CFS Day 2

Some of my notes from the opening plenary:

Concordia was not being allowed to enter the opening plenary session due to fee conflicts with the CFS, regarding overdue delegate fees. After requesting for their receipt that states how much the student union owes the CFS, Concordia was denied a spot into the national meeting to bring up the motion that was not included in the agenda due to its order. Concordia was also told they would have to supply a certified cheque for the repayment of their dues with two days notice before the national meeting today, an impossible feat. The motion was brought forward to the KSA delegates to speak on behalf of Concordia university as they were denied entrances in partnership with the UVIC student union. This motion was first attempted at the adoption of the agenda, and told that we would discuss it at other business. The Mcgill grads were in the same positions as Concordia with the CFS failing to recognize their referendum and defederation papers, which successfully achieved their quorum of 5% of the student body, and have the student vote to deferate.

During the opening plenary, I had to leave for the washroom. It was just down the hall from the conference room. I left to go and began walking, as I turned the corner someone was behind me. No-one else was really outside the conference center yet. I went into the washroom, and waited as he also came through the door. He finished the same time I did, and left the same time. Instead of heading directly back to the conference room, I turned left which is the opposite direction, and took a large loop before re-entering the conference center. He didn't let me out of his site once. As i sat down back at the table, he sat down at his. It was an interesting experience. Throughout the plenary, the individual sitting beside me was constantly reading any notes taken, texts sent or read, and notes typed on my computer.

On to the keynote speaker. She tends to do what the CFS do when looking at a problem. Associate it directly to a person or organization, and explain that the rich having money for education and not providing it to the lower class is wrong. It can be seen in the discussion she had for the fact that a single person is the cause of the recent economic downturn. The main message portrayed in this speech was that the hard working/successful people who live in the higher class families are treated too well, and should have to subsidize, or even pay for the lower class tuition.

once the discussion was open to all delegates a point of order was made regarding a missing motion from Mcgill grads defederation papers were not in order when mailed to the CFS, and the national executive had the right to remove such motions from the agenda, while not recognizing that local 79 was a member of the organization

These motions were allowed to be removed due to the national executives "interpretation" of the CFS Bylaws, and can be determined by a subjective decision making process.

Upon the motion to have Mcgill removed from the CFS a vote occured to allow them to leave it was detemined that by a 2/3 vote the are required to stay in the organization due to improper procedures used to defederate. The decision of the chair at that point was debated, although the motion remained as before and Mcgill was denied their removal. Local 91, also brought there defederation to the table, only to be told they must bring it up at the other business.this was the extent of the other business, which was never discussed but I will get to that in a bit.

The motions brought forth by the national executive were to be moved to the appropriate committees for discussion at the conference. All the motions discussed of importance where discussed in french. Each delegate was given a translator device which would allow each person to understand the session. As all motions being considered where discussed in french and the translator of the french language seemed to consistent miss key phrases, stop in mid sentence,and talk slow enough to be a full sentence behind the chair, the KSA delegate had a hard time understanding both what was being discussed, and even when the votes occurred, what we were voting for. When it cam to discussing motions for committees it was moved that the budget committee be approved through amnibus(all at one) while motion 13 was removed for the closing plenary vote and will not be discussed till them by any committees. Motion 12 was also removed from discussion. To see the motions check out: http://eyeontheuvss.blogspot.com/2010/05/empire-strikes-back-cfs-summer-2010-agm.html

finally the meeting came to the other business were each school attempting to defederate was allowed to plead their case. Although, this occurred around 5:00pm. while discussing local 91, the national executive took it upon themselves to delay for 10 minutes, and provide no distinct answers for the school. At exactly 5:30pm, the chair stated,"The translators are officially off duty, and cannot be used any longer for the discussion or other business at this time." All other business including the deferation of schools was dropped the meeting adjourned due to the convenient scheduling of the translators, after starting the meetings an hours late.

This is a basic summary of day to for more information feel free to contact me.