The Epitome Proponant of Critical Race Theory

"[The First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres representative is a] wacko Indigenous House-Slave."

"[Israel], Jewish White Supremacists [the United States and the Commonwealth nations are apartheid colonies whose occupants must leave]: Come get your garbage, Europe!"

"[The CRTC should] cater to racialized voices in the face of the media oligarchy that is defrauding the public in Canada."

"Zios [are] directing their attack dogs [on me]."

Laith Marouf, principal, Community Advocacy Media Centre

Laith Marouf  (Peter McCabe / THE GAZETTE )

"Mr. Minister [Diversity and Inclusion Minister Ahmed Hussen]: You are taking us for fools. You are calling on CMAC [Community Advocacy Media Centre] to answer 'how they came to hire Laith Marouf'?"

"Are you not aware that he and his wife Gretchen King 'are' CMAC?"

"That they and CMAC share the same address? That it was you and Marouf who announced this program?"

Hillel Neuer, executive director, UN Watch

The Liberal government of Justin Trudeau has been quiet, very quiet on this file. The actual Minister of Canadian Heritage Pablo Rodriguez -- under whose imprimatur the contract was signed to hire the Community Advocacy Media Centre and Palestinian-Syrian activist and racist-slanderer Laith Marouf, well known for his penchant for offhand racist slanders, to head an anti-racist program for Canadian media -- has said nothing, much less apologized for gross ineptitude.

It seems that information is being revealed from investigators that this man who starts his anti-race lectures by first making certain that his media listeners are quite aware of Israel's "Apartheid" status and that Palestinians are overdue their claims to the land that Israel sits on, before engaging with the terms of the contract he was hired to fulfill as the anti-racist expert the government and Minister Hussen touted him to be.

The Canadian-Radio-Television and Telecommunication Commission has developed a long trusting association with this same man as an adviser on race relations and equity. The $133,000 contract with Canadian Heritage pales before the $500,000 doled out to him by the CRTC for his professional services. Just as Heritage Canada couldn't bother Googling inconvenient racist statements made by this man, neither did the CRTC.

Ineptitude, or did they just not care? Marouf's blistering advocacy for BDS, his student activist days, blocking Jewish speakers from addressing university audiences, his daubings of racist, antisemitic slogans on university campuses, his snarling references to Jews as 'white-supremacists', his hateful comments about Jamaican-American Colin Powell, all mark him as a bigot of the first water.

But no one in this Liberal government of Justin Trudeau, committed to woke ideology cared to know, and knew no care in developing a working relationship with him, instead invoking with pride their trust in his professional qualities as a spokesman against racism. Even though in 2020 he accused the CRTC of enabling "an apartheid on the airwaves", they snuggled up to him.

This, the expert on the evils of racist dogma pervading our airwaves, who once spoke of the CBC president as a "pimp of racist, Genocidal, colonialist, Imperialist and Supremacist propaganda". 

Laith Marouf
Policy Consultant, Community Media Advocacy Centre
1861 Rue wellington,
Montreal, Quebec, H3K1W2,
cmac@riseup.net

RE: Request for information with respect to the application for deferral account funding of the Community Media Advocacy Centre (CMAC) in the proceeding initiated by Telecom and Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2020-124

The Commission is in receipt of the application for deferral account funding filed by the Community Media Advocacy Centre (CMAC) in respect of the above-noted proceeding. The purpose of this letter is to request additional information from CMAC regarding its applications for costs.

Before further consideration of the application may be undertaken, CMAC is requested to provide the following information:

1. The record appears to indicate that the claimants, Mr. Laith Marouf and Dr. Gretchen King have positions within CMAC as Policy Consultant and Secretary, respectively. Accordingly, it may be appropriate to categorize the claimants as in-house consultants, subject to a daily rate of $470, rather than external senior consultants subject to an hourly rate of $225. Please clarify whether these are paid staff positions within CMAC and to what extent the claimants take part in or control the day-to-day operations of the organization^Footnote1.
2. If the claimants do not have paid positions within CMAC or control its day-to-day operations, please provide details regarding their specialized knowledge or relevant experience, which would relate to the subject matter of the proceeding.^Footnote2

CMAC is to file a response to the request for information by 3 March 2021.

