Diversity Minister Ahmed Hussen says the government has cut funding to an anti-racism project over “reprehensible and vile” tweets by a senior consultant involved in the strategy.
Hussen says the project helmed by the Community Media Advocacy Centre – which received $133,000 from the Heritage Department – has been suspended.
The move follows reporting by The Canadian Press on tweets sent by Laith Marouf, a senior consultant on the project to build an anti-racism strategy for Canadian broadcasting.
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Hussen described the tweets as “antisemitic” and called on the centre to explain how they hired Marouf and how they plan on rectifying the situation.
Marouf’s lawyer draws a distinction between his client’s tweets about people he calls “Jewish white supremacists” and Jews in general, saying Marouf harbours no animus toward the Jewish faith as a collective group.
The centre’s project received funding from the Heritage Department’s anti-racism action program and the diversity minister was quoted alongside Marouf in a news release about its launch last year.
A screenshot of one of Marouf’s tweets reads, “You know all those loud mouthed bags of human feces, aka the Jewish White Supremacists; when we liberate Palestine and they have to go back to where they come from, they will return to being low voiced bitches of thier (sic) Christian/Secular White Supremacist Masters.”
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