A federal advocacy fee was approved at the 2025 annual general meeting, which will cost students $1 per term. WUSA is currently partnered as observers with the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA), which takes care of student lobbying at the federal level. Without a dedicated fee being added to all students’ term bills, WUSA would be forced to withdraw and, as a result, UW students will lose federal representation in the form of lobbying through an external third party. 

On March 26, WUSA gathered for its 2025 annual general meeting. During this meeting, many hotly contested subjects were brought forward and eventually voted on following an intense debate. For an overall recap of the 2025 AGM, click here. To gain a more detailed understanding of what motions were being brought forward and voted on, click here. 

Arya Razmjoo, 2024-2025 WUSA vice president who proposed this motion, discussed why it should be passed. 

“Something for folks to understand – we at WUSA already do provincial advocacy. But it’s a little bit more iffy when it comes to federal. This year, we had the opportunity to join CASA as an observer – we went around and got to actually do real, robust, powerful federal advocacy,” Razmjoo said. 

“Federal advocacy costs money, and it’s something we have to pay if we want to continue to do,” he said, adding that Indigenous and international student challenges are addressed at the federal level. 

UW student, Anthony Chen, who also brought forward motions to freeze WUSA fees and reduce Imprint fees, suggested an amendment. “I don’t think we should be nickel and diming students for every new fee – like $1 here, $2 here, we have existing categories of fees and we should use them.” 

He suggested folding the fee into the existing Academic Support & Advocacy Fee, which according to WUSA’s website, provides a student voice to local, provincial, and federal governments to ensure education is accessible, affordable, and of the highest quality for all students.

The amendment was eventually defeated after the majority of students voted against it. 

The conversation was diverted back to the original amendment itself. Former vice president Katie Traynor recommended voting against the motion. She explained that WUSA joined CASA at the end of her term around May 2024.

She said that WUSA does not need to join CASA to complete federal advocacy priorities, and that this type of decision made by CASA’s board to change their mind of WUSA’s observership was not beneficial to students. “I don’t believe WUSA should be a part of an organization that unilaterally made a decision to devoid agreements in a contract we made with them that would entitle us to the same rights as a member for two years,” Traynor said.

“By CASA making this decision, they are speeding up processes of forcing student unions to become observers and prioritizing collecting fees from us rather than allowing our student leaders to learn from their practices and then make a faithful decision about whether we want to join their organization.”

Ramzjoo said that WUSA is still an observer until 2026, but decided to become a member because they believe in the value that CASA offers. He added that WUSA left UCRU (Undergraduates of Canadian Research-Intensive Universities) this year – an organization with no fee – because “they failed to do effective advocacy.” He said that CASA comes with five full-time staff, and about 28 other member schools who believe in them. 

Traynor said that WUSA does not need another organization that may have staff to do advocacy. “We have our own advocacy staff too, that are more than capable of doing provincial, federal and local advocacy,” Traynor said.

The motion eventually passed.