The “Motion 6” Bind

I’ve been following the 2009 Annual General Meeting of the Canadian Federation of Students, where (more-or-less) 2/3 of the delegates voted in favor of Motion 6, a motion that make members defederation much more difficult.

The first clause of Motion 6 is “Raising the petition requirement from 10% to 20% of students in the member local”; this alone makes No the only responsible vote. Most Canadian university campus are not politically active – 20% sets a higher bar for initiating referendum than most total voter turnout (see diagram).

Now that it passed, all CFS members are effectively chained for life. I hope UVSS manage to get out from this organization while it still can this year.

Notes
See EyeOnTheUVSS for links to the most recent articles and backgrounders. You are welcome to make use of the diagram, or contribute data to it.