Values of Openness and Respect

"The material evidence used by Revenue Canada against IRFAN are matters best left to the relevant legal bodies to be resolved.
"It is extremely unfortunate that this issue has threatened to detract from the many accomplishments of RIS [Reviving the Islamic Spirit conference] in the last ten years."
Fouzan Khan, founder, director of RIS

Best, yes indeed, not to take issue with the findings of a federal government agency whose investigative reach and conclusions negative to the reputation of IRFAN-Canada RIS is in no position to challenge.  Better if, under the circumstances, Reviving the Islamic Spirit conference's organizers had given second thought to the advisability of allowing IRFAN-Canada to co-sponsor their conference.

But then, on the other hand, why should they be invested in that kind of due diligence - protecting themselves against the association and the conclusions to be derived thereof of being in harmony with a group whose activities have been declared supportive of a terrorist organization - to ensure that such a contretemps did not result when a member of Parliament with aspirations to becoming the Prime Minister of Canada could not be bothered to exercise his own?

Damage control on the part of RIS resulted in a website posting to the effect that IRFAN-Canada had offered to disassociate itself from the RIS conference.  So that is that.  Isn't it?  According to Farhia Ahmed, the director of media and public relations of the event in question, IRFAN would not have been permitted to remain a sponsor had it asked to be allowed to.

"RIS is aware that IRFAN denies any wrongdoing and has been in the process of challenging the revocation of its [charitable] status", the news release stated.  The challenge in question relates to Canada Revenue Agency describing IRFAN "as an integral part of an international fundraising effort to support Hamas."  Hamas is recognized by the Government of Canada as a terrorist organization.

As for the estimable Justin Trudeau, Liberal Member of Parliament and aspirant to the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada, determined to become a future Prime Minister of Canada, he has sloughed off criticism of his attendance at an event co-sponsored by a supporter of terrorism rather blithely as "an opportunity to speak to 20,000 Muslim Canadians about this extraordinary society based on values of openness, of respect that we've managed to build here in Canada."

The vigilant Muslim Canadian Congress felt strongly otherwise about the situation, alarmed, in fact, by this event and its co-sponsor, and the willingness of a member of Parliament to lend official seeming affirmation to the agenda hidden behind the facade of a responsible, respectable and socially useful conference.

The widely respected Simon Wiesenthal Center also felt great unease and consternation over the issue of a duly elected member of Parliament going out of his way to garner future electoral support in a constituency some groups of whom he appears to have overlooked the necessity of ensuring that all is as it seems.