Watching the unseemly WE Charity controversy unfold in Ottawa, I can honestly say I hope the Kielburger brothers can reclaim the lost legacy they once seemed to be establishing.
Unfortunately, the writing has been on the wall for the organization for some time.
It all started so inspiringly, when at the age of 12 Craig Kielburger read about a Pakistani child labourer murdered for speaking out about working conditions. The Ontario youth was able to go to Bangladesh to view the condition of child labourers and while there he wrangled a meeting with Prime Minister Jean Chretien, who happened to be in India on a trade mission.
Kielburger challenged the prime minister on the issue of child labour, and his international and media celebrity was born.
During the same trip, Kielburger met Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who became a hero for him. In a letter he wrote to newspapers the day she died, he said although she “was not a president or a prime minister,” she proved that one person can make a difference.
To prove his point, he and his brother Marc formed Free the Children, an international network to eradicate child labour.
The Kielburgers were embraced internationally. They received awards, wrote a book, appeared on major television shows, and spoke at conferences around the world.
The brothers were front-page news in The B.C. Catholic for a time. We enthused about their exploits and honours and covered their visits to Catholic schools, where they signed autographs.
The underlying theme was the Kielburgers’ Catholicity, which put something of an imprimatur on their work, such as when they were congratulated by the Episcopal Commission for Social Affairs of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The Kielburgers’ annual Me to We rallies to attract young people to the cause of social justice grew year by year, drawing thousands of students across the country, including from Catholic schools.
Me to We seemed to become the organization’s public focus and in 2016, Free the Children rebranded as WE Charity.
The annual event continued to grow, and last year 20,000 youths from across B.C. filled Rogers Arena for WE Day.
Unfortunately, what began with so much potential now reads like a cautionary tale about what happens when good ideas are separated from principles.
At some point the organization lost its moorings. The bigger it got, the more it forgot its original purpose. It began taking on progressive partners. It equivocated about whether its international projects supported abortion, euthanasia, and contraception. When the previous government proposed cutting funding to International Planned Parenthood, the Kielburgers wrote a column criticizing the decision.
The Kielburgers’ weekly newspaper columns regularly began to read like pages from the Liberal Party playbook: tackling climate change and gender pay disparity, more funding for women’s “sexual and reproductive health” (abortion), more funding for the United Nations, cleansing language that was deemed offensive.
Over time, many Catholic schools and school boards across Canada began reconsidering their relationship with WE. Vancouver’s Catholic schools stopped supporting WE Day years ago.
The media never asked any questions, unless it was to question Catholic schools on why they were no longer supporting WE Day.
The Kielburgers were no doubt well intentioned. They probably still are. They actually remind me of myself when I was about 20 years old, thought government was the answer to everything, and never questioned popular wisdom.
I feel sad for the Kielburgers, and a couple of examples illustrate why.
Craig once said that his dream was to one day leave Free the Children in other people’s hands, go to medical school, and work for Doctors Without Borders.
Marc Kielburger once addressed teachers at the Catholic Educator’s conference in Vancouver and asked them, “What will your legacy be?” He said it was a question he had been challenged with years before.
I hope the Kielburgers can rediscover the dreams and build the legacy they once seemed to be working toward.