Michael Geist, Aug. 29, 2022
“… it leaves me dismayed that somehow a case of government funding an anti-semite did not spark the same reaction. If it falls predominantly to the Jewish MPs to speak out, the message in the silence from Pablo Rodriguez and many other cabinet ministers is that anti-semitism is a Jewish problem, not a broader societal concern.”
It is thankfully not everyday that a sitting Member of Parliament uses social media to suggest that you are racist. Yet that is precisely what happened to me last week when Chris Bittle, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, suggested that my public comments on Twitter calling for Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez to say something about his department funding an anti-semite as part of its anti-hate program was grounded in racism. Bittle has since deleted the post and apologized. In light of considerable media coverage (CBC, Postmedia) and words of support that came from friends, colleagues, and elected officials from across the political spectrum, I spent the weekend thinking about the incident and decided to offer some reflections. See Chris Bittle tweet here
For those that have missed the controversy over the past few weeks, persistent, important work from Mark Goldberg – amplified by Jonathan Kay – brought to light that Canadian Heritage was supporting a known anti-semite with a long history of anti-semitic comments and posts. These posts were openly available online and should have been part of any routine due diligence. Moreover, Goldberg regularly tweeted at the department and Rodriguez to try to get attention. However, the department ignored or failed to find the evidence, agreeing to pay $133,800 to the Community Media Advocacy Centre (CMAC), led by Laith Marouf, to develop an anti-racism strategy for Canadian broadcasting. The issue attracted international attention, yet many Canadian leaders have been strangely silent about it.
In my view, the government – led by Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion Ahmed Hussen and Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez – have failed to take full responsibility for the CMAC case. Failing to properly vet CMAC and Marouf is bad enough, yet ignoring repeated warnings is inexcusable. Further, doing nothing for weeks after Liberal MP Anthony Housefather raised concerns makes one wonder if the desire was to ignore the issue in the hope that it might fade from public view.
Minister Hussen’s first public response as the issue started to garner public attention did not take action, only promising that he would work to “rectify this matter immediately.” When that proved insufficient, Hussen proceeded to announce that funding had been cut. But rather than making it clear that the government would investigate how it had failed, his announcement bizarrely called on CMAC to do the investigating:. …. SOURCE