Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre called the Liberals’ latest controversial hire an antisemite on Wednesday, after allegations were raised by Jewish advocacy groups that the newly-appointed Human Rights Commissioner once compared Jews to Nazis.
The Liberals’ latest controversial appointment, this time Mr. Birju Dattani, a lawyer, has led to Justice Minister Arif Virani announcing that he’s conducting a review of the allegations.
Dattani denies the allegations, calling them “offensive and odious.” But Poilievre clearly disagrees, posting to social media “Trudeau Liberals appoint an antisemite who compared Israelis to Nazis as head of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.”
Poilievre added, “Liberal MP Housefather could agree to recall committee to investigate this grotesque appointment but he won’t. The NDP & Bloc could too, but they won’t.”
What did Dattani say?
The first incident, in 2014, Danatti is accused of retweeting an article titled “Palestinians are Warsaw Ghetto Prisoners of Today,” which he’s since deleted, but confirmed he did retweet it, saying he didn’t agree with the article but merely reposted it without comment.
The next year, Danatti is accused of being a panel member alongside a member from an Islamic fundamentalist group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, which isn’t listed as a terrorist group in Canada, but advocates for Sharia law and allegedly praised Hamas’s October 7 attack on innocent civilians.
Conservatives condemn hiring
Additionally, the Conservatives are calling for a meeting to address the allegations, stating his actions incite Jewish hate in the country and promote radical extremist views.
“This track record should immediately disqualify someone from being appointed to a government position, let alone being appointed to a position whose purpose is to defend human rights” reads their letter to the Chair of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.
Furthermore, the letter mentions the increase in Jewish hate across Canada following recent shootings in Jewish schools in Montreal and Toronto and Molotov cocktails that were used to attack a Synagogue in Vancouver.
The Liberals troubling track record
The Conservatives made clear in their letter that the Liberal government has a “deeply troubling track record” of appointing individuals who are Jew-haters to prestigious positions in Canada.
In 2022, a staff member working under Diversity and Inclusion Minister, Ahmed Hussen, informed the Prime Minister’s Office about the disgusting tweets posted by the ‘anti-racist’ Laith Marouf.
The PMO knew about the racist and anti-semitic tweets for at least one month before they severed his contract.
Marouf was on public record on Twitter saying, “You know all those loud-mouthed bags of human feces; the Jewish White Supremecists; when we liberate Palestine and they go back to where they came from, they will return to being low voiced bitches of their Christian/Secular White Supremacist Masters.”
