Dr. Wes Cragg very sadly died, on August 26, after an illness detected only a few months ago. Bronwyn Best, former Senior Advisor to TI-Canada, and Laurence Cockcroft of TI (UK) offer this appreciation of his work for the struggle against corruption and, in particular, for TI.
Wes’ personality was such that his commitment and engagement with public and corporate ethics shone through all his actions and words. He saw no case for boundaries among personal, public and corporate ethics, and used his prominent academic position at the Schulich School of Business, York University (Toronto, Canada), to engage with both the corporate sector and the political sector to combat corruption in its various guises.
Wes was first introduced to Transparency International, in 1993, in Switzerland, where he and TI Founding Chair, Peter Eigen, participated in a panel discussion on corruption at a conference organized by the European Business Ethics Network. Peter asked Wes to take the lead in developing a Canadian chapter, which he worked on with a handful of others, in Canada, from 1993 – 1996, culminating in the launch of TI-Canada, in November 1996. TI-Canada was one of TI’s first genuine coalitions, with funding from individual members and projects, government and business. Its Board and membership represented the voluntary not-for-profit sector, academia, the professions, retired civil servants as well as business.
The first big challenge of the chapter was to persuade the Canadian Government to implement the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. In partnership with a key group of Canadian business leaders, TI-Canada played a significant role in Canada’s ratification in December 1998, thus allowing for the Convention to be brought into effect, on 15 February 1999. Wes served as Chair and President of the Canadian Chapter, until 2006, participating in all the AMMs and IACCs. His grasp of the bridge between ethics and personal and corporate behaviour enabled him to add tremendous value to TI’s inception of a formal ethics code. In this regard, Wes served as Chair of the TI International Code Building Committee, which produced TI’s seminal vision, core values, guiding principles and Code of Ethics, and worked with the Canadian International Development Association to ensure its significant contribution to TI’s coffers, particularly to support the development of francophone African chapters. Wes believed that the TI national chapters are a tremendous reservoir of strength, professionalism and leadership and personally worked with a number of other country chapters, including those of Chile, Panama, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Nigeria, the UK, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan, Thailand, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and Australia.
As a professor of Business Ethics at the Schulich School of Business, York University, Wes was of the firm belief that ethical education is the key to building a corruption free world, in which students would be standard bearers. But he matched this moral commitment to a very precise and analytical mind. As recently as May, this year, he had initiated a conference on the impact of EITI in local communities, where countries and companies had signed up to EITI – a frequently overlooked issue but one which was typical of the match between his world view and the value of genuine research. In 2016, Wes initiated a group of contributions from Canada and elsewhere to a new international Encyclopedia of Business and Professional Ethics, to be published by Springer.
Throughout his illness, Wes was strongly supported by his wife, Mary, their three children and their families. We hope and trust that they will now be supported by the inspiration that Wes gave to so many in TI and beyond.