Of course, I am an activist who has, from time to time, been very critical of the university administration — especially in my role as a member of the university’s Senate. Indeed, freedom of information requests revealed that Western, at the highest levels, had been following my trajectory and stated advocacy objectives very closely. Thus, it was no surprise that the administration sided with the administration-friendly Ms. Simpson despite her mean-spirited treatment of me.

It was certainly surprising that, in the end, the student society itself threw out the accusation of “harassment,” as did Campus Police, but university administrators — under the university’s panoptic “Code of Student Conduct” — found a way to make the accusation stick, in part by all but ignoring the harassment complaints that I had filed. Since then, the university has tried to block countless information requests that I have submitted about its “investigation” into the matter — an investigation that was led by an “external” lawyer (Elizabeth Hewitt) who, it turns out, used to sit on the Board of Governors at one of Western’s affiliated colleges. “External” indeed.

As for the court’s decision — in which one of the three judges dissented strongly in regards to the first argument — my counsel and I believe strongly that it the court erred in regards to all three arguments. An appeal is likely because the precedents established by the court’s decision are simply too dangerous — especially for the wrongly/maliciously accused, activists/dissenters, and the autonomy of student societies.

Keep up the good work.

I would like to know what can be done legally if a university closes down a PhD program because of reviewer concerns? It seems like they would permit students to finish their degrees but then shut down the program…would this not devalue my degree?

Thanks!

Kate

It was wholly out of the blue when I discovered the link at Reddit, however I was pleased I did…

If those are still tax exempt too, then this change will serve to decrease competition on campus.

“…the fair use of a copyrighted work … teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include —

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
…”

It is important to note that the US generally works in a model of infringing or fair use, whereas Canada relies on a levy system. Therefore, when they carve out an exception to infringement (and I usually prefer to think of copyright as carving a protection out of the public domain, but anyway). they carve it out completely. The counterattack is to narrow the applicability of that exception, as they’ve done with the DMCA, the Sonny Bono Term Extension (see Eldred v. Ashcroft), etc.

In Canada, we don’t broaden or narrow the exception so much as vary the levies charged by the central collection bodies depending on the nature of the dealing. Radio stations pay one levy, DJs at private gatherings pay another, and schools and libraries are subject to other classes of levies.

What is interesting to note is the fourth characterization of the “fair use” in the U.S. Act:

“(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.”

This seems to go to the heart of Access Copyright’s argument. The Canadian Act does not give carte blanche to educational institutions, but rather a narrow set of educational permissions. This seems to create a very large area in which the Board, Access Copyright, etc., can allow certain use if a levy is paid, and otherwise puts a heavy onus on the educational institution to frame its use within the fair dealing exceptions. Michael Geist has been calling for a radical opening of these exceptions for years.

You guys missed out on slavery and its sequels, the Ku Klux Klan and public lynchings. You also missed out on the Puritans with their taste for minding other people’s business, their tendency to publicly enforced hysteria and their hunger for punishment, the more severe the better.

Theocracy went out of fashion in the future US after the 1692 witchcraft trials (although some have lately been trying to bring it back) but the politics of hysteria in the US never really died.

It’s just that I thought Canada was sort of exempt from all that.

Now, we see a campaign to destroy the medical practice of the doctor father of a 17-year old high school student, apparently because he is judged to be a bad father (by people who don’t need to know him, of course). I guess Canada isn’t exempt at all, any more than it’s exempt from alcohol-fueled riots after championship sports events. But we already knew about that part, didn’t we?

I would like to know if there is a way we can complaint against the university for raising the fees by 250% without proper notice?

Andrew

I had a look at your law blog – very well done! I’m also
interested in commercial law and have studied accident and
insurance issues as well as partnerships.

Best of luck,
Alex

Given how much the KSA has cost CFS in legal fees and bad press, I think it would have been in the best interests of CFS to let KSA leave in the 2008 referendum.

Kelsey, I’d encourage you to take a bigger picture view of the tuition question, as well. A university is more than it’s finances. Uni administrators write up the budgets and do their damnedest to present increases as necessary. Compare faculty hires to admin hires and see what past increases have paid for. Has your uni made use of past increases as well as they should have? Where does the buck stop?

I serve on a University Board of Governors (I know this is the Unversity Act, so different legislation than the Society Act..), and I am expected to make decisions in the best interest of the University. However, as an elected student representative sitting on the Board of Governors, when they put forward a motion to reduce tuition, an interesting conflict arises for elected representatives:

- If I am to make a decision in the best interest of the University, then a vote to raise tuition is clearly the best vote as it supports the University financially.

- But if I am to make a decision as a representative of students’ interests, then I should be voting to oppose tuition increases.

I’ve heard insinuations from people that favour either of these viewpoints. Some even accuse student Board of Governors of being in a ‘conflict of interest’ when they vote on tuition… surely the University Act of BC contemplated for students to act in the best interests of their constituency when they provided them voting spots on the board… no?

The CFS situation with Kwantlen is similar to this, in that CFS-BC is claiming that by campaigning to leave the CFS, Derek Robertson was acting against the best interest of CFS-BC. In contrast, the KSA looks at him as an elected representative who should be able to speak freely against the interests of the federation since he was elected by Kwantlen students to represent their viewpoints.

The CFS has a long history of legal battles with student associations. Titus Gregory’s paper “In Solidarity for their Own Good” has a great appendix describing many of the legal disputes that have occurred between student associations and the CFS:

http://uoleaks.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/solidarity-paper.pdf

In particular, I believe that CFS membership rules to leave may become a great example of what the “oppression remedy” could be used for under the Canada Not-For-Profit Corporations Act that will come into effect in a few years. The CFS holds the sole authority to define what the rules to leave are, and has, recently, made them incredibly complex and difficult for student unions to attain. At some points, these requirements must hit the criteria of ‘oppressive’.