The Canadian Heritage Ministry will change its contractor vetting process, it said at an inquiry Monday, after it had to cancel a contract with an organization accused of antisemitism. The contract was under the purview of the ministry’s anti-racism initiatives.
Stronger Vetting
The strengthened vetting approach will involve not only a Google search of an organization applying for a contract, as before, but also of its members.The cancelled contract being investigated was with the Community Media Advocacy Centre (CMAC). A senior consultant for CMAC named Laith Marouf made a number of comments Liberal MP Anthony Housefather described during the inquiry as “racist.”
Housefather said that the top theme on Marouf’s Twitter feed was, “Have motto: Life is too short for shoes with laces or for entertaining Jewish white supremacists with anything but a bullet to the head.”
Another of Marouf’s tweets called Jewish people “bags of human feces.”
Associate deputy minister of Canadian Heritage, Mala Khanna, represented the ministry at the inquiry. She said “The hateful comments made by Mr. Marouf were shocking and profoundly disturbing to us.”
Immediate Termination
The ministry will now also be able to immediately terminate contracts. Khanna agreed with many MPs who said it took too long to terminate the contract with CMAC after Marouf’s comments came to light.Khanna testified that the department became aware of a possible problem on July 26, 2022. It investigated and suspended the project on Aug. 19. She said the ministry had to provide CMAC with at least 30 days notice before terminating the project, so it was finally terminated on Sept. 23.
Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman said, “So a long list of clearly anti-Semitic, anti-French, anti-black tweets, and you’d still respect the 30 days. I find that shocking.”
CMAC did not reply to The Epoch Times inquiry as of publication. Its website describes it as “a non-profit organization interested in the future of community and Indigenous media.” It says its values are “decolonization, anti-oppression, and empowerment.”
The ministry had already paid CMAC $133,000 before terminating the contract. Some of that money had already been spent, and so the ministry only told CMAC to pay back $122,000. It hasn’t.
Better Vetting by Other Departments
Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu asked Khanna, “Were you aware that Laith Marouf’s company, CMAC, has been awarded multiple contracts since 2015, more than half a million dollars worth?”Gladu said Minister of Crown–Indigenous Relations Canada Marc Miller has also awarded grants to CMAC, “even though [Marouf] had made vile comments about indigenous people,” Gladu said. “So it appears to me that across all departments, whatever we were doing, it certainly was not preventing the behaviors, because it’s not like Mr. Marouf woke up last summer and began tweeting violent and offensive things. This is a pattern of behavior ... We can see he was barred from reentering Canada in 2009.”
Khanna said the various departments have shared best practices on vetting and awarding contracts and the heritage ministry’s improved process will likely result in better vetting across other departments.