A copy of this letter and all related correspondence will be added to the record of the proceeding.

Sincerely,

 

The Whole Truth and Nothing But The Truth

Michelle Douglas   Parlvu.Parl.GC.CA

"The WE Charity board always understood that speakers were not paid by the charity or the related organization to speak at WE Days. The board made direct inquiries on this issue."

"I don't know the precise nature of what they were paid for, but if it was exclusively to speak on the WE Day stage, that would have surprised me."

"I did not resign as a routine member or as part of a planned board transition. I resigned because I could not do my job, I could not discharge my governance duties."

"Those reports [financial reports] were not shared with the board, despite our requests."

"It was our view that  you cannot fire hundreds of people without very strong, demonstrable evidence, and even then should explore mitigation measures to save jobs. Instead the executive team were dismissing employees with great speed and in large numbers."

"It was clear that there was a breakdown in trust between the funders and me as the board chair."

"I demanded that the executive team produce those [financial] records. The call was abruptly concluded. I resigned because I could not do my job. I could not discharge my governance duties."

Michelle Douglas former Board of Directors WE Charity

"This has been something that may destroy 25 years of work to build a national charity in this country, partially because of mistakes that we made, we acknowledge and we apologize. But frankly, significantly because of inaccurate and false information is circulated to the advantage of various groups."

"It is incredibly unfortunate that in the past 25 days we have seen the integrity of an organization the service by thousands of teachers across this country, and the work of students who have volunteered called into question."

Craig Kielburger, co-founder, WE Charity

Marc and Craig Keilburger, WE Charity cofounders

Finally, the Canadian House of Commons federal finance committee, looking into the issues that have erupted in the past few weeks over a sole-sourced contract valued at close to a billion dollars given to acknowledged personal friends of the prime minister, have heard directly from the two Kielburger brothers, Marc and Craig, their version of events as they unfolded. Basically the two brothers informed parliamentarians questioning them during a four-hour session that the scandal resulted from "misrepresentations" by the media, by critics and politician.

The "labyrinthian" corporate structure of the WE Charity was explained as innocently ill advised; that their for-profit group and their charitable group were interconnected with one raising funds and dispersing it to the other. What is more inexplicable are the other arms, one specific to real estate property ownership and management, another, a shell company whose purpose was ostensibly to protect the assets of the others, but which was the signee for the government's Canada Student Service Grant to WE Charity Foundation that would have given them a $48-billion payment for services rendered.

Audited financial statements indicate that the charity has paid ME to WE over $11 million since 2009, in cash, much of it representing  the purchase of promotional items or travel and leadership training services. ME to WE claims to have donated $21.4 million to its charitable arm in 11 years representing scarcely five percent of WE Charity's total revenue since 2009; of that sum, $8.6 million represented "in-kind" contributions; not money but items like "donated ME to WE Trips hosting donors an dyouth on scholarship; donated printing of educational materials, donations of ME to WE Artisans from women in Kenya". Leaving one to exhale a huge: WOT?!

There is, in addition to the finance committee investigation, two other parliamentary investigations opened into this very peculiar and revealingly unethical event where it has been seen that both the prime minister and the finance minister who both signed off on the contract to WE when they should have recused themselves in recognition of their deep and personal connections to the charity, has occasioned the Parliamentary Ethics Commissioner to launch an enquiry on these suspect connections as well, for each man, the third such ethical breach for both.

WE co-founders Craig Kielburger, left, and Marc Kielburger, right, introduce Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, at WE Day celebrations in Ottawa in 2015. Trudeau and Morneau both have faced criticism for not disclosing their ties to the organization and not recusing themselves when a government contract was awarded to WE. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

The WE Charity has paid for speeches given at their events by the wife of the prime minister, the prime minister's mother Margaret Trudeau, and the brother of the prime minister, to a total of $300,000. On the part of the Finance Minister, Bill Morneau, one daughter has spoken at WE events, another works for the charity and in 2017 the Morneau family accepted travel invitations by WE Charity to Kenya and Ecuador. Mr. Morneau only recalled not having paid back $41,000 for his family's travel and accommodation last week, when he appeared before the finance committee investigation.

