CSU council votes down motion to send Art Matters fee levy increase to student ballot

Art festival’s two-cent increase blocked after over $3,000 spent on application process

NewsIndia Das-Brown — Published October 25, 2025 6 minutes

The 14–9 vote fell short of the two-thirds required, meaning that Art Matters’ proposed fee levy increase will not appear on the student ballot.

The 25-year-old arts festival has a current undergraduate fee levy of $0.08 per credit and has not sought a CSU-level levy increase since its inception, according to general coordinator Brigid McPhee.

The festival executive said during the RCM that, with inflation, it has become “almost impossible” to deliver the programming mandated by its bylaws. McPhee said that all the festival’s programming is completely free for students to attend in hopes of improving access to the arts and building community.

McPhee added that the “rigorous” fee-levy increase application package cost the festival over $3,000 and took four months of work, combing through archives for documentation on things such as board of directors’ meeting minutes, policies and bylaws, as well as hiring a registered accountant for a necessitated financial audit.

“It was essentially over $3,000 in money and then four months of time that was just shot down before students could even decide if they supported us or not,” McPhee told The Link.  

Other fee levy groups cite increased demand and cuts

North America’s largest student-run fine arts festival was not the only group to request a chance for a fee levy increase at the meeting. Also listed were the Concordia Food Coalition, CSU Clubs, CSU Daycare, CSU Legal Information Clinic, Queer Concordia, and Concordia Recreation and Athletics.

Councillors first elected to consider all fall fee levy applications as a single block. 

The block vote returned 60.86 per cent in favour, short of the two-thirds supermajority required under CSU policy. Thus, no applications passed to referendum in the block vote.

A push to revisit the decision led to procedural wrangling over Robert’s Rules and CSU bylaws, before the chair ultimately ruled that council could elect to move to individual votes on each group. 

Only Art Matters was voted on individually, following the reconsideration. The council elected to adjourn the meeting following this vote, and the remaining fee levy application questions were tabled to a special council meeting (SCM) scheduled for Oct. 29. 

Prior to the block vote, CSU legal representative Walter Chi-Yan Tom told council the service handled 311 cases in the last year, a 177 per cent increase from 2021, when the clinic last received a levy increase, and is running a $39,000 deficit this year. The Legal Information Clinic sought to increase its fee levy from $0.31 to $0.61 per credit to restore capacity.

Additionally, CSU internal affairs coordinator Leo Litke said that CSU Clubs is underfunded and that most club budgets were cut between 10 to 35 per cent this year. 

“This is just to give the students the opportunity to decide themselves whether or not to approve them,” said external affairs and mobilization coordinator Danna Ballantyne during the RCM. “I don’t understand why students don’t have the right to decide whether [a fee levy question] is important to them.”

Multiple councillors also noted that fee levy contributions are opt-outable, meaning that even if the levies are passed via student referendum, individual students could still opt out from paying the levies during tuition payment.

Council did not pose any questions to the guest speakers before the block vote.

“It’s really disappointing that if people didn’t understand, they didn’t ask questions,” Litke said.

Questions regarding political affiliations 

During the RCM, before the vote on Art Matters’ individual fee levy question, McPhee was asked several times about the festival’s political associations and whether it would welcome students who “believe in Zionism.” 

“Members of the affiliates were repeatedly questioning me regarding Art Matters’ political views and affiliation, and these questions were asked by self-identifying Zionist council members prior to the vote,” McPhee said in an interview with The Link. “I was asked the same question a number of times, and it felt like they were looking for an answer, or they were looking for us to endorse Zionism, which we do not.”

“It was essentially over $3,000 in money and then four months of time that was just shot down before students could even decide if they supported us or not.” — Brigid McPhee, Art Matters

Art Matters, as an affiliate of the Fine Arts Student Alliance (FASA), supports the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) policy that FASA adopted last year, McPhee said. 

“It was just really upsetting and also kind of confusing and shocking because I know the CSU had adopted BDS policies last year that was voted on by the CSU members, which are students,” McPhee added in the same interview. 

McPhee was referring to Jan. 29, 2025, when over 800 undergraduates voted to mandate the CSU to adopt two BDS motions. The motions targeted financial investments held in funds complicit in or benefitting from militarized violence, war, colonialism, apartheid and genocide. 

Other disputes

At the start of the meeting, councillor Ashley Steinwald moved to pull the external committee minutes from the consent agenda and disputed a motion to invite the Mohawk Mothers back during the CSU’s Anti-Capitalist Week. 

Also known as the Kanien'kehá:ka Kahnistensera, the Mohawk Mothers are a group of Indigenous women who have been advocating for the protection of unmarked Indigenous graves.

Steinwald questioned the committee’s compliance with the CSU’s evidence-based communication policy and whether past demonstrations endorsed by the Mohawk Mothers conflicted with Concordia bylaws. 

Ballantyne replied that the CSU is mandated to work with Indigenous groups and that prior collaborations aligned with the CSU policies. The external affairs and mobilization coordinator repeatedly asked Steinwald to cite particular policy violations. 

Councillor Ali Salman objected to Steinwald's comments regarding the issue. 

“We are people who stand by Indigenous justice, period,” Salman said.

Art Matters looking to file complaint with CSU

McPhee said she feels the CSU has left Art Matters in a “really precarious position.”

“I’m going to be looking into if I'm able to launch a complaint with the CSU, as I see, for lots of reasons yesterday, it kind of went against a lot of their policies and the things that they stand for,” she said in an interview with The Link.

McPhee declined to comment further on the potential complaint before taking time to research policy specifics.

With the CSU in its nomination period for its upcoming by-elections, McPhee urged students to vote for councillors who reflect their interests and concerns. 

“I think that students should be aware of what just happened,” McPhee told The Link, “[and] that they ensure that the students that sit [on] this council represent their views, as this council actually does have a lot of say in what's happening at Concordia.”

The RCM lasted nearly five hours and also included items on ratifying an executive decree and a proposed change to the start date of fall reading week. The remaining agenda points were tabled to the Oct. 29 SCM.

A previous version of this article stated that the CSU Legal Information Clinic saw a 176 per cent increase in cases since last year. In fact, the clinic saw a 177 per cent increase from 2021. The Link regrets this error.