With the referendum underway, the CFS is asked ‘show me the money’

Written by Nicole Elsasser

Denise Martins has been a strong presence on the ‘Yes’ side during the campaign period leading up to the referendum on continued membership in the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) on the University of Guelph campus. Martins, an avid CFS supporter and incoming external affairs commissioner for the Central Student Association (CSA), has also been going to classrooms to speak to students about the benefits to being part of a national student union with a mandate to lobby the government on the behalf of students.
According to Martins, she has encountered many questions about the various aspects of the CFS, but a great deal of them have been about money in particular.
The contribution from U of G students to the CFS is more than $224, 000 of a $7 million dollar budget that the CFS works with annually to run their many programs. She explained that many students have misconceptions about where their money is going.
“A lot of what I’ve been hearing is that there’s no transparency or that you can’t see the budget [for the CFS],” said Martins “Go to the CSA office during office hours and you will find that if you ask for a budget from any CFS meeting in the last 20 years, you will be given one.”
Martins also explained that when students do look at the budget, they may continue to be unclear about why money is spent on particular things.
“Someone came forward to the ‘Yes’ table yesterday and asked why we’re spending $150,000 on translation,” said Martins. “We need full-time translators. We are working to lobby federal government. We have francophone students as well. We publish all our work in both French and English. We’re a bilingual country and we have to understand that.”
Dave Molenhuis, the national treasurer for the CFS, has been on campus, speaking to students about the work that the CFS does. According to Molenhuis, the money that U of G students pay to the CFS in their student fees goes into a pot and then eventually funds the many campaigns the organization runs.
“[The money] goes from the membership dues and then it goes into the democratically decided upon campaigns, services and lobbying in the federation,” said Molenhuis. “The entirety of the budget is arguably campaigns and advocacy…everything from the money spent on research which helps to mobilize members and puts research in the hands of politicians and the campaigns and mobilization work that the federation does. The entire budget is the movement’s budget. It is the numeric manifestation of that.”
Martins, who is also a student at the U of G and contributes the $7.17 per semester to the CFS, feels that students are unclear, at times, on what they are paying the CFS to do.
“I think a lot of people are thinking of them as donations but I think I’m paying them to lobby on my behalf,” said Martins.
With students being asked to vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ on continued membership with the CFS from April 7 to 9, the figure that U of G students contribute annually, $224, 000, is being widely discussed. Because an amount of money this large is not one that many undergraduate students deal with often, or let alone have a clear concept of, one Ontarion staffer decided to put it in perspective for argument’s sake.

What can you do with $224, 000

200 oz of gold or 784 lbs of silver
A 2010 Bentley Continental GT
A 17th century violin or a 13th century illuminated manuscript
400 acres of lakefront property in Nova Scotia
4411 starving children of the world for a year
One semester’s tuition for 90 undergraduate students

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