In 2004, a vote split that occurred between a progressive and a moderate team running for office in the York Federation of Students resulted in the election of an ultra-Conservative and actively Zionist slate called, ironically, “Progress NOT Politics.” The team was headed up by YFS Presidential Paul Cooper – former President of the now-defunct York “Young Zionist Partnership” (YZP) and the York Canadian Alliance Club. Cooper’s VP-External was Alan Khan, another member of the York Canadian Alliance Club.
The PNP website domain was registered to Queen’s Conservative Club President Kasra Nejatian, who later boasted on his electoral website for President of the OPCCA:
“Kasra Nejatian was a policy and strategy advisor to York University’s “Progress – Not Politics!” team, whose conservative candidates won the largest victory ever achieved at that university’s student federation. The PNP took control of the entire executive and almost ninety-percent of council … Kasra and his team are committed to winning similar victories across the province.”
Once elected, Cooper and his croonies hired Kiley Thompson (OPCYA executive member and President of the U of T Conservative Club) to chair the YFS Council Meetings. They also hired Ryan O’Connor (OPCCA Vice-President and successful Millennium Leadership Fund candidate at the University of Waterloo in 2002) as the YFS Policy Analyst. Both Thompson and O’Connor were listed the next year as supporters of Nejatian’s electoral bid for President of the OPCCA.
While in office, Cooper and O’Connor set about implementing an agenda to gut all things democratic and progressive within the YFS:
- Cancelled the next elections to keep themselves in office;
- Endorsed the Stephen Harper Conservatives in the federal election and called for greater student debt through Income Contingent Loans;
- Organized a Pro-War Rally to protest a rally against the US-led invasion of Iraq (VP External Alan Khan attended the rally dressed as the Statue of Liberty);
- Eliminated the position of Vice-President Equity and Services;
- Cut funding to student-run services, like the York University Black Students’ Association, the Aboriginal Students’ Association and TBLGAY (the York Queer and Trans centre) – who they called “specialty groups”;
- Tried to unilaterally leave the Canadian Federation of Students without giving students a vote.
