UBC’s student association will bid farewell to the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, a national student lobby group, in April, it announced yesterday.
UBC’s Alma Mater Society, Canada’s largest student association, will then remain independent for at least one year and focus more on provincial issues, said society president Blake Frederick.
“It was in council’s opinion that we do not have sufficient influence over the lobbying priorities and also over the general direction of the organization to justify the level of investment that we put into the organization,” said Frederick.
Frederick also pointed out that while AMS wants to fight causes at the provincial level, CASA is more concerned with federal matters.
AMS makes up about 20 per cent of CASA’s membership, but Frederick said the lobby group’s one-organization, one-vote rule curtails AMS’s agenda-setting ability.
After a year of independence, AMS will re-evaluate whether it wants to align with another student lobby group, such as the Canadian Federation of Students.
