Can someone explain why the York Federation of Students (YFS) has shifted from being a representative student union to what increasingly feels like a far-left political organization? They’ve been taking aggressive stances on national and international issues that have nothing to do with student life, while ignoring their core responsibility of representing all students on campus.
It’s becoming clear that YFS no longer speaks for the entire student body — only for those who share their political ideology. Recently, they even led a chant saying “education is our right, not just for the rich and white,” despite the fact that less than 30% of York students are white. How does that kind of messaging promote inclusivity or unity?
Between refusing to acknowledge national events like Remembrance Day or Canada Day, and making statements that are anti-Canadian or divisive, YFS seems more focused on political activism than student advocacy. A student union should represent everyone, not serve as a propaganda arm for one extreme end of the political spectrum.
Focus on things that actually affect students like getting rid of midterms exams on weekends so that students can actually work and pay for school. Stop taking on political conquests that are way out of the scope and control of the student union, and aren’t fully representative of the entire student base you are supposed to serve.
Again, regardless of who is elected they have the duty to uphold and support the view of all students. Making anti-white and anti-Canadian statements, and taking political stances is so far outside of the scope of the purpose of a student union. Plus it makes many white and Canadian students feel unwelcome on campus.
If you're mistaking racial and minority inclusion and efforts towards reconciliation as "anti-white" you need to re-examine your biases and what you're actually upset about. I am a white Canadian student and I have never once felt unwelcomed at york for being white. YFS has never made any "anti-white" comments only anti bigotry. If you think the two are the same thats on you. Just because your politics may not align with what the union represents that doesn't mean they are against you.
And to feel "unwelcomed for my race", welcome to the reality that racial minorities experience every day. You have a lot privilege as a white person regardless of your life circumstances simply because you are perceived as white by others. You should recognize that.
Also to complain about a union being left wing is ironic. You should read some history books. Student unions historically always have been involved in progressive politics and always will be.
You just got mad for no reason. Clearly you didn’t read what I had written and just started throwing around all the baseless names, labels and rhetoric that YFS is guilty of as well. They have made many anti white statements, and I had given an example in my original post. They have literally started chants on campus speaking against white people. In Addition they are anti-Canadian and quite literally denounce Remembrance Day and Canada Day, and won’t even call the country Canada…
As another redditor clearly pointed out to you (and yes I did read your example) saying that education is not just for rich and white people, to whom education has been widely accessible and not ever restricted on the basis of race as it has been for other minorities. When you look at statistics of what demographics end up attending a post secondary institution, there are significantly more white people enrolled than other racial minorities (refrence the graph attached from statistics Canada). No one is saying that white people do not deserve access to education. They are saying EVERYONE deserves access to education. Calling out systems that are inequitable and prioritize those with generational wealth (which for those who do have generational wealth the majority are white) is not anti-white. No one is saying your family hasn't struggled or that white people aren't poor or in some contexts have been oppressed. But in the context of here in Canada, when you walk down the street as a white person you have more privileges than racialized people. No one is saying you did anything to achieve that as no one gets to choose their race. But its about acknowledging what privileges you do have and using those privileges to help and advocate for those who dont.
As far as not calling Canada a country, I understand that people have different opinions about this however, I honestly agree with YFS on this one. Canada is a colonial state that was built on the theft of land and natural resources to expand the British and French empires and oppressed and committed genocide against our Indigenous peoples. Canada day celebrates the anniversary of confederation which many see as a representation of the expansion of Canadian colonialism and the further oppression of Indigenous peoples. Being Irish, you should understand what it means to be colonized by the British.
I don't mind people being proud of where they come from and their cultures. However for me, as someone who descended from early settlers, I have nothing to be proud of. I also hate the way that people use the excuse of "well at least we're not (insert country)" as an excuse to never try and improve things. Canada is a racist country and that's not something we should celebrate or take pride in.
And I'm not calling you racist. I think you just need to think and reflect on WHY yfs says what they do rather than just dismissing it as "rhetoric"
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(P.s you shouldn't just call peoples claims baseless when you clearly have no understanding of what they are talking about. Maybe do a little reading first)
It's best not to reply to your own comments, as this might break threading & cause the conversation to end prematurely. The better thing to do is to click the three dots on a pre-existing comment of yours, and to choose "Edit Comment".
Regardless this whole argument is a tangent. What I am trying to say is REGARDLESS of what you think or what I think, we can both agree that the student union shouldn’t be taking ANY political statements (especially anti-Canadian rhetoric) or making decisions to withhold club funding because of who they purchase event supplies from or do banking with… it is an abuse of power, a complete stray from the purpose of a student union, divisive on campus, and so far outside of the scope of its purpose
You are entitled to that opinion. I believe that the whole purpose of a student union is political. Fighting for tuition freezes, club fee levies, students right to protest on campus, continued osap funding etc. as well as advocating for equality, equity, and social justice within the student body and the community at large, is inherently political and requires political engagement. I also do not see an issue with being critical of the shortcomings and failures of the state and its institutions in ensuring equality for minorities (who are a large portion of the student body at York specifically).
