Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at a Liberal Party fundraising event in Brampton, Ont., on Aug. 10.Arlyn McAdorey/The Canadian Press
The Trudeau government, late in its third term, has reached the stage where its repeated fumbles are almost becoming comical.
The latest blunder sounds like something out of a political sitcom. The new head of the Canadian Human Rights Commission is out of the job before his first day of work, after it came to light that he repeatedly criticized Israel using a different name.
It’s all of a piece with a government that no longer seems able to get anything right.
Justice Minister Arif Virani announced in June that Birju Dattani would be the new chief commissioner. He would have been the first Muslim and the first racialized person to fill the post at the agency, which is about to expand its mandate because of new legislation that would authorize it to investigate allegations of online abuse.
Days later, The Globe and Mail reported that, while doing postgraduate work in England, Mr. Dattani had tweeted, written papers and attended gatherings that criticized Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
A government-ordered investigation determined that Mr. Dattani had said or done nothing that could be construed as antisemitic. However, he had failed in his application to alert the government to his activities under the name Mujahid Dattani. It wasn’t the activities themselves that concerned the review team so much as Mr. Dattani’s failure to fully disclose his past.
“Mr. Dattani’s efforts to downplay the critical nature of his work was concerning and, certainly, his failure to directly disclose this work deprived the Government of the opportunity to have a discussion with Mr. Dattani about what, if any, impact his scholarship and perspective would or could have if he were appointed to the role of Chief Commissioner,” the report concluded.
On Monday, Mr. Dattani agreed to resign. The Trudeau government’s slipshod vetting process had once again turned what looked like an innovative choice for an important position into an embarrassment.
I say “once again” because hiring, discovering and then backtracking has become something of a pattern with this government’s appointments.
There was the unfortunate decision to ask the Community Media Advocacy Centre to conduct anti-racism seminars. Everything was going fine until reports surfaced that Laith Marouf, a senior consultant at the centre, had posted vile antisemitic comments on Twitter. The government cancelled the contract.
Then there was the famous case of Julie Payette, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s choice for governor-general in 2017. On paper, she looked perfect: an engineer, scientist and former astronaut. But a proper background check would have revealed past accusations of workplace harassment. After similar complaints surfaced at Rideau Hall and following an investigation ordered by the government, Ms. Payette resigned.
The Liberals’ missteps extend beyond poor hiring decisions.
When the histories of this government are written, one major theme will be how the Liberals’ good intentions were often undermined by bungled executions.
Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, which will extend the online reach of Canadian Human Rights Commission, has come under intense criticism from free-speech advocates, including Amnesty International and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, who argue it could have a chilling effect on discourse in the country.
In any case, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who is leading in the polls, has vowed to scrap the act if he forms government, something future applicants to replace Mr. Dattani at the commission should bear in mind.
Mr. Poilievre has made the same promise to axe C-18, the Online News Act, which compels large digital platforms to compensate news organizations for material. Meta stopped posting news on Facebook and Instagram for Canadian users in response to the law.
One year after Meta started blocking news, news organizations’ online engagement has declined by 43 per cent, and one-third of media outlets that were once active on social media are now inactive, according to a study released this week by the Media Ecosystem Observatory.
Meta’s news ban delivered “a major blow to an already-struggling news industry – and democracy,” the report concluded. “The ban has succeeded in severely reducing the visibility of Canadian news online.”
The result of the legislation has been, disastrously, the very opposite of its intent, yet again.
There may be no more emphatic verdict on the wisdom of a government’s agenda than broad public support for an opposition party that vows, if elected, to repeal that agenda.
More of what the Liberal government sought to accomplish might have survived, had it taken the time and effort to get things right.