Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks a Liberal Party fundraising event in Mississauga, Ont., on Aug. 30.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned offensive comments made by a consultant who was working on a federally funded anti-racism project, but he is facing criticism for not speaking out more forcefully.
“We cannot accept racism, hatred and anger – particularly not funded from the government,” Mr. Trudeau said Tuesday when asked by a reporter about the comments from Laith Marouf, a senior consultant with the Community Media Advocacy Centre (CMAC), a non-profit organization.
“It is absolutely unacceptable that federal dollars have gone to this organization that has demonstrated xenophobia, racism and antisemitism,” Mr. Trudeau added.
A number of Mr. Marouf’s tweets and other social-media posts have been widely criticized as antisemitic and offensive to French people. The issue was raised publicly in July, 2021, on the personal website of Mark Goldberg, a telecommunications consultant. Screenshots of Mr. Marouf’s comments, in which he uses derogatory terms such as “frogs” and “Jewish white supremacists,” began to circulate widely on social media earlier this month.
The CMAC received more than $130,000 last year from Canadian Heritage to work on an anti-racism strategy for Canadian broadcasting.
The emergence of Mr. Marouf’s comments has sparked public outrage against the federal government, and raised questions about its vetting processes for those it works with – particularly considering that Mr. Marouf was working on an anti-racism project.
A Twitter account appearing to belong to Mr. Marouf is currently set to private, and so is an account registered to his name on the Russian social-media site VK. Another Twitter account that appears to have belonged to him was suspended last year.
Mr. Marouf did not respond to a request for comment, nor did his lawyer, Stephen Ellis. In a response to The Canadian Press, Mr. Ellis said his client does not have “any animus toward the Jewish faith as a collective group,” noting he had referred to Jewish white supremacists specifically – not Jewish people in general.
Mr. Trudeau previously referenced the controversy on Aug. 23, in a brief response to a reporter’s question. He called the comments “unacceptable.”
After Mr. Trudeau’s remarks on Tuesday, Conservative MP Daniel Albas reiterated his earlier calls for the Prime Minister to make an official statement denouncing Mr. Marouf’s comments. “This should not be an unreasonable or partisan expectation of our Prime Minister,” he wrote on Twitter.
In April, the CMAC announced a series of consultations titled Building an Anti-Racism Strategy for Canadian Broadcasting: Conversation & Convergence, with funding from Canadian Heritage’s Anti-Racism Action Program. The press release included quotes from Mr. Marouf and Ahmed Hussen, the federal Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion.
In a statement last week, Mr. Hussen acknowledged Mr. Marouf’s comments, saying he and his team were working to “rectify this matter immediately.” The following day, on Aug. 22, Mr. Hussen said in a second statement that the CMAC’s funding had been cut and its project suspended.
In his remarks on Tuesday, Mr. Trudeau repeated that the federal government has stopped the CMAC’s funding, and said the government is in the process of doing “a complete review” to ensure that the organization is not getting any other funding from the government.
He also said the government is putting in place better processes “to make sure that no other organization or hateful individuals slipped through the cracks.”
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