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In the words of an official protest statement, “students can get into CFS, but can never get out.”

For 32 years, the 500,000-strong Canadian Federation of Students has portrayed itself as the “effective and united voice” for Canadian student activism: The focal point through which all university student protests, campaigns and causes would flow. But lately, amid zealous charges that the body has hardened into an out-of-touch, money-squandering bureaucracy, the very student groups who once saw the CFS as their protector are now sharpening their knives to destroy it.

In September, to kick off the fall semester, a coalition of CFS dissidents from 15 schools released a tersely worded press release announcing their plan to stage a mass-withdrawal from the Canadian Federation of Students and smash its “control over local campus affairs.”

“Students don’t want to pay money into an organization that’s going to use it in lawsuits against other students,” said Jonathan Mooney, head of the McGill University Post-Graduate Students’ Society, which is in year four of a legal battle to exit the federation.

At issue, said Mr. Mooney, is the federation’s refusal to recognize a 2009 decertification referendum it alleges did not meet its requirements for a legal vote.

“They’re pulling out every trick in the book to make sure that this referendum isn’t recognized,” said Mr. Mooney.

They’re pulling out every trick in the book

This year, to make a point, McGill sent a second decertification petition via registered mail. According to petition organizer Ge Sa, the federation refused to pick up the petition until compelled by a bailiff — and even then it still came back to Montreal with “RTS” scrawled across the front.