Nip U students settle on CFS

Nipissing University students have recently chosen to keep the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) as its lobby group.

The Nipissing University Student Union (NUSU) held a referendum on the issue March 23 and 24. Nearly 75 per cent of the 1500 students who participated, voted in favour of keeping CFS.

“We’re in now and we have to work with them,” NUSU president Simone Ince, said.

Ince explained why NUSU believes that Nipissing students should not be represented by the CFS.

“They haven’t been a presence on campus,” Ince said.

“Most Nipissing students didn’t know who they were.”

She said that CFS had been focusing more on helping students in the GTA than those in less populated areas.

“We rarely see the rep on campus,” Ince said.

Ince also explained that the $13.10 charged to students “wasn’t the prime reason” for the referendum, but was an issue.

“We felt we could find the same representation as CFS at a lower cost,” Ince said.

She explained that NUSU had not decided on an alternative lobby group for the university, but costs through other groups were significantly less.

In the weeks prior to the vote, NUSU launched an extensive campaign in the weeks prior to the vote to encourage students to fire the CFS.

Ince said that the total cost for the campaign will be under $4,000, and all students will be able to view the total costs when they are tallied.

Jesse Wright, a Nipissing University student and volunteer for CFS, explained why CFS is an important group to have representing the university.

“The most major accomplishment of CFS is definitely the tuition fee freeze,” Wright said.

“They also held a huge review of Bob Rae's review call.”

Wright explained that he believes students didn’t understand NUSU reasons for leaving the CFS.

“People don't understand NUSU's claims,” Wright said.

Wright explained that because of NUSU’s claims it lead him to believe that there may be “internal reasons” why the student union wanted to leave the CFS.

“I'm not saying that NUSU is a bad organization,” Wright said.

“I'm saying that it all seems a little sketchy.”

Wright believes that NUSU’s claim that the university does not get its “money’s worth” out of CFS is unfounded. He said that it is NUSU responsibility to attend CFS meetings.

“They are to sit in on meetings and bring back info, campaigns, petitions and any information that CFS is currently working on” Wright said.

“We’ve missed almost every meeting since the beginning of last year.”

Ince denied any “internal reasons” for wanting to leave CFS.

She believes students voted the way they did because they thought they were voting on other issues.

“They’re motivation was not only CFS.”