Toronto YMCA Mismanagement

This website describes mismanagement, deceit, and abuse of power in the management of the YMCA of Greater Toronto, a 77 million dollar a year charitable organization that provides athletic facilities, child care, summer camps, employment services and more to 275,000 participants in the community.

YMCA management has reacted to serious, well-founded criticism by engaging lawyer Julian Porter, Q.C. to threaten a libel action against me (Uriel Wittenberg).

I met with the president of the Toronto YMCA, Richard Bailey, on August 3, 2000. I raised the legal threat and asked if he had initiated it. Mr. Bailey replied that he had been “involved.” I then repeatedly asked Mr. Bailey whether he was under the impression that any statements I had uttered about the YMCA or its staff were untrue. He refused to respond. He persisted in this refusal when I repeated the question in an open letter to him after the meeting.

In fact, my statements have been amply well-founded, and no one has ever questioned their veracity. This suggests that the YMCA president personally approved the misuse of YMCA funds for a legal action he knew was unfounded.

While the issue outlined here originally centered on squash courts at the YMCA’s downtown facility (on Grosvenor St., near Yonge and College), the YMCA’s actions have at this point raised serious doubts about the dedication of its top leaders to the organization’s stated goals. A growing number of YMCA members are watching with increasing incredulity as the small circle of people who wield power within the YMCA show every willingness to overturn all of the organization’s core values in putting their personal loyalties to each other uppermost.

Remarkably, the problems of the YMCA go beyond management, beyond Mr. Bailey, and also implicate the YMCA’s Board of Directors. Mr. Bailey formed a “Disciplinary Committee” that included two Board members to hear the criticisms and report to him. The committee members were personally endorsed by the Board Chair. Yet, following detailed presentations of serious management problems by myself and another member, the committee’s report rejects the criticisms and supports management, without explaining why.

The Toronto YMCA literature highlights the organization’s significance and social impact:

The YMCA is one of the largest and most active charitable organizations in the community -- reaching far beyond our physical facilities and member services to deliver over 60 different programs at 241 sites from Brampton to Durham to downtown Toronto.

A quarter of a million people in Greater Toronto benefit directly from YMCA programs and services....

Your donation can send a kid to camp. It can provide employment skills training, literacy programs, youth substance abuse counselling and hostel services. It can help men and women of all ages, faced with a restricted income or other barrier, enjoy our health and fitness programs. It can provide daycare and help parents give their children the opportunity to thrive. It can promote the values and programs of the YMCA in over 130 countries.

Last year, 7,700 supporters raised over $1.4 million for the YMCA Community Fund. This year, we’re counting on your support because more people in the community need our help.

Furthermore, the Toronto YMCA’s “Commitment to Service” states that it:

believes in creating an environment that promotes healthy lifestyles and ethical behaviour, and will strive to:

• Create policies and systems that serve members and participants,

• Ask members and participants about their satisfaction with our services, facilities and operating methods, and

• promptly take action on this feedback.

• The management of this important organization has persisted in wasting resources despite member objections;

• The waste is self-evident to a substantial group of members;

• Three petitions have been submitted to management over the same issue since 1997, the most recent signed by 67 participants;

• Each of the petitions has been rejected;

• In some cases, manifest falsehoods have been used to deny the petitions. Thirty eight people have signed a complaint of management deceit;

• In the other cases, management has refused to justify the rejections of the petitions.

You can use the black navigation bar at the top of this webpage to go to:

• The Problem: Details of the member grievances that produced the petitions;

• The Petitions: The text of the signed petitions, together with statistics on the numbers of participants who have signed;

• Escalation: An account of developments since the most recent petition was rejected.