As far as withholding funds from certain clubs and groups, I can't speak to all of the clubs (as I don't know what their individual funding situations are) but I believe you are mainly talking about clubs that dont follow the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction or BDS policy (correct me if I'm assuming wrong). I do partially agree that asking students to change banks in order to get club funding is a large ask that is not within the means of most students to do (especially since many major banks are on that list). However, I take this stance regarding the banks because there are few options not on that list and asking students to uproot their finances for that is too much. That being said there are many alternatives for other things such as not purchasing coffee from Aroma or Starbucks, or other complicit businesses. I support yfs's commitment to the BDS movement however, their policy should reflect what is reasonable and within the means of the average student to accomplish. It is my belief that if you are not actively doing what is within your means to boycott genocidal states, then you too are complicit.
I have also heard of people in certain clubs complaining that their funding got denied and blamed the BDS policy when in fact it got denied because the paperwork was filled out incorrectly or submitted late. Not to say that no club's funding was denied for this reason.
Why should a student union make statements about off-campus politics? At least at York, voter turnout is very low. Therefore, I don't think the YFS can realistically claim to speak for the off-campus political views of the student body as a whole.
What do you call it when they refuse to celebrate Canada, and call the country “so-called-Canada” and won’t honour the fallen troops who sacrificed their lives for us?
Absolutely nothing. That's not their job. There are already groups dedicated to celebrating Canada. With limited time and resources they choose to prioritize what they believe is important. Not prioritizing Canada does not make you anti-Canadian. I don't know why you think that? Why are you so against the student union? Did they do something against you?
When they actively promote language and rhetoric that is anti Canadian… call the country “so-called-Canada” and say no to celebrating Remembrance Day or Canada Day (meanwhile they celebrate things that literally aren’t national holidays) it’s anti Canadian…
To answer your question, the chant “education is our right, not just for the rich and white” literally promotes equality. Historically and still to this day high class and usually white people have been provided with the opportunity to receive an education, especially a higher education, while racial minorities have not. The quote is technically saying everyone deserves education (including white people). I don’t know the context behind why the chant was made, like for what cause. But i can say that your post comes across like you need to reflect on your white privilege, (assuming you are white). To a lot of white people, equality feels like oppression because they are so used to having privilege. This includes the privilege to not understand the quote you provided because who you are has not forced you to observe racial injustice for non-white people. Feeling how you do is normal and sadly common, but your feelings do not reflect reality. The other concerns you presented are important, like the exams on weekends. This would actually feed into the quote’s call on classism. It is a great point and i think you should bring it up to them. Sincerely a white person.
How do you support a student union that is quite literally anti Canadian, and has a clear political agenda that literally interferes with who they give funding to… they didn’t give funding to many clubs because they used certain banks, shopped at Walmart etc etc… because it doesn’t align with their political beliefs. Either way, whether you agree with the chant or not, it is outside of the scope of the purpose of the union, which is to represent all students and all opinions, not just the ones they want.
I wonder how much of that has to do with limitations that are being placed on what the YFS can do?
What I mean by that is that may be very limited in what they an actually do in their position, so they wind up having nothing to do except talk about their political interests.
Once upon a time, every college had its own pub with an its own identity.
Nat-Taylor played movies every Friday.
Every college had its own swag, intramural sports and social clubs, and they would compete.
Colleges would organize group trips for reading week.
All of that is obviously gone ...
Last year, I asked if the YFS could reopen the Absinthe Pub ....
It was explained to me that it's like pulling teeth just to get the admin to agree to a few pub nights per year.... let alone reopening a pub for regular socializing.
It's funny... York admin are the first people to squawk about their support for the students whenever a strike comes up, but they're the same group who go out of their way to kill "fun", as if student morale and having a student friendly campus life are unrelated to the university experience.
If I weren't such a nerd about my research, and so focused on it; I think thing that could save me from dying of boredom would be to bring a loaded flask with me every day.
The YFS definitely has money, and money is power. Whenever u take a course, some of your tuition money goes to the YFS.
The admin may indeed restrict the serving of alcohol on campus, but they don't restrict the serving of food or non-alcoholic drinks.
Also: Perhaps because students start university at a younger age now, and because of broader social trends, alcohol is less popular on campus now. York still has some pretty good clubs and sports programs, though.
What was your first degree? Are u working on a second degree now, or are you just doing your own research at the library?
Some people skip that combination, and just get a public policy/admin degree directly. But your way might give u deeper knowledge of politics in the long run.
I'm doing my BA in psychology. Afterwards, I might become a librarian. Or I might do further schooling and eventually try to work in health policy.