The former chair of WE Charity's board of directors also testified before the committee, to the effect that the board was informed quite explicitly that speakers at youth events connected to WE Charity volunteered their time, and did not receive honorariums. Margaret Trudeau, Justin Trudeau's mother alone received $250,000 for 28 speaking engagements between 2016 and 2020. While brother Alexandre was paid $32,000 for eight events at which he spoke. As a Member of Parliament, not yet leader of the Liberal Party Justin Trudeau himself undertook speaking engagements at various charities for hefty speaking fees.

WE Charity's executive, in response to the March lockdown for the global pandemic went into panic mode over the financial impacts of COVID-19, laying off staff in large numbers, to the final tally of 400 personnel. In their defence, the brothers testified that they had paid Margaret Trudeau not for speaking, but for hosting after-parties, attending receptions and holding autograph sessions on the day of the speeches. Jaw-dropping inanity as an explanation, yet put forward as an explanation countering the 'misinformation' that has been so ruinous to their 25-year work in establishing their WE Charity as a Canadian institution of noble enterprise.

Where the brothers explain that their organization, while complex, and eliciting condemnatory comments from critics

  ,their intention all along was to "be of service", sounding suspiciously like Justin Trudeau's constant reminders to his own critics that he "means well". Accounting for the financial links between the profit side and non-profit side of the enterprise in the two separate groups, things do not add up reassuringly, taking into account the amounts received by WE Charity to enable it to pursue its overseas charitable work, leaving vast sums in possession of the for-profit group which then goes on to acquire real estate, a preoccupation inconsistent with charitable enterprises.

The group chose to default on several of the property mortgages held by banks, not because they were unable to raise the money to honour their bank debts, but because the choice was made to retain the funding internally and put off paying the mortgages. "It is certainly slightly unconventional that they would choose to have these revolving debt facilities when they have enough in other securities and assets to simply not be in debt. Of course there's nothing wrong with structuring your finances this way, but it is more typical of a private corporation than a charity", advises one accounting expert.

Which raises the question: when is a charity not a charity? The chair of the WE Charity board of directors made an effort to straighten out these confused events and to establish the answer to that question to her satisfaction. Her enquiries and demands for information ended with a receiver on the other end of the telephone terminating the conversation, following which she was asked to submit her resignation.

Iraq's Lapse in Governing Aptitude 

"I came out to the streets to ask for reform in my country and to find salvation from the mafias who have stolen my country and was greeted brutally by the security forces."
"We are peaceful protesters, but the security forces treated us with brutality, as if we were animals, not humans demanding our rights."
Ibrahim Ahmed Yusuf, 34, wounded protester, Tahrir Square

Anti-government protesters set fires and close a street during a demonstration in Baghdad on Sunday after nearly a week of unrest throughout Iraq.  Khalid Mohammed/AP

"This must stop."
"I call on all parties to pause and reflect. Those responsible for violence should be held to account. Let the spirit of unity prevail across Iraq."
"The use of force should be exceptional, and assemblies should ordinarily be managed without resort to force."
"Blanket internet shutdowns are likely to contravene freedom of expression, unduly restricting the right to receive and impart information and may exacerbate tensions."
Marta Hurtado, spokeswoman, United Nations high commissioner for human rights

Anti-government protesters run for cover while Iraqi security forces fire live ammunition in the air during a demonstration in Baghdad on Sunday. Khalid Mohammed/AP 

Tahrir Square which signifies by its name, liberation, freedom, is yet again a scene of protest and violence as it was in Egypt during the Arab Spring that gave so much hope throughout the Middle East where ordinary people rose up to demand an end to tyranny and an advance into democracy. Well, Egypt is once again experiencing protests in Tahrir Square (Martyrs Square), and Tahrir Square in Baghdad which never before did -- since the Arab Spring passed it by -- is now the scene of bloody violence and deadly repercussions.

