[nfbwatlk] CNIB Article

[Alco Canfield]

Well, thinking further about all of this, the one pivotal thing I forgot is
that no matter who the director of an agency serving the blind is, he/she
must be knowledgeable and responsive to consumer organizations and blind
consumers in general.

Alco 

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Mary Ellen
Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2009 9:49 PM
To: 'NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [nfbwatlk] CNIB Article

Elizabeth put our position extremely well. We weren't mentioned because we
haven't entered the debate about whether the CEO of CNIB should be blind or
not. Our position is that, blind or sighted, the agency has no right to
speak for us. The most disturbing thing about this article, from my point of
view and that of the CFB, is the author's inability to distinguish between a
service provider and organizations made up of blind people and accountable
to blind people. His exact words about CNIB were:
Its CEO is the de facto leader of blind Canada.

Says who? That's like saying that Don Cherry, (of Hockey Night in Canada
Fame) is the de facto leader of Canadians who like hockey. Who elected him?
If every blind person in Canada had a vote, and if the election were open
and fair, then the head of CNIB could be the leader of blind Canada. But I'm
preaching to the choir. It's the press and the public who don't get it.
Frankly, a lot of the blind people who are unhappy with this appointment
don't really get it, either. Far better for them to hire a really good
sighted person than a blind individual who personifies stereotypes. We care
about results, not the mouthpiece proclaiming them.



-----Original Message-----
From: nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Jedi
Sent: May 7, 2009 6:37 PM
To: nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [nfbwatlk] CNIB Article



Alco,

Last I heard, there were six. The two mentioned in this article are the
Canadian Council of the Blind (CCB) and the National federation of the Blind
Alliance for equality (NFBAE). CFB wasn't even mentioned at all.


Original message:
> Hey, Elizabeth,

> How many different organizations of the blind are in Canada?  The 
> article cited one I don't know and can't remember the acronym.

> Alco

> -----Original Message-----
> From: elizabeth lalonde <elalonde at shaw.ca>
> Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2009 3:59 PM
> To: 'NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List' <nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org>
> Subject: Re: [nfbwatlk] CNIB Article

> Yes, the article has been circulating among our CFB executive. The 
> article doesn't surprise us, and neither does the hiring of a sighted 
> person. CNIB is only publically demonstrating what we in the CFB have 
> known for years, that CNIB is ill-equipped, ineffective and has no 
> authority to serve or to speak for blind people in Canada.
> It only reinforces The Canadian Federation of the Blind's 
> determination to build the Federation in Canada and to work to empower
blind citizens.
Blind
> people in this country must receive effective training and 
> rehabilitation and choice about where to obtain this training.

> We can no longer sit on the sidelines and wait for this to happen.  It 
> will not happen until we, blind people, make it happen.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org]
> On Behalf Of Jedi
> Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2009 2:55 PM
> To: nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org
> Subject: Re: [nfbwatlk] CNIB Article

> List:

> It's great that this new executive can reduce the deficit in budgeting 
> matters. But what about the deficit in services and positive attitudes 
> toward blind people? I personally don't think that having had a blind 
> grandmother makes someone qualified to lead a blindness organization.
> what experience does he bring to the table? I didn't see anything in 
> his credentials speaking to experience with blind people. Is he likely 
> to run the organization remembering the pity and sadness he probably 
> felt for his grandmother as she lost vision? I'm curious to know what 
> CFB members think. I find this article deeply troubling.

> Respectfully,
> Jedi

> Original message:
>> List Colleagues:
>> I saw the following article about the appointment of the new Chief 
>> Executive of the CNIB on the WCB list. Knowing that we have CFB 
>> members and others from Canada on this list, and because we all may 
>> be interested in this topic, I provide it below:

>> CHIEF DEBATES

>> Here are some other recent identity controversies:

>> National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The 
>> NAACP's selection of biracial Benjamin Jealous as president and CEO 
>> in

>> 2008 was criticized by a friend, columnist George Curry, who implied 
>> it recalled the days when members of the black elite had to be 
>> "light, bright, and damn near white."

>> A member of the search committee also wondered during deliberations 
>> whether a light-skinned man should lead a black organization.

>> "It would be beneath us to consider it," said chair Julian Bond.

>> Gallaudet University

>> "Deaf President Now" protests in 1988 brought academic I. King Jordan 
>> to the presidency of Gallaudet, the world's first university for the 
>> deaf.

>> Protests erupted on the Washington campus again in 2006 when provost 
>> Jane Fernandes, a deaf woman who uses her voice and learned American 
>> Sign Language only as an adult, was designated as his successor.

>> Many protesters said their issue was Fernandes's poor relations with 
>> students and a flawed search process. Fernandes said her critics 
>> thought she was not sufficiently deaf.

>> "We're in a little bit of an identity politics struggle on campus 
>> regarding who speaks for deaf people," she said.

>> Her appointment was revoked.

>> Daniel Dale This man can see the trees ... and that, some say, is the 
>> problem Debate stirs over hiring of sighted CNIB head Board defends 
>> choice as critics ask how it can lobby firms to hire blind when it 
>> will not do so itself May 3,

>> 2009

>> Daniel Dale STAFF REPORTER



>> When John Rafferty looks out the window of his modest third-floor 
>> corner office at CNIB's Bayview Ave. headquarters, he can see the 
>> trees of a wooded ravine.

