provincial governments for increased college and university funding and lower tuition fees, among many other things, including fighting for First Nations University. Your “Yes” vote will support the most effective organization dedicated to Canadian post-secondary students’ interests.
CFS also runs Travel Cuts and the Student Work Abroad Program. You may visit their website here and learn more.
It is true that U of R students send the CFS a big chunk of cash: URSU’S budget sets the amount at $88,000. (You can find a link to the budget on this page.) Then again, as the business students who run URSU must know, it takes real money to run a national lobbing organization. Besides, that price tag works out to a piddly $5.50 per student. Counting the tip, that’s less than the cost of the beer I just tricked you into having to put the cost in perspective. (I did it for your own good!)
And unlike that delicious beer, CFS membership lasts you 12 months. And it won’t make you pee!
Still opposed to CFS? Keen to take URSU president Kyle Addison’s side? That’s a little ironic, since you’re paying your anti-CFS student executive $83,701.53 this year. This for four people–the executive also includes Kaytlyn Barber, Matt Steen and Tyler Willox–who apparently think looking out for your interests means cutting you off from your own national lobby group.
I’m a little surprised that the URSU executive complains about how much cash goes to CFS when they’re pocketing nearly as much money from students. I guess they don’t study irony in the business and engineering faculties. Zing!
Wrapping up: you can find much more information, presented in a much more neutral and balanced manner than you’ll get here, on The Carillon’s website.
And that’s all I’ve got to say. Brotheridge, who’s a student at the U of R, will likely step in in the next couple of days with some additional thoughts. Vote “Yes” for CFS!
UPDATE: Puty ( rhymes with “duty”) said we needed a drawing to go with this and sent one in, which designer Awesome Klassen coloured.
