-- First Published at Western StandardHow federal grant officers missed the now-infamous anti-Semitic tweets from the now-former grantee Laith Marouf, has been the question for many concerned Jews since the story broke a few months back.
Members of the Conservative opposition are also taking note, and recently promised a motion reprimanding the grant’s ultimate overseer, Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez. As Michael Goldberg, the man who uncovered the tweets, asked when the news finally broke, where was the due diligence on the part of Heritage’s “anti-hate” grants officers? How could this have slipped through the grantee-vetting process?
Unfortunately, such a concern does not begin and end with Marouf. Recently, an Ontario judge ruled in a libel case involving another Heritage-grantee, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, a claim by mother-and-son journalists Barbara and Jonathan Kay about the group’s connection with the notorious Antifa movement was actually broadly justified. Considering the CAHN received more than $500,000 in taxpayer-dollars to date and writes “anti-hate” curricula for school kids, this was indeed alarming.
In 2019 I was sued for libel by a director of @antihateca. He claimed @BarbaraRKay & I linked CAHN to "violent antifa.” Judgment released today: Claim dismissed. Judge: (1) CAHN *does* assist antifa; (2) CAHN director has used courts to stifle detractors (tho failed in this case) pic.twitter.com/2mVpwG6k6w
Evidence of CAHN’s connections to Antifa is not especially hard to find
Not that such a finding is especially remarkable. Evidence of CAHN’s connections to Antifa is not especially hard to find. But again, that’s the concern we have about these “anti-hate” grants.
To remind us, Antifa is a shockingly violent, left-wing extremist group whose members were recently indicted by the Biden Administration for multiple felonies involving stun guns, mace, and other weapons. And they are at least as committed to ending the Jewish state of Israel as Marouf is.
Among the evidence supporting the judge’s ruling was CAHN Executive Director Evan Balgord once authored an “apologist tract for Antifa, describing the need for ‘physical disruption’ to get their message across.” During trial, the judge was “referred to CAHN articles describing how to find local Antifa chapters and referring to an international Antifa defence fund;" he noted concerns about the “anti-hate” group “calling out right-wing but not left-wing hate groups,” and flatly concluded “CAHN did in fact assist Antifa.”
That such a group could be government-affiliated was especially alarming, noted the judge, as its support for Antifa gives the latter “public approbation and signals approval — a very valuable currency.”
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The judge describes the Kays’ description of Antifa as “mimicking fascist group activities”
To be as fair to Heritage bureaucrats as possible, perhaps one shouldn’t expect a government grants-reviewer to have the probing, journalistic skills of someone like the Kays.
There is also the case of alarming online commentary getting deleted or removed before detection. Indeed, some of Marouf’s tweets were removed or rendered private before the scandal broke — something which frustrated Jewish groups that were hoping to state their case against Marouf in full. Although in the Kays’ case there was already enough evidence to establish ‘Antifa assistance’ in order to exonerate them, more was deleted, or ostensibly deleted by CAHN, and just before they got their grants.
The judge describes the Kays’ description of Antifa as “mimicking fascist group activities” including when, at a People’s Party of Canada event in 2019, members “screamed at an elderly woman … and called her ‘Nazi scum’.” Not mentioned, however, was that after the incident, Balgord criticized his fellow Antifa-attendees on Twitter for failing to “be media aware.” But such an alarming tweet was likely missed by the Kays as well as Heritage grant-writers as it no longer exists.
Before CAHN got its initial grant in 2020, Balgord also deleted a tweetin which he put out an open request for Antifa members’ help on a project (“r u a narc”? somebody responded).
Same goes for getting his name removed from the piece the judge referenced in which he voiced support for “physical disruption.”
Heritage’s “diversity and inclusion” office has since announced a vague commitment to stronger vetting, which it is hoped includes a thorough retroactive review of every other past “anti-hate” grantee.
And, as Goldberg himself suggested, how about making the names of potential grantees public, so stuff like Manouf’s tweets can get flagged by concerned citizens beforehand?
Finally, applicant-grantees should have to declare to the federal government whether they've ever had any controversial articles published, deleted, or removed online. You would think any scandal-averse government would want this. After all, such information would seem to be well within the taxpaying-public’s interest.
It certainly was for Marouf and it should be for CAHN as well
I own a small aesthetics clinic in downtown Toronto, teach public speaking professionally, ran as a candidate for the People’s Party of Canada last election, and have contributed to the Toronto Sun, The Post Millennial, and National Newswatch, among other news outlets.