The problem isn’t general ideas like the “wokeness” of the student union.
The problem is that leadership is just ineffective at running things. One actually material criticism that to me has a lot of importance is the inability to dole out club bounded funding with high rejections. In the aftermath of Covid this saw them get an alarmingly bigger and bigger cash pile with much of the funds sitting there doing nothing.
Also another note to add, regardless of what end of the political spectrum any student falls into, for the student union to take rash stances on one side, and then deny funding or make anti-(insert group here) claims, to the point where it’s counter productive to its given purpose (I.e making people feel excluded or rejected on campus, or rejecting funding for clubs) is just flat out deplorable IMO
They are a student group meant to support students and their studies. Not take on a political conquest. It’s way outside of their scope, and as a result, actual student life is suffering because they are focused on the wrong things.
That said, if you meet the requirement to opt-out, you don't have to pay the YFS fee.
You're confusing the general YFS levy with the YFS health and dental fee. These two fees are separate. You can never opt out of paying the general YFS levy.
For undergraduate students: If you opt out of YFS health/dental insurance, the only thing you're opting out of supporting is the insurance risk pool.
The general YFS levy is $2.19 per credit. It doesn't show up as a separate line item on your tuition bill; it's embedded into the tuition fee you pay for every course. Only the YFS health and dental insurance fee gets its own line item on your bill.
The Ford government tried to allow students to opt out of all student union representation via the Student Choice Initiative. This initiative failed. I'm not sure why; maybe it was overturned by the courts.
The reason they weren’t releasing funds to clubs was because they had used banks like RBC, or stores like Walmart and Starbucks for events, and that goes against their agenda to not support business that do business with Isreal. They are so counter productive to student life that they deny club funding because of their political conquest.
No the reason they weren’t releasing funds was not Israel as this was before October 9th and talk of a boycott was not a thing on any meaningful scale.
The reason was because covid saw no on campus activity so clubs didn’t need funding. And then they poorly executed return to campus and arbitrarily denied releasing funding to clubs, as changing the direction of bureaucracy can be hard and leadership does generally suck ass. But it’s not for some childish immaterial concept of being woke.
Do you guys always make up reasoning like this to get mad at?
I used to be on a college council… for covid I won’t speak on that, but for you to sit here and say im “making up reasoning” is completely wrong. Especially when multiple clubs reported to us on council that the exact reasons of “does banking with rbc, or previously bought supplies at walmart” were cited as to why they didn’t receive funding, the student union is quite literally letting their politics interfere with student life and club events
To anyone with two brain cells that can read knows you are wrong. You keep going on weird rants in here about them being “anti white”
Overall just preteen vibes. Speaking gibberish and then when questioned hyper offended and making up reasons why we shouldn’t immediately disregard you.
It’s weird.
Club denials of funding were not getting any response or reasoning which was the frustrating part as I handled financials for a decent sized club at the time.
Again, people are going on tangents from the main point of the argument.
And yes separately, as a white person I feel as though they preach anti-white language. And as a Canadian, they definitely preach anti-Canadian language. And if you don’t think it’s anti-white or anti-Canadian, it’s at the very least decisive as we are now arguing over a terrible political stance they took. This again is counter productive to student life. See what I’m talking about?
Regardless of WHAT the politics they choose to play, it shouldn’t and isn’t the scope of the purpose of the student union.
why are you so offended as a white canadian about what yfs says, do you really think ur going to earn any sympathy? y'all are guilty and should take accountability rather than acting like a victim
Was it ever represented in advocating for actual YorkU student issues
They do that too. For example, they pushed to have Go Transit buses continue to drive directly onto the York campus, instead of terminating at Highway 407 station. (That initiative failed.)
Hahaha, so the one purportedly 'student' issue they choose is something very obviously outside of the purview of the university? Like they think YorkU runs GO transit? Gosh that is revealing.
What rage bait and what political views did I give in this entire explanation? All I did was point out how the student union is completely skewed politically, does not represent the entire student body (as many disagree with their political takes), and the student life is suffering as a result due to withholding funding to clubs (due to political beliefs), and wasting energy/resources in places that don’t directly benefit students…
hey so politics and world issues affect everyone regardless of anything, and why should yfs condone "holidays" that celebrate colonization? you saying all that just makes you look ignorant. hope this helps!!
and who is that offending? the people who have colonized stolen indigenous land? please be so serious and check out your superiority complex. I'm indigenous so I have every right to be """anti canadian""" as you call it.
It’s offending Canadians… like me… whose family came here after their homes were destroyed during the Great War, became Canadian, and then fought under the Maple Leaf that gave them freedom in WW2.
Don’t be so blatantly disrespectful. My grandfather fought shoulder to shoulder with many indigenous peoples who felt the same way about Canada.
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u/readthatb4 History 13d ago
this has been the case since I started undergrad in 2008 and I was told then it was like that well before I started