Letter from Kerry Fast to MCC Canada Provincial and Regional Executive Directors and Boards

Kerry Fast first shared this letter on Facebook on June 28, 2024. She has given us permission to share it on our website. We have added some links for clarification. - MAST

An open letter to MCC Provincial and Regional Executive Directors, Board Chairs, and Board members

cc: Anicka Fast, John Clarke

(This letter was emailed to all regional and provincial executive directors and the MCC Quebec representative, asking them to forward it to all their board members. Please share.)

I am writing this letter first and foremost because I hold Anicka Fast and John Clarke and their children close to my heart. As their aunt and great aunt, I have been privy to only a small part of their pain, frustration, and disappointment caused by their termination by MCC. Were I living in the Netherlands instead of Canada, I would, no doubt, have seen much more. Five other terminated MCC workers with equally painful stories, have joined Anicka and John in writing an open letter to MCC’s constituents and instigated a petition calling MCC to accountability. Many others have shared similar stories about termination or abuse on the petition page. In other words, many of your constituents have been hurt by MCC’s termination practices or have stood next to their loved ones in their pain. Listen to them.

I am also writing this letter as someone who worked for MCC Canada in its Winnipeg office for ten years. These were formative years for me as a young adult, and I could say many things about how MCC shaped who I am today, for which I am very grateful. Let me give one example. For some of those ten years, I was an administrative assistant in the Middle East Department and had the privilege of travelling to the Middle East twice. In my work, I was exposed to the political and religious issues that mark the Middle East and are at the heart of the current destruction of life in Gaza. I still draw on the perspectives I embraced as an MCC worker to understand the dynamics of today’s conflict, and they still undergird my support for justice and peace for all inhabitants of Palestine and Israel.

My ask, on the one hand, is small. If you haven’t already, read the open letter sent by seven former MCC workers to MCC’s constituency. Read the petition; sign it if you’re so inclined. On the other hand, my ask is big. Those of us who care about family and friends who have been abused by MCC and those of us who care for MCC have for more than two weeks now pleaded with MCC to examine its personnel policies around termination and the health needs of its workers, address worker abuse and litigious HR practices, and return to its grounding principles—peacemaking, justice, and reconciliation—in its dealings with its workers and partners. The number of petition signees is ticking upwards to 1000. Listen to them.

Change must also come from the inside, and so I am writing to you. Collectively, you are 130 individuals involved in the governance of MCC, and I am asking you to use your positions of leadership to reset the direction of MCC, hold its national staff and boards accountable, and restore trust among your constituents. Having worked for MCC, I know that addressing governance matters and senior staff accountability is a hard task. It is a slow task. It is a painstaking task. But it is a vital one, and I have no doubt, a life-giving one.

From my heart,

Kerry Fast

Winnipeg, Manitoba