Not only does JIUS and the BCFS provide campaign and advocacy work, we also run and administrates services to make students’ lives easier. Whether it the Deals App that saves members hundreds of dollars per year, or purchasing networks that save member local students’ unions thousands, the BCFS uses the collective buying power of 170,000 members to make a difference.

Support and Wellness Services

Many students aren't covered by a health and dental plan while in school, and buying an individual plan is incredibly expensive. By working with the BC Federation of Students, the Justice Institute Students' Union has joined the BC Student Health Consortium and joining the students' union will allow eligible students to have affordable extended health and dental. Eligible students with equivalent health and dental benefits will also have the ability to opt-out of the JISU plan.  

The Federation works with Green Shield Canada, Canada’s leading not-for-profit insurance provider to provide students coverage on prescription drugs, dental, paramedical services, vision care, among other things.

The BCFS also partners with an online clinic service called Go Evisit which allows students to visit a doctor via an app at no charge and provides members with access to a telephone legal assistance plan.

The Deals App

Being a student is expensive: with increasing tuition fees, the outrageous price of textbooks, rent and other monthly bills, it all adds up fast.

To help make your day to day life a little more affordable, the Federation and its member students’ unions partner with local businesses to provide student discounts. The Deals App is a free app for BCFS members that provides you access to hundreds of discounts across BC – it includes a map feature, an option to bookmark your favourite discounts, and a digital card to show businesses. Our student discount program helps students save money on services and at restaurants, retail shops, fitness studios and even travel companies across BC.

Members Handbook and Dayplanner

Since the late 1990s, the BC Federation of Students has coordinated the Members’ Handbook and Dayplanner service, with the aim of improving the overall quality of student dayplanners and reducing the unit costs of handbooks, particularly for small member locals, through economies of scale.

The handbooks consist of a local-specific section, a section about the Federation, and a calendar and time management pages. The books are produced with full-colour pages, vegetable based-ink, and high quality paper. The Federation subscribes to high sustainability standards, and works with companies who do the same.

The Justice Institute Students' Union has joined the BCFS in creating a handbook and dayplanner just for JIBC members that can be picked up for free at the students' union office.

Ethical Bulk Purchase

The BCFS can secure low-cost, but high quality sustainable and ethical promotional materials for students' unions to give away to their members for free. Together, we have saved student unions in BC thousands of dollars on their bulk-purchase giveaway items.

Last year, the Federation and its member local unions gave out over 8,000 water bottles, 21,000 pens, 10,000 campaign buttons and 3,000 phone wallets free to our members and are committed to working together to make campuses sweatshop-free.

U-Pass

A U-Pass provides students with unlimited trips on public transit for one low monthly fee. Students at every public post-secondary institution can particpate in the U-Pass programs.. except the Justice Institute - we've previously been excluded because we haven't had a students' union, which is one of the main criteria.

Expanding membership of the Justice Institute Students' Union allow us to enter negotiations to join existing U-Pass programs. However it would ultimately only be implemented after a referendum on campus to determine if students want the students' union to pursue adding this as a service to members.