Former Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendicino has publicly claimed he doesn’t know who the Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN) is, yet a report suggests otherwise.In a video posted online, Chris Dacey of Dacey Media approached Mendicino and asked him if he had heard of CAHN, to which Mendicino responded, “no.”.However, a report titled The HateGate Affair: Unmasking Canada’s Hate Industry by Caryma Sa’d and Elise Hategan indicates that Mendicino had meetings with CAHN Chair Bernie Farber and relied on information provided by the organization when helping to invoke the Emergencies Act against Freedom Convoy protesters in Ottawa in 2022.It also notes that “CAHN Chair Bernie Farber is assumed to be an untainted resource of information on what constitutes ‘hate,’ yet he often makes negative or inflammatory comments about political candidates to the right of the Liberal Party."His adversarial relationship with the Conservative Party poses another possible conflict of interest.”Wiretap Media further highlighted Farber’s influence, saying on X that “the fact that Farber has been repeatedly contracted to train police officers across the province [Ontario] about extremism in North America shows how easily CAHN is able to shape not only public sentiment but also law enforcement targeting.”.The report emphasizes that Farber’s involvement illustrates how advocacy groups can wield significant influence over government and policing policy, often with limited public oversight.The report also points out a House of Commons Public Safety and National Security Committee session in April 2022, where CAHN Executive Director Evan Balgord was asked if the organization was objective.“We wear our biases on our sleeves,” Balgord stated.“We are very proudly anti-fascist, and we focus on the far right.”Dacey argued that CAHN’s involvement and incitement to action have “real-world consequences,” citing the fact he was attacked at a protest in Confederation Park in Ottawa.“The Canadian Anti-Hate Network is government-funded… and they basically target what they call right-wing extremism, but a lot of it is just really inflated rhetoric,” Dacey said in the video.“This is affecting us a lot on the streets; people are calling me a Nazi and a right-wing extremist all the time. We don’t know what to do about it."I want to make progress, I want our streets to be safe.”Mendicino agreed that political violence on any side of the spectrum was wrong.However, the report raises questions about how closely his decisions aligned with information provided by CAHN.