On Sunday in Baghdad, another seven people were killed. The total tally for death of protesters at the hands of the Iraqi military now exceeds one hundred in Iraq, with thousands wounded. To look at the expressions on the faces of the photographed young men taking part in the pandemonium of the protests, they're enjoying themselves, having a good time flirting with danger, as though no bullet could penetrate their bodies. Until they do.

What distinguishes the Middle East quite particularly is the level of violence from both protesters and regimes levelled one against the other. Confrontations are deadly because those involved in them have deadly intent. The regimes because they must resist the street's pressure to overturn their rule, the protesters because they revile the corruption and corrosion of life at the hands of those with power and become willing to sacrifice whatever they have to confront their oppressors, and what they have to offer is their lives.

Protestors wave flags during a protest in Tahrir Square on October 1  CNN

It may not be quite as noble as that, with a greater edge given to the culture of violence endemic in the Middle East itself. Tunisia, where it all began, just handled things differently, but then that country had one foot in its cultural-religious heritage, and another in its long-established emulation of Western-style democracy. The only death that occurred in Tunisia was that of the young fruit seller through self-immolation that set off the popular protests. Few others during the 28 days of protests died.

In Iraq, the past week has seen tens of thousands of Iraqis out on the streets in Baghdad and southern Iraq protesting government corruption, unemployment and dismal basic civil services. When the prime minister, Adil Abdul Mahdi, and speaker of the parliament met with protesters, nothing was resolved. It is the security services' vicious response that seems to signal the leadership has given them all the latitude they deem necessary to put a stop to the protests.

The Iraqi security forces are turning on the mostly young men protesting the lack of opportunities to find employment and security for their futures, as though they are terrorists, not citizens of a recently rededicated civil authority. The government's incompetence which is the source of these protests seeing support from intellectuals and the educated class, along with some political parties trying to advantage themselves, leaves it uncertain and isolated.

The unemployment rate at a time when the country should be seeing improvements resulting from increased oil revenues, infuriates Iraq's youth. It's clear that insufficient finances are being placed into government-initiated programs for job creation, much less civic services for the population. Security forces have been firing directly at protesters, and not into the air as a dispersal mechanism. As with Syria in 2011, the first protests were small and isolated.

When police and security forces responded violently, the protesters become more determined and the protesters grew in numbers of people willing to engage in protest. Despite which, ittle effort was made by the government to pull back the security forces' level of lethal violence. On Friday the Iraqi Federal Police stated that snipers, not part of the security forces, were aiming their deadly weapons at both the protesters and the police.

No Way To Populate a Country

No Way To Populate a Country

"At a time when we need more adjudicators to have refugee claims processed faster, how is this [car and chauffeur provided to the new chair of the Immigration and Refugee Board at a time his office is stretched trying to tackle a surge of asylum seekers entering from the U.S.— at a cost of $78,562 annually] going to have a positive impact on the processing time?"
"This is problematic when the board is struggling to find resources and innovative ways to improve efficiency to deal with the growing backlog [of refugee claimants]."
Francisco Rico-Martinez, FCJ Refugee Centre, past chair of the Canadian Council for Refugees

"That money [$1.18 billion over five years in the latest budget,to increase border security and speed processing of asylum claims] was put there in order to ensure we have appropriate border security approaches but also improve the processing speed for immigration Canada."
"So if someone comes across the border [and] claims asylum, we want to make sure we process that quickly so they either are moved back to where they came from, if it's inappropriate, or in the case where they are legitimately seeking asylum, we deal with them in a compassionate and rapid way."
Finance Minister Bill Morneau

Asylum seekers get ready to cross the Canadian border at Champlain, N.Y., Friday, August 4, 2017. The 2019 federal budget promises a new border enforcement strategy that will cost $1.18 billion dollars over the next five years. (Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)

Canada -- a roomy, large open landscape yearning to be peopled. The second-largest geographic location that labels itself a nation in the world, with a modest population of only just over 37 million people. People originally from all across the globe, joining the indigenous aboriginal communities long settled in the country. People who have undergone a regulated immigration system to qualify for admission and to make a new life in this broad, diversified landscape of mountains and lakes, prairies and rivers, forests and oceans.

