Birju Dattani was appointed as the head of the Canadian Human Rights Commission by the Justice Minister. The Prime Minister’s Office was also involved in the appointment process before it went to cabinet for approval.Crystal Schick/Yukon News
Ottawa says it has tightened up the way it carries out background checks on applicants for senior federal jobs, after officials failed to pass on an alias used by the country’s new human rights chief Birju Dattani to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP for screening before he was appointed.
CSIS and the RCMP are now screening Mr. Dattani under his alias Mujahid Dattani, which The Globe and Mail disclosed was the name he used while a graduate student in Britain.
Mr. Dattani, who was appointed as the head of the Canadian Human Rights Commission by Justice Minister Arif Virani, is due to start his new role – a senior position with a salary of between $335,100 and $394,200 – on Aug. 8.
The Prime Minister’s Office was also involved in the appointment process before it went to cabinet for approval.
Mr. Dattani disclosed his alias Mujahid Dattani in the process of applying for the role. The federal government’s background check consent form includes a line for applicants to provide any other names they have used.
But the Privy Council Office (PCO), which is responsible for background checks on government appointments to senior positions, says it failed to pass on Mr. Dattani’s alias for security checks to CSIS, the RCMP and the Canada Revenue Agency, which helps with screening.
The PCO also did not search under Mr. Dattani’s aliases using open sources on the internet, before he was appointed. The PCO “regrets its error,” Daniel Savoie, a PCO spokesman, said in a statement Monday.
It also failed to tell the Justice Minister’s office and the Prime Minister’s Office about the aliases.
“This is consistent with our usual practice in these types of appointments, which this incident has caused us to review,” Mr. Savoie said.
“The aliases were also not reviewed nor shared with security partners who conduct background checks,” Mr. Savoie added. “After this oversight was discovered, PCO shared the aliases with its security partners who are now completing necessary reviews.”
He said the PCO has “undertaken a review of its background check process in this case and has issued direction, as part of its standard operating procedures, that all aliases provided should be reviewed and shared with partners for review. This clarification is intended to prevent this from occurring again.”
Mr. Virani appointed Mr. Dattani, former executive director of the Yukon Human Rights Commission, as chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission in June.
But Jewish groups asked him to rescind the appointment, expressing dismay about tweets Mr. Dattani had posted while a graduate student, including one linking to an article comparing Palestinians to Jews incarcerated in the Warsaw Ghetto, under the name Mujahid Dattani. They also expressed concern that he had shared a platform in 2015 with Adnan Khan, a member of Hizb ut Tahrir, an Islamic fundamentalist group banned in Britain.
Mr. Khan’s writings were found among Osama bin Laden’s papers by American forces in their 2011 raid on his Pakistani compound, according to the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Mr. Dattani told The Globe he was unaware he would be sharing a platform with Mr. Khan.
The Justice Department announced plans to launch an independent investigation after Mr. Dattani’s now deleted social-media posts emerged; it is due to report before Mr. Dattani starts his new role.
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.”
The Conservatives said Mr. Dattani should step aside or the Prime Minister should fire him before he starts his job.
Melissa Lantsman, deputy leader of the Conservative Party, said the government has come up with “yet another excuse for their appalling new appointee to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, that they didn’t bother to research his background or perform proper checks.”
“The Trudeau government’s story has constantly changed as they seek to avoid accountability,” she said in a statement.
Nicholas Marcus Thompson, executive director of the Black Class Action Secretariat, said “it appears the government is trying to scapegoat Mr. Dattani for political reasons.”
He said it is concerning that “this is the third time the government is changing the narrative on this.”
“First, they said he did not provide the information. Then they said he did provide it but not to Justice, and now they are saying they didn’t vet the information that he did provide.”
Chantalle Aubertin, a spokesperson for Mr. Virani, said the Justice Minister’s office was not told about his alias.
“We are aware of potentially troubling statements attributed to Mr. Dattani as well as events he participated in while he was a graduate student in London, England, a decade ago,” she said. “Mr. Dattani did not disclose information about these statements and events to our office during the appointment process. The name he used during this period was disclosed to public servants as part of the security assessment of Mr. Dattani, but was not provided to the office of the Minister of Justice.”
Mr. Dattani declined requests to comment.