Birju Dattani, tapped as Canada’s human rights chief in June, resigned before officially taking office on Monday due to controversy over his anti-Israel statements and activities.
Dattani would have been the first Muslim to hold the position.
Dattani’s appointment to lead the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) was immediately challenged by the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), which conducted the vetting of Dattani that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s administration bizarrely refused to do. It did not take CIJA long to find antisemitic social media posts that Dattani created under an alias, “Mujahid Dattani.”
A mujahid is a holy warrior who fights for Islam, which is not really a resume enhancement for leadership of a human rights commission. Dattani did not disclose this alias during his application to the CHRC. A later review found that he “provided no details or additional information with respect to his past scholarship, speaking engagements, or presentations” at all.
Dattani’s objectionable social media posts included comparisons of Israelis to Nazis, while he saw the Palestinians as analogous to the Jews that Nazi Germany held captive and murdered. He linked to articles expounding on this despicable thesis at length.
Further digging uncovered Dattani’s participation in the terrorist-supporting Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and panel discussions on “apartheid” in Israel. He spoke on a 2015 panel in Britain that included a member of the radical Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which wants to destroy Israel and replace it with an Islamic caliphate.
The Trudeau administration went into damage-control mode, commissioning a Toronto law firm to produce a report that concluded the nominee was not truly guilty of antisemitism. The report used the commonplace tactic of excusing Dattani’s most horrendous remarks by saying he was “careful to criticize the actions of the State of Israel and not the Israeli people.” Few of Dattani’s critics appear to have been swayed by this document.
Justice Minister Arif Virani began throwing in the towel on Wednesday, announcing that Dattani had “agreed to take a leave” while his past comments and flawed vetting process were “carefully considered.”
Conservative Party Deputy Leader Melissa Lantsman denounced these damage control tactics and called for Dattani to be conclusively dismissed.
“Nothing about this review is independent or transparent, as the whole process has been set up by the same liberals who have spent weeks trying to cover up the truth about this appointment,” Lantsman said.
“The appointment of someone with such a deeply flawed background only exacerbates the skeptical public perceptions of the CHRC and undermines our confidence in the commission’s ability to adjudicate issues of hate and discrimination,” the CIJA said when Dattani’s leave of absence was announced.
The Privy Council Office (PCO), Canada’s lead agency for vetting high-level appointments, sheepishly admitted that it did not know about Dattani’s social media alias or dubious past activities.
Virani launched an independent probe of Dattani, blasting the appointee’s lack of “candor” in a report published on Monday and sealing the would-be human rights commissioner’s fate. Dattani “agreed to resign” in a statement issued the same day.
“I remain a steadfast believer in the Commission’s work, mandate, and its importance to our democracy,” Dattani said when tendering his resignation.
“I have accepted Mr. Dattani’s decision to step down as chief commissioner. As I have said, maintaining the confidence of all Canadians in the Canadian Human Rights Commission remains my top priority,” Virani said on Monday.
Dattani insisted he did not intentionally deceive the PCO, claiming he forgot about his “Mujahid” alias and assumed the PCO’s vetting team would find all of his past statements by using Google.
Lantsman applauded Dattani’s resignation while blasting the Trudeau administration for its sloppy vetting procedure. Even worse, she suggested some of Trudeau’s people might have known about Dattani comparing Israelis to Nazis and decided there was nothing wrong with his remarks.
“Dattani’s past writings were easily discoverable with a simple Google search,” she said, agreeing with a point Dattani made himself.
“Either the political staff in the Trudeau government failed to do such a rudimentary search, or they found that material and viewed the comments as not problematic,” Lantsman said, demanding an independent probe into how the appointment was bungled so badly.