>> This is why an advocacy group calls his hiring "a step backward."

>> This is why he speaks of "my unique challenges" and "taking time to 
>> understand" and being "extra careful." This is why the leader of 
>> another charity says a genial man with a sterling resumho left a 
>> lucrative private-sector job to occupy this corner office would, "in 
>> a perfect world,"

>> be somewhere else.

>> This is John Rafferty's burden. He can see. Rafferty's predecessor, 
>> Jim Sanders, was blind. So was his predecessor, so was his 
>> predecessor, and so was every top executive in the 91-year history of 
>> CNIB, formerly the Canadian National Institute for the Blind.
>> Rafferty, 43, is its first "sighted"

>> president and CEO.

>> His selection for the post has engendered a complicated debate about 
>> identity and employment equity within Canada's diverse blind and 
>> visually impaired community.

>> Some, like Sharlyn Ayotte, the blind CEO of Ottawa's T-Base 
>> Communications, argue the CNIB CEO should be selected "on merit 
>> alone."

>> Others, she says, argue "it's despicable they hired him."

>> There are many nuanced positions in between.

>> "I don't know," says Neil Graham, a blind computer company manager 
>> who supports the hiring, "if there is a right answer."

>> WEARING A BLUE DRESS shirt and a tie, Rafferty sits at a table in 
>> front of his tidy desk. He has blue eyes and salt-and-pepper hair. He 
>> speaks with the accent of his native England. He projects the low-key 
>> affability of a salesman

>> you would introduce to your wife after you wrote him a cheque.

>> Rafferty moved to Canada in 1986. He co-founded Canpages, the 
>> directory company, in 2005. As chief operating officer, he oversaw 
>> its growth to $100 million in annual revenue. When he told CEO 
>> Olivier Vincent he was leaving, Vincent, upset, offered him a raise 
>> and the title of president.


>> "I tried everything, including bribing him," Vincent says. "But no, 
>> he had to go. It took me about a week to realize he really had a 
>> calling."

>> Rafferty, who has held senior positions with Verizon in China and 
>> Poland, British Telecom and Dun and Bradstreet, had planned to seek a 
>> non-profit job, in the spirit of public service, when the younger of 
>> his two daughters graduated high school. She is still in Grade 11. He 
>> accelerated his schedule, he says, "only because it was the CNIB."
>> His late grandmother was blind for the last 20 years of her life.

>> Upon assuming the position in March, Rafferty embarked on a national 
>> tour, meeting the blind and visually impaired in every province.

>> CNIB is frequently criticized for failing to listen to the people it 
>> serves, he says. Part of his job is to convince 100,000 clients a 
>> sighted man is the empathizer many of them seek.

>> To prove his commitment to their cause, he says, he will likely have 
>> to try harder than would a blind man.

>> "I think it is true I can't fully understand," he says. "I can 
>> understand it intellectually, can understand it empathetically. I 
>> can't understand it 100 per cent. But I don't think there's anything 
>> I can't do in the job because I'm sighted."

>> The Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians agrees. The Alliance for 
>> Equality of Blind Canadians is also his fiercest critic.

>> "YOU MUST UNDERSTAND," says John Rae, the AEBC's first 
>> vice-president. "This is not personal."

>> CNIB is an 800-plus-employee behemoth, its $60-plus-million in annual 
>> expenditures dwarfing those of other domestic blind groups. It 
>> provides the most services training, counselling, camps, a national 
>> library and has the highest profile. Its CEO is the de facto leader 
>> of blind Canada.


>> In 2006, CNIB removed the word "blind" from its name, in part to 
>> convey its increasing focus on people experiencing vision loss. To 
>> the AEBC, says Rae, a retired civil servant, the hiring of a sighted 
>> man as CEO is yet another example of CNIB "turning its back on the 
>> people it was set up to serve."

>> Rafferty can certainly do the job, Rae says. By selecting him, 
>> however, CNIB has implied that blind Canadians qualified to lead a 
>> major organization do not exist.

>> How can CNIB lobby corporations to hire the blind when it will not do 
>> so itself?

>> Accustomed to discrimination, minority groups of all types ethnic, 
>> religious, disability can be exacting about the identities of the 
>> people who lead prominent community institutions. The intensity of 
>> intramural leadership debates can surprise outsiders.

>> "This community is very complex," says Susan Wolak, a Halton police 
>> officer whose son is blind. "Everybody doesn't play nicely in the 
>> sandbox."

>> The CNIB board knew the selection of a sighted chief executive would 
>> prompt criticism. They chose Rafferty anyway, says chair Al Jameson, 
>> "because most important to us were our 100,000 clients and the future 
>> of the organization."

>> When, in 2008, Sanders announced his intention to retire as CEO, the 
>> organization was running another budget deficit a year after bleeding
>> $11.9 million. During a recession, CNIB needed a proven executive who 
>> could quickly improve its financial situation.

