Why I’m done with CIBC, CBCF and Run for the Cure

My name is Daniel Albahary. I’m a lawyer. I just turned 40 years old. I live in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada—the capital of Canada’s newest territory, a city of approximately 7,000 people.

This year, I raised $1,380 for the CIBC Run for the Cure, which was supposed to take place here in Iqaluit on Oct. 5, 2014, but didn’t.

This is an event in which I have participated many times in my life, along with the Terry Fox run, The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training, and other cancer awareness and research fundraising initiatives.

Lung cancer took my father from me when I was 16 months old. I and many of my friends have lost friends, mothers, sisters, and daughters to breast cancer. Any opportunity to raise money for cancer research is an opportunity I do not pass up.

Late in the afternoon around 4 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 3, 2014, I received a notice that the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation (CBCF) had cancelled the run in Iqaluit because of “unforeseen logistical challenges.”

I sought out answers from the CBCF and the local branch of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) as to what these “unforeseen challenges” might be.

I did not get a straight answer from either. The closest I got to an answer was that insufficient or no insurance could be obtained for the run in Iqaluit, and that an insufficient number of volunteers could be found. Each hardly seems to me an “unforeseen challenge.”

Still, I wondered how this could be the case considering the run has taken place here for eight years, I have participated in it the last three, which took place with no incident, and with the assistance of many people from the community who were, and are, always happy to volunteer.

I’ve been told that the CBCF failed to procure the necessary insurance for the run. I’ve also been told that the local CIBC branch failed to get the insurance.

In the end, it doesn’t actually matter who failed, because someone did. Each organization should have been ensuring the other was meeting its responsibilities for the event. Neither did.

I also find it hard to believe that the one of the most well-funded cancer research institutions in the world and a powerful Canadian bank could not:

(a) procure insurance; and

(b) know that they actually had to hold a run-event on Oct. 5, 2014.

Nothing that led to the run’s cancellation was “unforeseen.”

The real problem is, I still don’t know why, exactly, the run was cancelled. Every time I went into the local CIBC branch there were Run for the Cure posters, forms, and swag available to all bank customers.

Many of my sponsors donated to the CBCF using the Run for the Cure website, which lauded the Iqaluit event, tracked participants’ fundraising goals and achievements for all to see. Fundraisers and participants continued to solicit donations and to prepare for the run.

It seems now, in retrospect at least, that both the CBCF and the CIBC were happy to take money out of this community — albeit for cancer research —but to collectively lead participant and sponsor alike down a path and then push us off the cliff at the last possible moment by not holding the run.

I took my story to the local Iqaluit Facebook groups, expressed my outrage at the way our community had been treated, and received community support. On the morning of October 4, 2014 I was informed by a CIBC representative that the CBCF would “permit” an “unofficial” run to take place, but not an “official” one.

I protested to the branch representative and informed her that such an action added insult to injury, and that I would run on my own.

I wanted to say something to her like: “Give us an unofficial run, and we’ll give you unofficial money.” I didn’t. I decided to run on my own.

On Sunday morning I did a 7K run at my local gym and fittingly aired on TV during that run was Philanthropy Inc., a documentary film about the alignment of charitable organizations to commercial enterprise.

Unsurprisingly, the CBCF featured heavily in that documentary. Following my Sunday morning run, I went to the run site anyways to see if CBCF and CIBC would indeed hold an “unofficial” event. I found no one there. After almost an hour, I left.

Eventually, I took the story to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC,) who reported on it, but not very well. The CBC focused on participants’ frustration at the cancellation, but not the real issues here.

Those issues are what lawyers call “equity” or “fairness.” Neither the CBCF nor the CIBC have acted equitably or fairly here.

Neither wants to admit that they made mistakes. Neither wants to apologize to our community for treating us poorly. Neither wants to explain to all of the sponsors and participants why the run was cancelled.

Both want to take the money that this community raised for them and run — forgive the pun. That is why I am done with these organizations.

Daniel Albahary
Iqaluit

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