In March 2009, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) announced the appointment of John M. Rafferty as the organization’s new president and CEO. CNIB is a nationwide charity that provides services and support to Canadians who are blind or _visually impaired. Rafferty left a lucrative private sector job to join CNIB. According to Al Jameson, chair of CNIB’s national board of directors, Rafferty is an exceptional business leader whose skills and experience make him an excellent fit for CNIB.

In fact, Rafferty has 13 years of national and international experience as a senior executive who has served in numerous leadership positions. However, Rafferty’s appointment upset many people in the community and prompted criticism of CNIB.-Some even referred to his hiring as despicable and a step backward. Unlike all his predecessors and every top executive in the 91-year history of CNIB, Rafferty can see. He is CNIB’s first “sighted” president and CEO. His hiring resulted in a complicated debate about identity and employment equity within Canada’s diverse blind and visually impaired community.

According to John Rae, vice-president of the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians (AEBC), the hiring of a sighted person as CEO is yet another example of CNIB “turning its back on the people it was set up to serve.” By selecting Rafferty, CNIB has implied that blind Canadians qualified to lead a major organization do not exist. How can CNIB lobby corporations to hire the blind when it will not do so itself?