>> A bylaw, however, reserved the top CNIB post for a blind or visually 
>> impaired person.

>> Uncertain they could recruit a suitable candidate from a limited 
>> pool, board members, and then general CNIB members, voted last year 
>> to eliminate the restriction.

>> The board still asked its search firm to seek out blind or visually 
>> impaired candidates. "If it had come down to two people, one guy who 
>> was blind and John Rafferty, with exactly the same credentials, the 
>> blind guy would've gotten it,"

>> says board member Terry Kelly, a blind singer and motivational 
>> speaker. "But that didn't happen."

>> Few qualified blind people applied, Jameson and Kelly say. Rafferty 
>> was the unanimous choice of the eight-person search committee, which 
>> had four blind members including Kelly.

>> "If you have a 747 to fly, you don't put a guy who flies a Cessna in 
>> the front seat," Kelly says. "There are blind people or people with 
>> vision loss out there who could absolutely do that job. However, 
>> they're off doing their own thing."

>> Kelly's intricate position illustrates the complexity of the debate. 
>> He praises Rafferty's listening skills and business acumen. He calls 
>> him "the absolute best choice." Yet he says better succession 
>> planning will ensure "we won't have this problem in the future."

>> Like Kelly, Harold Schnellert, national president of the Canadian 
>> Council of the Blind, criticizes the AEBC's criticism of Rafferty.
>> CNIB, Schnellert says, had to do what was best for its future.

>> "In a perfect world," however, qualified blind people would always 
>> apply for and obtain leadership positions at the organizations that 
>> serve them, he says.

>> But perhaps some of them have better things to do, says blind lawyer 
>> Robert Fenton.

>> If the Rafferty hiring was a product of the unwillingness of blind 
>> professionals to apply, Fenton says, it may symbolize the community's 
>> progress, not its failings.

>> Fenton is counsel to the chief of the Calgary police. He may seek the 
>> CNIB leadership in the future. Happy with his current position and 
>> busy with two young children, he declined entreaties from CNIB's 
>> search firm this time.

>> "Most of us are pretty successful where we are. We can pursue 
>> opportunities in mainstream industry or government that may be more 
>> attractive to us than going to CNIB. CNIB is a competitor. They have 
>> to compete for qualified people like everybody else does. They don't 
>> have a monopoly on employing blind people."

>> He supports the selection of Rafferty. He does not envy Rafferty's 
>> responsibilities.

>> Among other daunting short-term challenges, applicants for the job 
>> were asked to balance the CNIB budget in 2009-2010 despite the 
>> recession.

>> "The way this thing is framed," says Fenton, "you basically have to 
>> be God, Jesus, Muhammad, Allah, Vishnu, and any other religious 
>> figure you can think of rolled into one to be able to do this job."

>> THE CHOSEN ONE walks quickly, chatting amiably, through the deserted 
>> halls of CNIB's building after the end of the workday. As Rafferty 
>> passes a set of tables, he tucks in a chair that is slightly askew 
>> without breaking stride. It is not clear if he notices he has done 
>> so.

>> He will run CNIB, he says, with an eye on the little things. To 
>> balance the budget, CNIB will reduce capital expenditures and limit 
>> travel and hiring; under Sanders, it announced the closure of a 
>> money-losing catering business.

>> But there are no imminent service cuts, he insists, and he plans no 
>> radical changes.

>> He will attempt to "re-engage and re-inspire" volunteers, vigorously 
>> communicate CNIB's value to potential donors, correct the enduring 
>> misperception that the organization is solely for the fully blind.

>> And, like any businessman worth his charity paycheque, he will 
>> attempt to better serve his client base hopefully winning over his 
>> vociferous critics in the process.

>> "We have to make sure clients have a voice at the table in every 
>> decision we make," he says. "It's about understanding client needs 
>> and delivering what's important to them most effectively.
>> Fundamentally, it's not different than other organizations, in some 
>> ways."

>> In others, he knows, there is no organization like it.

>> Toronto Star


>> ***********************
>> Daniel B. Frye, J.D.
>> Associate Editor
>> The Braille Monitor
>> National Federation of the Blind
>> Office of the President
>> 1800 Johnson Street
>> Baltimore, Maryland 21230
>> Telephone: (410) 659-9314 Ext. 2208
>> Mobile: (410) 241-7006
>> Fax: (410) 685-5653
>> Email: DFrye at nfb.org <BLOCKED::mailto:DFrye at nfb.org> Web Address: 
>> www.nfb.org <BLOCKED::http://www.nfb.org/> "Voice of the Nation's 
>> Blind"


>> ***********************
>> Daniel B. Frye, J.D.
>> Associate Editor
>> The Braille Monitor
>> National Federation of the Blind
>> Office of the President
>> 1800 Johnson Street
>> Baltimore, Maryland 21230
>> Telephone: (410) 659-9314 Ext. 2208
>> Mobile: (410) 241-7006
>> Fax: (410) 685-5653
>> Email: DFrye at nfb.org
>> Web Address: www.nfb.org <http://www.nfb.org/> "Voice of the Nation's 
>> Blind"

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-- 
REspectfully,
Jedi

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