You think for $350,000 dollars, their legal actions should be less predictable
I wrote the other day that the Canadian Federation of Students* (or Canadian Federation of Students – British Columbia or Canadian Federation of Students – Services) likes to play a game of semantics.
My exact words were:
* (CFS legal threats usually revolve around claiming that the three are completely separate and that one of the other two did it. It is like brat siblings. You ask them who did it and they all point to each other with no one taking responsibility.)
As Colbert would say, “I called it!”
Today, the Canadian Federation of Students National Office in Ottawa (I apologize for saying your name in vain — please don’t sue me) released the hounds lawyers on another group of students.
The CFS-National office is demanding a public apology from students at Kwantlen for misrepresenting the national office by distributing a press release that states that the CFS authored the plan. Basically, the national office is angry that the Kwantlen Students Association is calling the leaked “internal to CFS-BC and CFS staff” referendum plan a CFS document instead of a CFS-BC document.
My first thought on this was that it is another frivolous lawsuit by the Canadian Federation of Students based on semantics. After all, the CFS spent over $350,000 on legal fees in 2005-2006 (the year of the infamous and costly Travel Cuts lawsuit). Even if that year was an exception, the organization usually budgets $75,000 in legal fees per year (context: Canadian University Press budgets $5,000 per year). They’ve got to give those lawyers something to do.
Then I thought about it and I don’t blame them for wanting to have nothing to do with the BC office. I wouldn’t want anything to do with them either.