Former justice minister David Lametti has questioned whether Birju Dattani is fit to lead the Canadian Human Rights Commission, since he has not been forthcoming about his past activities.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Canada’s new human-rights chief faced fresh pressure to resign Thursday after the former justice minister questioned whether he is fit for the role and Jewish groups issued a joint statement urging the current Justice Minister to rescind Birju Dattani’s job offer.
Mr. Dattani, who was appointed this month by Justice Minister Arif Virani as the new chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, was criticized this week for failing to disclose his past activities when applying for the post, including that he had shared panels with people with extremist views.
Mr. Virani launched an independent review this week into Mr. Dattani’s appointment after social-media posts he made as a graduate student about 10 years ago, under the name Mujahid Dattani, came to light. The posts were not detected during the Department of Justice’s vetting process.
Mr. Dattani is to assume his new role in August.
Former justice minister David Lametti questioned whether Mr. Dattani is fit to lead the human-rights body, since he has not been forthcoming about his past activities.
“Any time you mislead or conceal your past in order to advance your career, that’s problematic. And if that impedes your ability to be neutral and to do the job properly, it’s inconceivable that you could remain in that role,” Mr. Lametti told The Globe and Mail.
The commission would play a central role in combatting online hate, including antisemitism, under the government’s online harms bill now going through Parliament.
The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization, and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs on Thursday issued a joint statement urging the government “to rescind Mr. Dattani’s appointment and immediately commence an investigation into its vetting process.”
The statement said information that has emerged since his appointment suggests that “he is an unfit candidate.”
“His inadequate response to these allegations lends further credence to the conclusion that he should not have been appointed to lead the CHRC,” the statement said.
B’nai Brith Canada also issued a statement demanding the government “rescind Mr. Dattani’s appointment and immediately commence an investigation into its vetting process.”
“At a time of heightened divisions and rising levels of antisemitism in Canada, it is essential that Canada’s human-rights commissioner be a leader who represents Canadian values,” it said.
Earlier this week, in an interview with The Globe, Mr. Dattani apologized for pain he had caused the Jewish community for tweets he sent while studying in England about a decade ago. One said, “Palestinians are Warsaw Ghetto Prisoners of Today.” Mr. Dattani said he did not agree with this statement and was linking to an article of that name.
Mr. Dattani issued a statement on Thursday indicating he had no intention of quitting, saying, “I am honoured to serve as the newly appointed Canadian human-rights commissioner.”
“Regrettably, I find myself the target of unfounded allegations. I stand resolutely behind my record,” he said. “I am confident that the investigation will vindicate my long-standing commitment to human rights. For clarification, my recent apology was not an admission of wrongdoing; rather, it was an expression of empathy for those who have been distressed by these unfounded allegations.”
Mr. Dattani was a former executive director of the Yukon Human Rights Commission. On Thursday, Michael Dougherty, its chair, released a statement supporting him.
“His experience here showed him to be exceedingly knowledgeable, hard-working, innovative, highly empathetic to all communities and, beyond any doubt, completely impartial in the manner in which he carried out his responsibilities in the Yukon.”
Also in London, Mr. Dattani shared a stage with a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamist fundamentalist group banned in Britain that favours global Sharia law. Mr. Dattani said he was unaware he would be appearing alongside a Hizb ut-Tahrir member.
In 2015, Mr. Dattani also spoke on a panel about the War on Terror alongside Moazzam Begg, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, who worked for an advocacy group raising awareness of prisoners held in the detention camp and elsewhere.
Fatema Abdalla, spokesperson for the National Council of Canadian Muslims, said she was disappointed by the “Minister of Justice’s politically driven decision to entertain what appears to be a witch hunt” against Mr. Dattani.
“Anyone who promotes hate in any form should not be sitting on government agencies, boards, or commissions,” she said. “But casting aspersions on one person’s credibility for sitting next to someone with an objectionable perspective at a public forum promoting critical academic debate is also troubling as it assumes guilt by association.”