What is systemic abuse? And what are the MCC boards going to do to “untangle” this “spaghetti”?

A ten-minute excerpt from a transcript of the March 2, 2026 facilitated discussion, in which Anicka Fast and John Clarke respond to MCC board members’ questions about the definition of “systemic abuse.” This discussion occurred after Anicka and John asked, “Do you believe MCC's senior leadership's assertion that there is no systemic abuse within MCC?”

(For context, see a report about the premature ending of the facilitated discussions and review the closing statements of all participants)

Summary: In this discussion, Anicka and John define systemic abuse as the combined effect of harmful individuals, enabling culture, and organizational policies that together perpetuate and shield wrongdoing. Systemic abuse occurs when misuse of power is embedded across an organization’s structures, culture, and leadership. It involves individuals who misuse power with evil intent, both active and passive enablers who look away or follow harmful norms, and policies or practices that centralize authority and discourage accountability. When abuse appears at senior levels and every attempt to report it is blocked across multiple departments, the system itself becomes complicit, creating a web that protects abusers, silences whistleblowers, and makes participation in the system’s dysfunction feel almost unavoidable.

The board members receive this definition with openness and appreciation, expresse their plan to take this definition back to their boards, and state clearly that they do not think everything is fine within MCC. They commit to working to “untangle” the systemic issues that John and Anicka named.

Full transcript (‘umms’ and false starts smoothed, board members anonymized)

MCC US Board member: I've also looked up some... definitions of systemic abuse. Could I ask you, John and Anicka, how are you defining it? I don't want to sidestep the question. But if you wouldn't mind, would you share?

Anicka: Systemic abuse is abuse that involves people misusing their power in a systemic way, meaning it's not just an isolated case. There are multiple layers of the system that are helping to cover it up, helping to perpetuate it, helping to enable it.

[The result is] a web that is incredibly hard to take down, because lots of different people are involved, and they are covering for each other—consciously, or sometimes not even consciously.

The key is, it's not isolated incidents. It is something that is connected to the system, and is being perpetuated and kept going by many actors.

And the accountability is complicated or difficult because of that. There isn't an easy way to untangle it, because so many different pieces of the system are colluding to keep this going on.

I don't know if that's [what] systemic abuse [is] everywhere, but that's certainly what I see in MCC.

John: I would add that part of the systemic part of the abuse is that when it happens at top, senior leadership [level], when abuse and harassment has been found at top senior leadership—which it has been—that is a sign that everywhere below that leadership, there's stuff going on, too. And when you deny it, and when people deny that that's what's going on at the top level, you can just assume and understand that it's systemic, because it's from the top down, everyone knows it's okay because the top people are doing it. That would be another indicator of systemic abuse.

Anicka: A good definition, or a good way to make this really clear, is the words of one person who came to us, one rep who came to us, and they described to us all the doors they knocked on. And they knocked on a lot of doors! They knocked on Financial Services, they knocked on IP [International Program], they knocked on ADs, they knocked on Executive Directors, they knocked on HR doors, and every single door slammed in their face, and they said, ‘It felt like one of those movies when the whole system is trying to crush you.’

That is what I mean when I say systemic abuse within MCC.

MCC US Board member: Thank you. I was writing as quickly as I could, because I do think your particular definition is the one that I want to take back to the boards.

And when I hear that definition, there is a part that it's not isolated. And that it's a misuse of power.

When I hear that, ‘misuse of power,’ I hear you [speaking about] individuals who are choosing to use their power wrongly. Is that correct? Is that how you're saying it?

Anicka: I would say that there is a combination of individuals who are maliciously choosing to cause harm and terror and fear.

And then there is a huge network of enablers who enable in various ways, and some of them are actively enabling, and some of them are enabling by looking the other way, and sometimes the system makes it easy for them to look the other way, so that it could happen to people of goodwill, that they could [find it] hard to see what's happening, but they're still participating and enabling because they're not looking past the mist of policy, or the legal-speak, or the ‘this‑is‑how‑it's‑always‑been’ kind of explanations, or the fear of losing their own job.

So I would say there are some malicious people, abusers, who are, I would say, acting with evil intent.

And then there are some active enablers, and then there's an entire system that feels like it's almost impossible not to participate in.

MCC US Board member: Could I ask also, when you're talking about the entire system, are you meaning things that are upheld by policy?

Like, the ways people are acting is also backed up with policy [that] says you can act this way?

Anicka: In some cases, yes. For example, the most recent proposed revision to the whistleblowing policy—I do not know if it has actually been accepted, but it was shared with us as a proposed revision—is a policy that explicitly gives complete power to HR to handle every single question of conflict inside the organization.

And if you see that, you see that policy makes it completely easy for the HR directors and staff to have complete control and intimidate anyone from blowing the whistle.

That was a draft policy that was shared with us. I do not know if it's become policy, but that would be a case. In other cases, it's the culture.

[For example,] you send a message to all the staff and say, ‘These people don't work for MCC anymore.’ And nobody asks a question because it's obviously an opaque communication meant to ... call attention to the distinction between that kind of exit and an exit that involves a nice goodbye and a thank you and a card.

That's not a policy, but it's a tactic of control to make sure everyone remembers that they need to go along with the system the way it works.

MCC US Board member: Yeah, thank you for saying more about that. I tried to take notes, too. I can also see that in a system, when people's behaviors are upheld by policy and by culture, then the accountability is also challenging.

And I appreciate your recognition of that, that this is really difficult to untangle.

My takeaway from hearing the part of your story that I have heard is that, no, I do not believe there's nothing to see here. I don't think everything is fine with MCC.

John: Thanks, [MCC US board member], for your response. I just want to be crystal clear that we are not saying that this is, like, only policy and culture. This is also individuals who broke policy, good policy. Policy that said, this is what you do when you have a complaint with the HR, you go to the ED.

And the ED said, we don't want to listen to you. That's breaking policy. That's very different than our policies [being] corrupt. Well, they are, they are as well, but there are two parts there, and when... you go to your EDs, the people who have been accused of abuse, and you ask them, ‘What should we do about it?’, that's a problem. You don't go to the people who are abusing and say, ‘How should we investigate you?’

[You don’t] need a policy to tell you and the boards that that's a bad idea. It doesn't make any sense. It's an excuse. And so I just want to make it really clear that when we say systemic abuse, we're not limiting to saying, ‘There are bad policies, [and] we just need to improve them.’ No. There are good policies that are being completely ignored and violated by your EDs.

MCC US board member: I want to thank you for that addition, and I'm writing that as well: Policy, culture, and individual behaviors. Thank you.

MCC Canada board member: I will affirm that. It is an incredibly complex web, and I appreciate the way you described that. And we are committed to taking the parts that we have heard—and we know we haven't heard your full story, but we've heard some of your story—and we are grabbing the ends of the spaghetti and working hard to untangle this, and I think we are seeing [and] we are hearing things that you have helpfully named for us that are wrong, and we are really wanting to influence change.

And this description that you have given is really helpful for us, and we will…I'm quite sure be using that.

MCC US Board member: Thank you. Can I ask one more question, please?

Anicka: Okay, sure.

MCC US Board member: When you named the whistleblower revision draft that you saw, in your analysis, is it circling around HR's abuse of power, or is it broader than that?

Anicka: My analysis of that policy revision is that it cements the power of HR. But I don't see that that necessarily means HR is at the core of the abuse. Because everything HR does is enabled by executive leadership, and that is in turn enabled by the boards... The policy gives a ton of power to HR, but… I wouldn't conclude that that means HR is the center of the problem.

MCC US Board member: Thank you.