Then-Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino holds a news conference in the foyer of the House of Commons in Ottawa, on May 31, 2023. Mendicino says Birju Dattani should not start as chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission until a broad investigation is complete.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Former Liberal public safety minister Marco Mendicino has called for a strengthened federal probe into the activities of Canada’s new human-rights chief, including presentations he gave as a graduate student about the war on terror and links to papers and tweets that have been scrubbed from the internet.
Mr. Mendicino said writings and lectures by Birju Dattani, under the name Mujahid Dattani, need to be scrutinized as part of an independent investigation launched by the Justice Department. He said Mr. Dattani should not start as chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) until a broad investigation is complete.
Justice Minister Arif Virani appointed Mr. Dattani, former executive director of the Yukon Human Rights Commission, to the role last month.
Since then, it emerged that he had not disclosed to the government tweets he had posted, including one linking to an article comparing Palestinians to Jews incarcerated in the Warsaw Ghetto, under the name Mujahid Dattani.
The independent investigation is due to report before Mr. Dattani starts his new role in a month’s time.
Mr. Mendicino said an enhanced screening process is needed, which could look at deleted social-media posts.
Among the deleted material is a Facebook post about a talk Mr. Dattani gave as a graduate student in London on the “war on terrorism and Islamophobia.” He delivered a lecture on the same subject in Turkey in 2014.
The advertisement for the talk at Bogazici University says: “It will be discussed whether Muslims from various geographies who are condemned to carry the label of terrorist on their foreheads, regardless of the enemy they fight against and in what way, deserve this label.”
An abstract of his paper says his lecture will “address how the Laws of Armed Conflict and the Criminal Laws have been cherry picked without regard to the protections that these very laws provide. This talk will also touch on how this contributed to the rise of Islamophobia.”
Muneeza Sheikh, a lawyer representing Mr. Dattani, said because of the investigation “it would be inappropriate for us to provide substantive commentary,” including on his talk in Turkey on the war on terror.
“It is a smear job involving all of the usual suspects,” she said. “Mr. Dattani’s qualifications and suitability for this role are impenetrable.”
But Mr. Mendicino said he was concerned by “a steady stream of posts, papers and presentations” that have come to light since Mr. Dattani was appointed, including an academic paper he presented as a graduate student arguing that terror is not only pursued by fundamentalists with warped outlooks, but is a rational strategy with “surprisingly high success rates.” The full presentation is not available online.
Mr. Mendicino said it was “extremely concerning” this material was not proactively disclosed by Mr. Dattani or unearthed before his appointment as chief commissioner. “Clearly the screening process must be strengthened to preserve the integrity of the Chair and the CHRC itself,” he said.
“In the meantime, if the Chair will not voluntarily stand down, he should not assume his duties until this matter is resolved.”
Mr. Dattani, while a graduate student in London, also gave a lecture entitled “What is Zionism” at the London School of Economics. It was billed as being “unlike any lectures/books you have ever read on this topic!”
Melissa Lantsman, deputy leader of the Conservative Party, renewed calls for a parliamentary committee to look into his appointment, saying the probe initiated by the Justice Department is a “fake, closed-door investigation.”
“As antisemitism continues to rise since the brutal Oct. 7th attacks, this appointment is a yet another slap in the face to Canada’s Jewish community from the Trudeau government,” she said.
Ms. Lantsman said Mr. Dattani should resign or the Prime Minister should fire him.
But a number of organizations came to Mr. Dattani’s defence this week including Independent Jewish Voices, Canada.
In a statement, Corey Balsam, its national co-ordinator, said Mr. Dattani had no reason to apologize to members of the Jewish community and “we look forward to Dattani taking up his post later this summer and call on Minister Virani to proceed as planned.”
The Yukon Human Rights Commission previously issued a statement supporting Mr. Dattani, calling him “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.”
Nicholas Marcus Thompson, executive director of the Black Class Action Secretariat, said the investigation has not yet been concluded into Mr. Dattani and it is important to receive its findings “before passing any judgment on the situation.”
The BCAS, a non-profit formed after a class-action lawsuit filed against the federal government by thousands of Black public-service workers, signed a joint statement saying that “while the allegations against Mr. Dattani are concerning, the campaign against him highlights the heightened level of scrutiny he, like many Canadians, faces because of his faith and ethnic background.”
However, Richard Marceau, vice-president, external affairs and general counsel at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said “we have lost all confidence in his ability to be an impartial chair.”
“While Dattani should have fully disclosed his history during the vetting process, the information that has been reported widely is sufficient to disqualify him for the position, regardless of whether he turns over the deleted content,” he said.