Who Can We Trust? Why are our community organizations all being put on blast?

BY MICHAEL THOMAS

“We want criminal charges to be pressed first of all, and that is figuring out if they will sue him to get the money back or whatever. This person was acting of their own accord, so it was not as if he was doing this on behalf of the organization. He did this for his selfish gains, so whatever the court of law says is the punishment for that, that is what we are looking for.”

Above are the words of Rose-Ann Bailey, an ex-Officio for the organization named Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention (AKA Black CAP) from the previous board.

These same sentiments are echoed by many concerned board members of Black CAP who contacted Toronto Caribbean Newspaper about the lack of accountability, bullying, and misuse of board funds by a few people on the inside whose intentions according to the other members are less than honorable. Here are some insights shared with us by these concerned members.

Like many other Black organizations today, like the Black Business and Professional Association (BBPA) and Tropicana Community Services, we too are concerned about financial transparency within the Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention; the ONLY Black-led, Black-serving and Black-focused 35-year-old organization in the country. The lack of transparency significantly undermines the accountability and integrity of the organization. We are gravely concerned about the legally required: governance, transparency, and competency of the entire board.

According to the group of concerned members, this is the group that launched the illegal takeover of Black CAP. Please read carefully as to why there are many concerns here.

The primary concerns revolve around financial transparency and governance under the previous Executive Director, Gareth Henry (currently the Interim Executive Director of the Toronto HIV/AIDS Network), and his associates: Ian McKnight, Dennis White, Denzil Buckley, Nester Tom, Tru Stewart, Hamlet Nation, Lisa Duplessis, and Tanaka Chiromobo.

According to the group of concerned members, as of June 7^th, 2024, the Board of Directors led by Ian McKnight and unsecured legal advice and service from Milton Chan (unofficially secured as legal representative of Ian McKnight’s group) terminated the employment of Tina “Tee” Garnett as Interim Executive Director and replaced them with Nief Neamatt, a former staff that was terminated September 2023.

This installation of Nief Neamatt is an effort to ensure that when a new Board of Directors is put in place at the June 13^th, 2024, Special Members meeting the continued independent investigation into the unapproved and documented misappropriation of over $300,000 funds donated by the LCBO and other funders in 2022/2023 cannot be continued and thus attempting to clear Mr. Gareth Henry of any criminal, or legal accountability.

The group of concerned members told Toronto Caribbean Newspaper in a statement, “Mr. Neamatt has a well-known reputation by staff to be transphobic, homophobic, misogynistic, and sexist with multiple harassment and human rights complaints against him by staff.” 

They went on to explain, “We are concerned about the physical, mental, and emotional health of all staff members, especially as they are beginning to heal under the leadership of Tee Garnett.”

Well-intentioned members are concerned that Nief Neamatt will delete all documentation that would prevent the investigation from being continued or continue to financially gouge the organization under the puppet strings of: Gareth Henry, Ian McKnight, Dennis White, Denzil Buckley, Nester Tom, Tru Stewart, Hamlet Nation, Lisa Duplessis, and Tanaka Chiromobo.

Again, according to inside sources, Mr. Neamatt has absolutely no previous experience, or competency as an Executive Director and can only rely on others to do the work.

Since October 20^th, 2023, there have been many legal infractions and despite efforts to solve these issues internally, a group of six board members has consistently obstructed progress and failed to fulfill their duties. Here are some of the infractions.

• Undeclared conflict of interests and unwilling to sign Oath of Confidentiality and Declarations of Conflict-of-Interest Board forms (Requirement as a board member).
• Unethical behavior violation resulting in Human Rights complaints and investigations from staff based on interaction with board members.
• On-going violation of Union and Labour relations from Board Members.
• Demands by board members for full salary compensation for temporary replacement of the Interim Executive Director role.
• Inability to provide a safe work environment for the over 25 staff members of the organization.
• Blatant disregard for legal requirements has undermined the effectiveness of the Board of Directors at Black CAP.
• Unauthorized cancellation of the investigation around the ongoing independent financial investigation of the misappropriation of financial funds by Gareth Henry.
• Failure to meet the Enhanced Monitoring requirements set out by the Ministry of Health.

I spoke with three people from the Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention: Tee” Garnett Interim Executive Director who was forced out illegally, Rose-Ann Bailey who is an Ex-Officio for the organization from the previous board, and an employee of Black CAP who for security reasons we will call Miss X.

Tee Garnett, a seventh-generation Canadian said to me, “Black CAP is near and dear to my heart. We have been here since 1781, and so seeing the first Black organization was a very monumental time in Black history for Black Canadians.”

“I came in knowing that the board was at a divide not realizing how deep it was, so I’ve been doing a lot of Afrocentric healing work with the staff who have gone through a lot of traumas, abuse, intimidation and I have been holding that space with them and for them.”

“We spent three days,” Garnett told me. “a week ago, doing healing work as an organization, only for one week later to have a board come in, who is in direct conflict with: standards, bylaws, code of conduct and then come in with an unretained, none-black legal representative, and call me while I was on sick leave with COVID to terminate me.”

Garnett told me in her closing words, “Black CAP needs community support because it belongs to the black community.”

Next up was Miss X who told me that her experience was that there is a lack of compassion and for a while Tee Garnet brought healing to the situation.

Speaking of the removal of Tee Garnett, Miss X said, “It was a hostile takeover because they took over I.T, and how they got access to the system nobody knows.”

I asked Miss X what she would like to see in the future at Black CAP, “That conflict of interest be declared from the get-go, places of power should be reserved for people who genuinely believe in the organization, and the moment we sense that things are not right, people need to say something.”

Rose-Ann Bailey was exceptionally candid about what has been taking place at Black CAP from a fraudulent point of view.

“We have the documentation to show that there have been funds that have been e-transferred to family members as well as a number of items that have not been approved by the board and were arbitrarily sent to different individuals.”

Bailey narrates a situation in Black CAP between Gareth Henry and Ian McKnight that makes the listener wonder why these two men are not in jail. From: doctoring credit card limits without the board’s consent, e-transferring thousands of dollars into a family member’s bank account, to stonewalling proper investigations and yet both men are free.

When asked what she would like to see happen to these guys for what they have done, Bailey answered, “Some of the times as Black people, we do not want to put our business out in public, but if we don’t people will continue to misuse the funds that are publicly given to community members that need it, so the more the public knows about what’s going on, the more honest we will make these organizations.”

Bailey told me this is not Black CAP’s first brush with internal thieves, however, this time the stakes are so high and outrageous that something has to be done publicly. “We want to make sure that they know that this has to stop,” she said.

By providing the information below, this organization wants the public to see the troubling number of patients who need their care, yet some who were entrusted with patients’ funds have chosen to funnel that money to places where it does not belong.

According to the Canadian AIDS Society and Health Canada, about one in four Canadians living with HIV identify as women.

In fact, an estimated 16,880 females live with HIV (including AIDS) across the country, with 597 new diagnoses among Canadian women in 2022 alone. All women have risk factors for HIV infection, but women who belong to socially and economically marginalized populations face many interconnecting determinants of health that adversely impact their risk for HIV infection, and their experiences accessing diagnosis, care, treatment, and support. ACB women, along with: Indigenous women, trans women, women who use drugs, women who experience violence, and women who are incarcerated are at a higher systemic risk for HIV.

A question that we do have as a paper is why are our organizations all being put on blast? Was the BBPA the genesis of our community organizations losing the trust of the community? Something insidious is developing, and we have to get to the bottom of it.