Another Worthily Entitled Canadian Citizen

"I accept the submissions of his representative that this decision, if it is published with his full name, could significantly increase the risk of this racist treatment being exacerbated."
"She [co-worker] said that his posts were mainly in support of the terrorist organizations. Further, when Canadian or American soldiers were killed he would post celebratory and supporting messages. When terrorist plans were thwarted or disrupted he would post empathetic messages. The posts are said to have been frequent."
"[Despite having arrived in Canada well before the NATO military action in Afghanistan, A.B. considered his] painful upbringing as being caused by NATO and U.S. intrusions, be they political, economic or military, into Afghan life."
"[The final investigation concluded he] presented a very low risk to commit an act of violence within or in proximity to a CRA facility."
"The employer reasonably concluded that given the knowledge that terrorist groups were seeking to recruit sympathizers to attack NATO forces at home, the grievor presented a risk of being recruited to provide assistance to terrorist or extremist groups."
"I also accept the employer's submission that to do otherwise, meaning to allow a person of any race, creed, colour, or religion who celebrated and advocated for the death of NATO military personnel and the murder of hostages to occupy a position in the federal public service with open access to personal information about every taxpayer, would create an unacceptable risk to the employer's information and reputation."
Federal Labour Board adjudicator Bryan Gray

A tweet by A.B. that cheered on a plane crash was particularly worrying for investigators, given the Calgary airport location of the Canada Revenue Agency office he worked at.   Gavin Young/Postmedia

The ruling handed down recently on the right of a Canada Revenue Agency 2015 decision to fire an employee who had worked next to the Calgary Airport upheld that decision after reviewing details of the circumstances surrounding the employee's behaviour and obvious hostility to Western democratic values, veering off on his Twitter posts to express virulent hatred of NATO and its member states, expressing unconditional support for Islamist terrorism. The man, identified only by the initials A.B., on Facebook "appeared to glorify the Boston Marathon terror bombing, celebrate the deaths of NATO military personnel, and cheer the downing of aircraft".

The adjudicator decided in favour of maintaining anonymity of the former CRA employee, sympathetic to the man's claims of having suffered religious and ethnic discrimination while living in Canada, anxious to spare him any further discomfort in being targeted for abuse, apparently. A.B. is a practising Muslim who arrived from Pakistan where his family lived after having fled from Afghanistan, as a refugee claimant to Canada in 1999. A.B. had worked for the Canada Revenue Agency all of ten days before being fired from the call centre located on the grounds of Calgary airport.

CRA security had been alerted about A.B.'s sympathies and declarations by a co-worker who had recognized the man from a prior private-sector workplace. In that previous employment, a security concern had arisen which caused the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to launch an investigation. As it happened the co-worker was connected to A.B. on Facebook and was familiar with his postings, focusing on events in his country of birth, Afghanistan. The investigation yielded Twitter posts with A.B. celebrating attacks by terrorists.

"@ny-timesword any harm to US occupier army in #Afghanistan is a good news. #boston marathon. Hope more of this to follow."
"@piersmorgan Mr. Morgan there's a wonderful news out there Another plane connected to occupation of @Afghanistan crashed. @bostonmarathon."
"@Haqqanigroup is started by me and it refers to one the resistance groups in Afghanistan against the US occupation of the country."
"@BBCBreaking sorry to hear about civilian casualties in eastern #Afghanistan but really happy to see #NATO casualties they deserve it."

In the wake of the investigation, the CRA revoked the "reliability status", of their Islamist employee. How A.B. had been given that basic security clearance to begin with is curious and appears to have been overlooked. Such a clearance requires a five-year background check to ensure the clearance goes to someone without any questionable skeletons in their background closet. Such a check had it been carried out with due diligence would most surely have mitigated against awarding such a "reliability status" clearance.

The consequence of having his security clearance revoked was the loss of the job, leading the man to file five grievances to the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board with the argument that he had been fired unfairly, as an immigrant to Canada, he emphasized, who had experienced racial and religious discrimination. The usual victim card that is whipped out by these Islamist fundamentalists who know their 'rights' and 'entitlements' are inextricably linked with 'equality' and democracy. Familiar with the language, but spurning the ideology. Freedom without obligations.

The board was informed by A.B. of the difficult life that fate had thrown at him, growing up in Kabul, Afghanistan, his family fleeing to a Pakistani refugee camp where they lived until emigrating to Canada. It was difficult, A.B. moaned to the board "wearing a long beard and being the only brown-skinned person in the office of the business he worked for". "As he said", noted the adjudicator, "that Afghans believe all such good government jobs are reserved for Caucasians", perhaps overlooking that an Afghan refugee, Maryam Monsef, is part of the Trudeau Cabinet.

"I think Canadians and indeed people around the world know exactly what I think about those particular comments [President Trump's tweets on four U.S.Congresswomen]. That is not how we do things in Canada."
"A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian."
"The diversity of our country is actually one of our greatest strengths and a source of tremendous resilience and pride for Canadians and we will to continue to defend that."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

(Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)