The Peak

Campus : SFU wants out

By Shara Lee

The halls of the Academic Quadrangle will be quiet this week without canvassers from the pro and anti defederation sides creating loud scenes and a tense atmosphere.

Students at Simon Fraser University have spoken, and they want out. Over 4,000 students voted in the recent CFS membership referendum with 66 per cent voting to leave the Federation and 32 per cent voting to stay.

“This is a clear democratic mandate. There is no way to read these results as anything but a clear indication that SFU wants to leave the Federation,” said Simon Fraser Student Society President Derrick Harder. “Students have excellent bullshit detectors and those were going off like crazy over the past two weeks,” said Harder in reference to the groups of CFS campaigners that have been on campus during the campaign period.

While happy with the results of the referendum, Harder was surprised by such a clear victory for the Board. “I was expecting a closer result, but it’s always hard to tell when you’re in the midst of a campaign exactly what is going on,” he said.

Incoming SFSS president Joe Paling expressed similar sentiments, and was particularly impressed by the high voter turnout. Paling was especially pleased with the results. “This is a clear mandate that students at SFU want to take their campus back,” he said.

According to Harder, the CFS had used several unfair tactics during the campaign. “I think they were desperate tactics,” he said.

Harder pointed out the fact that while the CFS campaigners will be gone in the weeks to come, those that campaigned for the no side will not. “We work at SFU, we study at SFU, we’re members of the community and everyone who was there campaigning for the Federation, they’re all going to fly home. They’re not going to be around to be held accountable. That’s the most frustrating thing,” he said.

Although this referendum seems to be, by all accounts, a fair representation of the direction that students at SFU have chosen to take, there is still a major concern that the CFS will not see this referendum as legal or valid according to their constitution.

Despite these concerns, members of the Executive seem to be fairly confident about the referendum. “We are standing on a mountain of truth and righteousness,” commented Paling. “We’ve followed the letter of the law as best as we could,” he said.

Harder agreed. “We’ve run an honourable campaign. We haven’t been lying,” he said.

But while the Board may be content with the outcome of the referendum, the CFS has been quick to cast doubt over the logistics of the voting process.

“I think there [are] a lot of concerns to be brought forward,” said National Chairperson Amanda Aziz who had many worries about the irregularities she saw first-hand during the days of voting.

“Some of the things that I saw were ballots being found outside of the polling locations, people from the no campaign campaigning right beside the polling station[s], in fact, directing people in terms on how they should be voting on each of the questions, polls running out of ballots, [and] ballots being found outside of polling locations,” said Aziz.

Because of the problems that she had observed, Aziz was hesitant to comment on the validity of the referendum. “At this point, I am still waiting to comment on what I think will be the final results,” she said.

SFSS Chief Electoral Officer J.J. McCullough was very displeased with Aziz’s accusations. “I find it extremely offensive and personally hurtful that people would spread such obviously false rumours insulting me and my credibility as Chief Electoral Officer for partisan reasons,” he said. “The only complaints I have heard have been from a handful of the most actively pro-CFS students on campus. I think it is very clearly in their interest to pretend that this election was somehow full of errors, because their only hope is for the courts to throw this thing out on a technicality.”

The CFS has a lot to lose from the possibility of SFU’s defederation. Students at SFU currently pay the Federation over $430,000 a year in fees.

Aside from the possibility of legal battles ahead and accusations that the Independent Electoral Commission had conducted an invalid referendum, McCullough felt that “the turnout was quite amazing.” He was surprised by the amount of people who were interested in the CFS issue and the number of students who were engaged in the issue.

While the CFS membership question may not be concretely determined in the eyes of the law, it is clear that the majority of SFU students want to separate from the Federation. “I think people made very very good decisions with their votes this week,” said Harder. “The results speak for themselves. Students made an informed choice and I think they made the right choice,” he said.