News CFS scores crucial victory as Kwantlen students vote to stay in By J.J. McCullough, Editor in Chief Fine a string of recent defeats, the Canadian Federation of Students scored a major victory last month when students at BC’s Kwantlen University College voted solidly to remain in the national lobby group. The April 18-20 referendum on leaving the CFS was organized by the school’s strongly anti- CFS student union, which had been seeking to emulate the successes of schools such as SFU and the University of Victoria, both of which had recently organized successful separation votes. While over 4,000 SFU _ voters eventually approved leaving the CFS bya margin of 66 to 33 percent, the Kwantlen results were starkly different. 56 percent of voters at that school voted to remain in the federation, while only 44 percent voted in favour of leaving. The vote total was just over 1,600, representing roughly 13 percent of the student population. The results came asa surprise tomany of Kwantlen’s anti-CFS campaigners, many of whom seemed to hope the decisive results of the SFU referendum wouldtriggeranechoeffectattheirschool. “It’s definitely a surprise,” said Laura Anderson, the former head of the Kwantlen student union who served as coordinator of the anti-CFS campaign. Anderson complained that though her campaign was “about facts” the CFS campaign may have been more effective materially. “We thought students were going to be able to see through all the posters and shiny ISIC cards, but that evidently didn’t happen” she said, referring to the CFS campaign, which flooded the Kwantlen campus with glossy, full-color posters and widely distributed free International Student Identity Cards, a discount travel card that the CFS offers its member schools. As was the case at SFU, many of the pro- CFS campaigners were student union executives from across Canada who were specially flown to BC for the event. Kwantlen’s Anti-CFS campaigners attempted to paint the CFS as a corrupt and scandal-ridden organization, even making tenuous attempts to link it to a high-profile student union embezzlement scandal that rocked the campus last year and triggered a province-wide media Nintendo Wii Free to Play + Free WiFi + Fully Renovated buzz. The charges were vigorously disputed by the CFS _ campaign, however, and Anderson acknowledged that such tactics are not always the most persuasive to student voters. “It’s hard for students to distinguish between these sorts of he-said she-said arguments,” she said, noting that her side’s arguments may have been “too complex” for many largely apathetic Kwantlen students— especially new or transient students—to grasp. Along with claiming to be the victim of an unfair smear campaign, the CFS, for its part, sought to downplay the image that the organization was unpopular in British Columbia, even going so far as to dismiss the recent SFU vote as a badly run “straw poll” that hedl no legal authority. Yet unlike the disputed SFU referendum, which the Simon Fraser Student Society is now petitioning the courts to recognize, the results of the Kwantlen vote have been largely accepted by both sides without controversy. Part of this was doubtlessly due to the fact that the vote was supervised by an independent, professional “third- party” adjudicator, appointed by the Kwantlen student union but independent from student politics. Though the CFS originally disputed the authority of a third-party to mediate the vote, a court order eventually gave the independent chief electoral officer full authority after the Kwantlen student union successful argued that the CFS was using stalling tactics to prevent the vote from going forward under their supervision. Nathan Griffiths, the current chair of the Kwanteln Students Association, said that while he accepted the results of the vote, he did not believe the outcome was a strong vote of confidence in the CFS status quo. “56 percent may want to stay in the CFS but 44 percent are still unhappy,” he said, claiming that his board would now seek to “work for change” within the organization, and press for key reforms. “We’re willing to extend an olive branch to try and repair relationships that have become strained,” he added. DJ every Friday ail oie sles “ .& es chance o win FREE Drinks a eee NV 8:30 - Waele Canucks cae! ames come do wn forc a Om Or@h’ Si Pg Coyote Ugly on the bar Friday nights “Discouts for Staff and Students ‘pub ony a Texas hold’em Poker on Sundays 57 BLACKIE STREET P: 604.522.0011 NEW WESTMINSTER BC a 0. RoY-7-AOloL.c.: