My good friend over at Take Back Your School sent me an email to share some incredibly shocking news about the Canadian Federation of Students Bi-Annual AGM being held here in Ottawa. I was absolutely incredulous by my young friends information.
If I had a child in university paying fees to these thugs, I would refuse to pay and I would shout it at the top of my lungs to school administrators. I would find other parents and I would band together.
I really admire these young people from Take Back Your School. They are fighting the good fight and they are fighting against incredible odds. Due to the anonymity of their group, they don't accept donations but I encourage Rightchik readers to lend your moral support by reading their blog and by commenting on it. And if you have the opportunity to help out in some other way, then please do so.
We all decry the lefty state of our campuses, these young people are dealing with it every single day. But this group of anonymous students get up every day and not only live with this nonsense, they find the strength to fight back! How can you not love these kids?!?! If I knew who they were I would buy them a round at their favourite watering hole. (hmmmm I wonder if I will soon get an invite...)
But back to the story at hand. I have decided to re-post from Take Back Your School as they tell their story best!
Gregory Kay assaulted and denied entry to CFS meeting
May 23, 2010
by takebackyourschool
Sorry readers for the lack of updates and delay in approving comments. Rather than sit around covering that joke of a meeting, I managed to get out and sort of enjoy what turned out to be a frigid day. Still can’t decide if that was the right choice.
While I was out, it seems the CFS meeting has turned into a giant clusterfuck in record time.
- The chair opened with a joke about the Harper government oppressing women in third world countries. (Oh right – that motion to be more non-partisan back in November was called “out of order”, wasn’t it?)
- Within an hour, Emma Godmere’s internet connection went down, and it was announced that there would therefore be no media coverage of this meeting at all until (maybe) Tuesday. She was also denied access to subcommittees.
- The translator’s shifts “just happened” to end right as PGSS was tabling a Motion regarding it’s defederation, and the session was cut short. In response, PGSS walked out.
So right off the bat, the CFS brainiacs alienated any conservatives that might be left in their federation, completely shut out the media altogether, and convinced a dissenting member local to walk out in protest. Bravo! (And they honestly wonder why all these schools want to leave?!)
All of that however, pales in comparison to this:
(excuse the first 1:23, camera was hidden at first so there is no picture)
My name is Greg Kay from York University, I am an elected member of the York Federation of students (Local 68). This Saturday May 21st I tried to enter the CFS AGM as an observer. The Monday before, I had called up CFS to ask to be an observer and was told to contact my local. So I asked both the Executive Director of the YFS Jeremy Salter and the person in charge of choosing delegates Vice-President of Campaigns and Advocacy, Darshika Selvasivam. On the phone she refused to contact CFS to ask for me to be a delegate and hung up on me.
I had been asked by constituents to see what would go on at the AGM and wanted to see for myself so I decided to attend the meeting and sit at the back as an observer. I arrived with a friend from Ottawa U at around 1:30 to the Westin and waited for the doors to open at 2:02. At about 2:15 I proceeded to try to enter the AGM. At the door greeting delegates was Krisna Saravanamuttu, the president of the YFS and the CFS Students of Colour Representative. I tried to get in yet was physically blocked. Then around 6 other people came quickly to block my way many of whom I could not identify but acted like they were CFS staffers. They had to block the entire entrance to the AGM out of fear of me coming in for about 10 minutes. I told them I wanted to come in and represent the constituents but they told me and my friend that we were not allowed in. Jeremy Salter, the Executive Director of YFS and Noah Stewart, the National Deputy Chairperson who I had spoken to from the CFS earlier about attending, both tried to convince me to leave as they called security. Eventually as I was escorted out by security. I asked Jeremy Salter why I wasn’t allowed in and how I could explain this to my constituents. His response…silence.
While trying to try to enter I was assaulted twice. Once on the arm by an individual as he tried to aggressively block me. The other was by Hamid Osman, Former president of YFS and current Ontario Representative of CFS. He grabbed me from behind to try and pull me out. The funny thing is while trying to get in I was told that I was undermining the democratic process by trying to get in and was also told that if they saw the video online I would be sued. Krisna Saravanamuttu also threatened me that if I pointed the camera at him he would take it from me.
After I went home I texted both Krisna Saravanamuttu and Jeremy Salter asking if they wanted to go out for drinks that night and explain to me what’s so secretive and why I wasn’t allowed in. I have yet to hear a response. :)
I know what you’re all thinking. Yes, it’s that Krisna Saravanamuttu.
There you have it. Our universities are mere training grounds for brownshirts. Be afraid people, be very afraid.
Gregory Kay assaulted by CFS staff from Takeback Yourschool on Vimeo.
I had no idea this was going on. Yes, Rightchik, I'll write something about it very soon -- not today as I have family arriving, but by tomorrow. This needs WIDE exposure for sure.
ReplyDeleteSandy, sadly this is just the tip of the iceberg! At Concordia last year, students kept singing nursery rhyme songs during a symposium hosted by a student pro life group. When the protesters were asked to engage in conversation they merely kept up with their disruption tactics. Look at the Ann Coulter event at the U of O - students could register for free where they would have had the opportunity to debate the object of their scorn - instead they chose to violently protest. I was in the room where the lecture was to take place and we had to leave by a back door for our own safety.
ReplyDeleteIt is a very serious issue. It's not just university professors indoctrinating our children, they are encouraging the use of fascist, totalitarian tactics to snuff out legitimate debate. These thugs really live the philosophy if you are not for us then you are against us.
It is disgraceful.
So someone who was not a delegate tried to crash a meeting? And was escorted out?
ReplyDelete*yawn*
It is a very serious issue. It's not just university professors indoctrinating our children, they are encouraging the use of fascist, totalitarian tactics to snuff out legitimate debate. These thugs really live the philosophy if you are not for us then you are against us.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds alot like Stephen Harper
OMG, you wingnut chicks are hysterical and LIARS. Can't you ever tell the truth?
ReplyDeleteHooo boy. Sister Sage spouting off about "Harper the totalitarian" again.
ReplyDeleteToo bad she's never produced anything even resembling supporting evidence -- except to her own demented mind.
Now that 24 is over, I have some time to speak about this at length.
ReplyDeleteJohn Baglow would apparently like to believe this is so simple as a non-delegate trying to barge into a meeting where he had no business.
One can quickly tell this isn't true.
Rather, this individual is an elected student representative who followed the proper channels to be designated as an observer, and was not granted observer status -- despite the fact that his organization the constituency he serves pays dues to the CFS, he is denied because those in control of the CFS fear that he'll disrupt their agenda.
It's fairly clear the stance Baglow wants to take on this: as the far left cotnrols the process by which delegate and observer status are granted, we'll simply deny such status to anyone who we disagree with, and thus we will be in the right.
Saravanamuttu is evidently particularly troublesome. His views regarding who the resources of students' unions belong to clearly indicate that he doesn't believe he's elected to represent students: rather that he gets elected to office, then acts in according to his own beliefs, and his own beliefs alone.
Thus how he can clearly feel so entitled to lock out anyone whose views differ from his own.
Allowing twatsy to take over your site is never a good thing.
ReplyDeleteI'll just offer facts, and let Patsy blabber on, as is his wont. History will decide. :)
ReplyDelete1) AGMs are organized on a delegate system. Locals send delegates, and accredited observers.
2) In my experience of AGMs--going back three decades or so--only delegates and accredited observers are permitted to attend (plus other very specific categories, like "guest"). If you don't have a credential, you don't get in. Period.
3)Being on the executive of your Local doesn't mean automatic entitlement to either delegate or observer status at an AGM.
3) The person in question did not receive either status. Patrick speculates wildly and freely about why this charmer couldn't make it in his Local. I have no idea, myself. But he didn't.
4) *yawn*
And yes, I used an idiosyncratic numbering system. My bad.
ReplyDelete"Now that 24 is over, I have some time to speak about this at length"
ReplyDeleteJack Bauer himself could not have envisioned a more torturous scenario.
;)
So then, in the estimation of Mr Baglow, all that matters is that the individual in question -- despite the fact that he is an elected student representative, and was assigned by his local to attend didn't have official observer status.
ReplyDeleteTHis despite the fact that, in the CFS, it's locals that designate delegates and observers.
So suddenly we're either supposed to believe that individuals who have a documented history of locking out opposing views aren't acting according to their established modus operandi, or we simply aren't supposed to care.
Well, Dawggy, you apparently can't convince us not to care, and you're not going to be able to convince us that
Saravanamuttu and company haven't acted to lock out opposing views.
I mean, when you can't get basic facts about the Holocaust right, no one really expects much of you.
As for JJ, well...
As I recall, the last time I even spared a passing glance in your direction was when you joined up with the Chickenwankers and were expressing your distress that I didn't care.
Shouldn't you be somewhere moping about that?
More boring facts:
ReplyDeletedespite the fact that he is an elected student representative
As noted, irrelevant.
and was assigned by his local to attend
Untrue. He was not assigned by his local to attend. The very reverse:
I asked both the Executive Director of the YFS Jeremy Salter and the person in charge of choosing delegates Vice-President of Campaigns and Advocacy, Darshika Selvasivam. On the phone she refused to contact CFS to ask for me to be a delegate and hung up on me.
Too funny YFS pretends they represent interests of students.
ReplyDeleteFunnier that CFS pretends they are interested in any democratic reform.
YFS President got demolished on Michael Coren for his position regarding the Tamil Tigers.
Any Student Union that supports IAW is a joke.
Silly little socialists-marxists that believe Cuba, China and Eastern Europe are role models.
"I had been asked by constituents to see what would go on at the AGM and wanted to see for myself so I decided to attend the meeting and sit at the back as an observer."
ReplyDeleteSounds rather different than what Baglow is suggesting here.
Then again, if we believed the Dawg, "very few" Jews were killed in Germany during the Holocaust -- history be damned.
Patsy keeps flailing. Stay down, Patsy.
ReplyDeleteThe Monday before, I had called up CFS to ask to be an observer and was told to contact my local.
Official observers to AGMs are accredited by locals. Just another boring fact.
Changing the subject won't get Patsy off the hook either. But, for the record, any student of the Wannsee Conference knows that the Final Solution was conceived to be carried out in Eastern Europe--not in Germany--and death camps were built in the East specifically for that purpose.
Last word on that here, though. Patsy derails threads. I try very hard not to.
Yawn.
ReplyDeleteDawg, your argument leads you to a dead end.
Not only was this individual asked by his constituents to attend this AGM as an observer, not only did he have every reason to be at that AGM as an observer, the CSF no reason to deny him status as an observer, but the CSF had no reason at all to block him from the meeting -- unless they have something to hide.
Baglow would, at this point, say absolutely anything to avoid admitting that Saravanamuttu and his cohorts have a history of locking out any view points that diverge from their own.
That's because Baglow very clearly approves of it.
Not that we take him seriously in any regard. After all, this is an individual who feigned ignorance about basic Holocaust facts to try and score points against his opponents -- and got humiliated in the process.
Just like Baglow tried to push cherry-picking over scientific polling in regards to the Tea Party movement and race issues -- and got humiliated again.
It kindo of explains his behavioru here. He's been humiliated so many times that he seems to have become immune to it.
Get along, little Dawgy. Nobody here cares what you think.
*sigh*
ReplyDeleteMore boring facts:
Not only was this individual asked by his constituents to attend this AGM as an observer
That's not how observers are selected. And we have no idea how many "constituents" (by which I guess he means "students") asked him. In any case, to repeat, there is a *procedure* for selecting credentialled observers. He wasn't selected.
not only did he have every reason to be at that AGM as an observer
Whatever his reasons, he didn't make the cut.
the CSF no reason to deny him status as an observer
That would be the YSF, and obviously they felt they did. No one is simply entitled to a credential to an AGM.
but the CSF had no reason at all to block him from the meeting -- unless they have something to hide.
Not having a credential as either a delegate or an observer would be a good reason. Your tinfoil helmet pinching a mite?
[extraneous comments snipped]
Once again, Mr Baglow would like this all to begin and end with the denial of credentials -- even if he can't justify that denial.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a sufficient explanation. If the CSF has nothing to hide, they have no reason to refuse observer status to anyone -- particularly an elected student representative.
With individuals like Saravanamuttu involved, it doesn't take a significant stretch of the imagination to suspect that skullduggery is underfoot -- and try as he might, Mr Baglow just can't explain it all away with the issue of accrediation.
Git along little Dawgy.
By the way, for those interested, the AGM is being liveblogged:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.scribblelive.com/Event/CUP__May_2010_CFS_AGM
Like I said: it's amazing the kind of things you can ram through when you've deliberately locked out dissenting views.
ReplyDeleteGame. Set. Match.
Game. Set. Match.
ReplyDeleteStop playing with yourself, Patsy.
You've been wrong on every single fact, and shown yourself incapable even of reading the post you've been commenting on. And those goalposts are really too heavy for just one man.
Back to square one: Greg Kay had no constitutional right to attend the AGM. Accordingly, he was not permitted to. End of story.
Oh, dear. I think John's about to get indignant.
ReplyDeleteWrong about every fact, you say?
You have clearly missed the point.
As an elected student representative, this individual was entitled to observer status, and was denied.
For the purpose of locking out a dissenting view, so those running the CSF could advance a specifically ideological agenda.
To date, your best defense has been "it's OK that we locked out dissenting voices because we locked out dissenting voices."
See what you did there, Dawgy? It's a circular argument -- one poorly constructed enough that it required no degrees of separation.
It's like saying Kevin Bacon is related to Kevin Bacon because he's Kevin Bacon.
I guess we could call this a "zero degrees of Kevin Bacon" argument. And it's about time for you to give it up.
Beyond that, how the hell do you lecture anyone on being wrong about the facts after your pair of performances at Jay Currie's spot?
If you had any sense of dignity, you don't.
So I guess we just nailed down what's missing here.
Well said Patrick!
ReplyDeleteIf you want to know how it all turned out, I've written an account of the CFS meeting here: http://eyeontheuvss.blogspot.com/2010/05/chains-that-bind-cfs-summer-2010-agm.html
ReplyDeleteThe socialist left won't wake up until the women are forced to wear a burka and pray 5 times a day - utter fools they are. The professors tell them that they are the special enlightened one, and being the narcissists they are, they lap it up. All my professors tried doing the same to me. I brought up how hypocritical it was to only allow debates on certain topics - so as not to hurt anyone's feelings and that it was really a way of silencing the opposition.
ReplyDeleteBut what do expect from a generation of people who have been brought up to expect a sandbox beneath their swing sets, slides, teeter-totters, monkey bars and climbing gym's so they don't fall and hurt themselves - wimps our play equipment was on a cement and tar mat. We were not afraid to ride two blocks without wearing a Helmut either. We learned to be tough, respect our limits, and those of others. Now all there is are a bunch of over protected sissy wimps who are fat, lazy and only know how to play video games and have no idea how to think for themselves, stupid enough to believe all the stroking from their professors is deserved. They expect promotions in the work place without earning them, and they expect to go through life not being offended - trading real rights like speech for fake rights like not hurting anyone's poor sensitive delicate feelings. These people grow up thinking that life always has a soft landing - it doesn't.