CFS demands public apology from Kwantlen Student Association

Controversy over leaked document continues

Tessa Vanderhart and Chelse McKee, staff

The Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) has demanded a public apology from the Kwantlen Student Association (KSA) for the press release they issued on Feb. 4.

The press release included the CFS-BC “Referendum Campaign Plan,” which was accidentally e-mailed to the CFS-BC listserv on Feb. 4, detailing plans for a campaign against a referendum to leave the CFS to be held at Simon Fraser University March 18-20. Kwantlen College students are voting in a defederation referendum that same weekend, and the University of Victoria Graduate Students’ Society is voting March 11-13.

On Feb. 5, CFS national chair Amanda Aziz sent an e-mail to the national CFS listserv stating that the KSA press release was “filled with deliberately false and misleading information.” That e-mail was forwarded to the Manitoban by the KSA.

Aziz stressed in the e-mail that the document was produced by CFS-BC and not CFS. “It deliberately misattributed it in order to level false accusations about the actions and intentions of our federation,” Aziz wrote.

Also on Feb. 5, CFS lawyer Todd Burke faxed a letter to Anderson, stating that CFS-BC is “an autonomous provincial organization which is legally and operationally separate and distinct from the Canadian Federation of Students.”

The letter went on to say that the document was not authored by any official or employee of the CFS.

It concluded: “My client demands a public apology which should be approved by it prior to issuance. That apology would then be distributed to the same list-serve as those who received the original press release. It is necessary that this be carried out immediately so as to disabuse recipients of the misrepresentation propagated by the Kwantlen Student Association. We also demand that the Kwantlen Student Association undertake that it will not repeat these falsehoods in the future.”

In response, the KSA released a media statement on Feb. 11, including the letters from Aziz and the federation’s lawyer.

“This is our response,” said Laura Anderson, KSA chair. “It’s not like an apologizable kind of error. The CFS released it.”

Anderson said that the CFS demand for an apology was “an overblown response. . . . It’s just sort of ridiculous that we’ve gotten this letter.”

When asked by the Manitoban whether the KSA release was intended to mock the CFS, Anderson replied, “I think playfully we are.”

Anderson said that there is a good deal of overlap between the national and B.C. offices of the CFS. She cited that the document listed CFS national officer Lucy Watson as a key organizer for the B.C. referendum campaign, as well as citing past collaboration between CFS and CFS-BC on student handbooks, the International Student Identity Card, and more than $600,000 in loans to the Douglas Students’ Union in 2005.

“To peg this as a B.C. thing, I mean, beyond the contents of the ‘war plan’ itself, is a little bit ridiculous,” Anderson said.

“If there was a textbook on the federation, this would be a textbook example of how the CFS works hard to skew what’s going on.”

Aziz said that she was not surprised by Monday’s press release, as “It’s something that’s been happening all year on their campus. It’s a particular agenda.”

“I think it’s important to try and correct the record. Part of the difficulty that we’re facing is that all these false accusations and misrepresentations are being printed across the country. As an individual of the Kwantlen Student Association, somehow they’re free to say whatever they want even though it’s not the truth. From my perspective it’s important that people know that it was not correct. The fact is that it was false.”

Last week, the Ryerson Student Union president, Nora Loreto, told student newspaper the Eyeopener that she plans on taking vacation time to help out in British Columbia, adding that the campaign plan is within the CFS mandate and budget. “For us to lose this number of schools would be a disaster,” Loreto said.

Legal apologies have been used increasingly since British Columbia’s 2006 Apology Act was created, followed by similar legislation in 2007 by Manitoba. The effect of the legislation is largely to clarify that apologies will not legally count as an admission of guilt.

The B.C. Ministry of Attorney General, in “Discussion Paper on Apology Legislation” concluded that: “Evidence and experience suggests that many disputes could be resolved earlier, more effectively and less expensively if apologies were promoted within our legal system.”