‘Too Many People in Ottawa Knew’: Committee Hears About Former Contractor Who Posted Antisemitic Tweets

A view of Centre Block on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in a file photo. (Matthew Little/The Epoch Times)

The telecommunications consultant who originally exposed antisemitic Twitter posts by former federal contractor Laith Marouf has told the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage that knowledge of Marouf’s conduct was well-known throughout the federal government prior to funding being pulled, but action on the matter was not taken until media reported on it.

“Too many people in Ottawa knew about this funding and didn’t act on the information and didn’t speak out,” wrote Mark Goldberg, a consultant from Thornhill, Ont., in a written submission to the committee, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.

“They did nothing to counter it.”

Marouf’s organization, Montreal-based consultancy firm Community Media Advocacy Centre (CMAC), had received a federal grant of over $130,000 from the Department of Canadian Heritage in 2021 for an anti-racism project that Marouf later described as a “series of conferences across the country ... to discuss a strategy for anti-racism in the media.”

Federal funding to CMAC’s anti-racism project was suspended in late August 2022 after news broke of Marouf’s antisemitic Twitter posts. In some of the posts, he referred to Jewish people as “white supremacists” and “bags of human feces.”

Goldberg said at the time that he followed Marouf on Twitter and took screenshots of his posts prior to filing a complaint about them to the social media company, which resulted in Twitter locking Marouf’s account.

In his submission to the House committee, Goldberg also included instances from April 2022 in which he notified the Heritage Department that it had issued funds to Marouf’s organization at the same time he was banned on Twitter.

“MPs on both sides of the House were notified in advance including members of this committee,” Goldberg wrote.

“Most did nothing until coverage of the story became too embarrassing to ignore. I don’t want this to be a partisan issue although I do want to see some real accountability for the disbursement of public funds to this organization and to this person.”

‘Comprehensive Assessment’

Canadian Heritage previously wrote in a briefing note that it had conducted a “comprehensive assessment” of CMAC prior to awarding it a contract for its anti-racism project.

The same note acknowledged that the funding “should never have been approved” and that grant applicants will be required from now on to swear an oath saying they are not antisemitic.

The Commons heritage committee also questioned department officials on Feb. 13 about why background checks on Marouf were not carried out prior to funding being released for CMAC.

“Did anyone bother to google Laith Marouf?” asked Liberal MP Anthony Housefather.

Mala Khanna, associate deputy heritage minister, told the committee that her department “relied on the initial vetting that had been done” when it approved the federal grant.

“In this case, the project on paper met the criteria of the anti-racism action program. There was an internet search done of CMAC as an organization, but it was not done of the individuals who would be performing the work, because nothing came up after the search of CMAC,” Khanna said.

“Had hateful comments turned up, the project would not have been funded,” she noted.

“There was training done in October for all program advisers with respect to both the way in which the criteria are to be implemented and the training on antisemitism and anti-racism,” Khanna told the committee.

“We do not want to be in this situation again, and we have taken steps to ensure that we are not in this situation again.”

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.