Immigrants who fled persecution in their home countries, looking for economic opportunities away from crowded countries where education, health services and security were all in short supply. Immigrants who arrived with few belongings but great hope and aspiration. For whom, on arrival, no government handouts were available, no services of any kind, and what they managed to accomplish they managed on their own initiative, appreciating the opportunity to do so.

They raised families and their children became fully integrated into the prevailing culture, and themselves seized any and all opportunities to advance themselves, as Canadian citizens with a view to honouring their country and serving their own interests at the same time. It's not as though Canada has just sat back and waited for its residents to gain wealth for the nation blessed with huge natural resources, and to multiply, enlarging the population base by natural means.

Immigration levels in a country of 37 million people are robust, roughly a quarter to a third of a million people annually are admitted and welcomed as permanent residents and eventually qualifying for citizenship to boost the population base. Carried out in an orderly manner, the economy rises and employment is available for everyone and social welfare fills in the gaps temporarily until people establish themselves.

The evolution of mass communication and transport has meant that word gets around and so do people. A change in administration in our neighbour to the south brought a President who resolved to do what his predecessors struggled with to little avail; relieve the country of its enormous number of illegal residents. Causing a mass panic with a spillover into Canada across the border from the United States. People, hordes of people who have chosen to migrate and declare themselves refugees deliberately bypassing legal entry points for illegal entry and declaration of haven-seeking.

Canada committed itself to a humanitarian intake of 60,000 Syrian refugees. Most have been in the country between two and three years, and among those aged 20 to 59 who arrived in 2015 and 2016, 24% of males and 8% of females were employed on Census Day (May 10). This compared with 39% of male and 17% of female refugees from other countries. Since there were no government handouts in much earlier waves of refugee intake and immigration, employment was of necessity higher, even among those with little command of English.

Illegal migrants crossed the border from the U.S. into Canada amounting to 42,000 through several years; people who bypassed legal avenues to enter illegally as a deliberate ploy to declare refugee status and take advantage of Canada's generous social welfare, where even if they are disqualified they will live in the country for two to three years while under Canadian law appealing the decision for deportation, provided with education, health care and temporary work visas.

Last year, Canada welcomed 321,065 immigrants who applied legally at consulates and embassies around the world to emigrate from their countries of residence or birth to Canada. This number does not include the irregular -- illegal entry of economic migrants bypassing official ports of entry to walk across the border with the knowledge that once they declare themselves refugees they will be given access to Canada's generous welfare benefits.

The first wave of illegal migrants represented Haitians living on temporary visas as an American humanitarian gesture following the earthquake and tsunami in Haiti when those who had taken advantage of U.S. generosity were determined not to return to their country of origin at the lapse of their visas, and to enter Canada instead. The second wave was comprised largely of Nigerians who secured temporary travel visas to the U.S. with the intention of arriving there and immediately transiting to the closest border point to declare themselves 'refugees'.

This file photo taken on Aug. 5, 2017 shows refugees who crossed the Canada/U.S. border illegally near Hemmingford, Quebec being processed in a tent after being escorted by the RCMP.    GEOFF ROBINS/AFP/Getty Images

When illegal crossers walk into Canada bypassing official border posts, the RCMP makes a show of 'arresting' them, but in effect, courteously ushers them toward a legal post where they are invited to make their claim for refugee status. This process has seen the RCMP spend over $6.6 million in the past two years to process asylum-seeking migrants at Canada’s busiest illegal border crossing in Lacolle, Que., the expense reflecting  personnel overtime and maintenance of a satellite office, as well as funds spent on buses to transport the migrants, including diapers, baby food and car seats.

Toronto and Montreal have seen their emergency housing totally overwhelmed by the presence of the migrants, accommodation meant to serve the needs of Canadians requiring temporary emergency shelter but now too crowded to fit their needs. The spillover of migrants has seen the necessity of renting hotel rooms, other housing units meant for low-income or homeless people, costing both cities hundreds of millions in costs to feed, house and provide medical care for the illegal entrants.

A group of asylum seekers arrives at the temporary housing facilities at the border crossing Wednesday May 9, 2018 in St. Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz