Casa suing UMSU for unpaid membership fees

TESSA VANDERHART STAFF

The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) has filed a lawsuit against the University of Manitoba Students’ Union (UMSU), alleging that UMSU did not pay 70 per cent of its 2004-05 membership fees.

UMSU voted to leave CASA on Feb. 10, 2005, to pursue membership in the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS). CASA is a rival national lobbying organization, of which UMSU was a member from 1996-2005.

CASA filed a statement of claim on April 10, 2007 alleging that “UMSU failed or neglected to pay by October 1, 2004, or at all, the remainder of its membership fees for the 2004-2005 fiscal year of CASA, despite demand being made of it for payment of the outstanding $28,808.”

It goes on to state that UMSU notified CASA of the termination of its membership on Feb. 11, 2005. As such, according to the statement of claim, “UMSU has thereby wrongfully deprived CASA of its funds while at the same time enjoying the benefit of membership in CASA, and has breached the contract it had in place with CASA, the terms of which are evidenced in CASA’s constitution and bylaws.”

CASA’s bylaws stipulate that a financial penalty of three per cent compounded every 15 days be assessed on late membership fees. Churchill said that he could not provide an exact figure for legal reasons, most notably that the precise amount has not been set out by UMSU and CASA’s lawyers, but a simple compound interest formula puts the total well over $200,000.

UMSU responded to the statement of claim with a request for particulars on May 22, 2007. UMSU requested that CASA provide “a description of the alleged benefits allegedly enjoyed by the Defendant” during the 2004-05 membership year.

UMSU also requested more information regarding the date and year that UMSU became a member of CASA, how it was bound by CASA bylaws developed after UMSU joined the organization, and whether it is alleged that UMSU voted in favour of a bylaw amendment that assesses the interest rate of three per cent every 15 days on late membership fees.

Zach Churchill, current executive director of CASA, said that the lawsuit is “unfortunate.”

“We’re a small NGO, a not-for-profit organization,” Churchill said. “We just can’t allow organizations to take advantage of us.”

“They defaulted on their membership fees, which is unfair to us and our members.”

Churchill said that CASA’s board decided to pursue the lawsuit sometime last year after requesting a payment from UMSU and sending a collection agency.

Churchill also said that the lawsuit is “primarily the result of UMSU’s defaulting on the fees,” and not the result of the contentious process by which UMSU left CASA in 2005.

“It’s also really important to take from this that this was a decision made my our members, and this is a decision that our membership is fully behind, because they believe that this membership is owed to them, and that it’s unfair for this money to be kept from us,” Churchill said. He explained that the decision to pursue the lawsuit was made by CASA’s elected board and relayed to the member students’ unions.

“To be blunt, it’s unfortunate that members of CASA are suing students at the U of M. This is something that seems to be a growing trend for CASA — as we are aware, they are also suing the students of McGill,” said UMSU president Garry Sran.

Sran said that because UMSU has not filed its statement of defense yet, so Sran said he could not comment on “the details” of whether the students’ union paid its fees in 2004-05.

Amanda Aziz, 2004-06 UMSU president and current CFS national director, also declined to comment on whether or not the fees were paid.

The UMSU budget update approved by council on Jan. 27, 2005 indicated that $12,346 of CASA fees had been paid at that time, with $29,564 remaining.

At the UMSU council meeting held on Feb. 10, 2004, then-UMSU councilor Kalyn Bomback reminded council that UMSU owed $41,000 in membership fees.

Dana Gregoire served as St. Paul’s College representative to UMSU council in 2004-05, the year that UMSU did not pay its CASA fees. Gregoire was one of four councilors who opposed the motion to leave CASA because of the questionable legality of the process. He recalled the debates as having “lots of problems with conflicting information” regarding the process of leaving CASA.

The primary concern at the Feb. 10 council meeting when UMSU voted to leave council was not the fees — they were still allocated in the budget — but whether UMSU should leave CASA by a majority or two-thirds vote of council, or a referendum.

According to UMSU bylaws, the process for leaving a national organization must be the same as the process for entering it.

At that same council meeting, then-UMSU director of student affairs Josh Mason said that UMSU had entered CASA in 1996 by the decision of the UMSU president and vice-president, at a meeting that did not have quorum.

Leaving CASA was also controversial because UMSU joined the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) as a prospective member in 2004, while still a member of CASA. Then-UMSU president Aziz served on the CASA board of directors for 2004-05 and was elected Manitoba representative to the CFS in November 2004.

Sran said that the process by which UMSU left CASA was not a factor in the lawsuit.

According to Churchill, CASA does not plan to launch a similar lawsuit against the University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union, which left CASA around the same time. The Students’ Society of McGill University left CASA in 2005, and joined the CFS in 2006.