A new campaign targeting the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) has arrived on campus. RU Aware is a team of students that says it wants to generate discussion around Ryerson’s relationship with the CFS.
The campaign launched Monday, prepped with a press release, website and custom T-shirts.
Imad Ansari, fourth-year mechanical engineering student and member of RU Aware, says the team will spend the next two days speaking with students in hopes to educate them on Ryerson’s involvement with the CFS.
“We’re just regular students who really question the relationship with the CFS”, said Ansari.
The CFS is the largest national student organization, representing more than 60 Canadian university and college student governments.
After the two days, the group will start collecting petition signatures from students who wish to leave the federation. According to its press release, RU Aware hopes to collect 9,000 signatures within the week.
The campaign was inspired by the Ryerson Students’ Union’s concerns with the CFS earlier this year.
In September, the RSU released a joint letter signed by 10 post-secondary student unions from across the country, voicing the unions’ dissatisfaction with the CFS.
The CFS responded to this letter with recommended policy changes that could make it easier for unions to leave the organization. In order to leave the federation, a student union needs signatures from 20 per cent of its membership, but the new motion would lower that threshold to 15 per cent.
Ansari said RU Aware doesn’t have any direct affiliation with the RSU. He said the group does not have any executives or leaders, and he did not disclose member names.
A YouTube video posted to the RU Aware website is linked to the same account that published a promotional video for Impact, the current RSU executive slate. Andre Villanueva, who is featured in the video, ran for Impact in the last election.
Jennie Pearson is the Managing Editor for print and a News Editor at the Ryersonian.