WARNING: This article contains quotes of comments that readers might find disturbing. Reader discretion is advised.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is launching an internal review into how it rewards costs incurred by hearing participants as it distances itself from a taxpayer-funded group whose senior consultant has been accused of antisemitism.
The review comes as Jewish advocates call for Crown corporations and regulators to follow the federal government’s promise to strengthen how it funds projects and groups moving forward, after Ottawa cut funding this summer to Laith Marouf’s Community Media Advocacy Centre (CMAC) in light of his tweets about “Jewish white supremacists.”
Public records show that CMAC has received about $500,000 in payments from the independent Broadcast Participation Fund since 2016 after appearing as a public interest group in CRTC proceedings. The CRTC has said the payments were meant to cover CMAC’s costs for their participation, and were granted after a request was approved by the fund.
“In light of the current situation, we have launched an internal review of our criteria for costs awards,” said CRTC chairperson and CEO Ian Scott in a statement Thursday, promising a public consultation if the review determines that changes are needed.
Scott went on to emphasize that the CRTC has never hired CMAC or its consultants, and has not provided any funding from its budget to the organization for any services.
The costs paid out by the Broadcast Participation Fund “are a tool set up by the CRTC to encourage public participation in our processes, and to provide support for independent research and views,” Scott said. The costs are paid by telecommunications companies involved in the hearings, he added, not by the CRTC or through taxpayer funds.
Any group that participates in hearings can apply to the independent fund to recover those costs, he explained, which can be approved or denied after a review.
“To be clear, the comments by Mr. Marouf are deplorable and such hurtful words, coming from a group applying for costs, would never be allowed to stand on the public record,” Scott said.
Marouf’s tweets first came to light in August when screenshots circulated showing a number of attacks that government officials, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, have called “reprehensible” and “vile.”
One tweet said: “You know all those loud mouthed bags of human feces, a.k.a. 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.”
A lawyer representing Marouf has said his client does not harbour “any animus toward the Jewish faith as a collective group” and distinguished between Marouf’s “clear reference to ‘Jewish white supremacists'” and Jews or Jewish people in general.
Shortly after the tweets came to light, Diversity and Inclusion Minister Ahmed Hussen cut off federal funding to CMAC, which was overseeing an anti-racism project at the time.
Hussen has vowed that new conditions will be added to all federal funding agreements that allow the government to take action if an organization or person is found to have “promoted or shared hate, racism, antisemitism, or discrimination in any form.”
Canadian Jewish advocates told Global News on Wednesday that the CRTC and other Crown corporations and regulators should follow the government’s example.
“It seems to us inconsistent for the government to have one approach, a strong and unequivocal approach, but for that not to extend to all agencies and entities that are charged with the public trust and benefit from taxpayer dollars,” said Shimon Koffler Fogel, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.
No timeline was given for how long the CRTC’s review will take.
— with files from Abigail Bimman and the Canadian Press