SLOBODIAN: All parties failed on shocking human rights commissioner appointment

The Birju Dattani fiasco exposed how easy it can be for the wrong people to slide past detection into obscenely well-paying government jobs, that arm them with tremendous power over Canadians.Dattani, who carries antisemitic baggage from his past that includes activism and linking up with hard-core Islamic radicals, was a day away from starting a $394,000 a year five-year job as chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC.) He “resigned” August 8 only because of a backlash, after he was outed by government outsiders.Maybe Dattani is the exception. Maybe he isn’t. Maybe isn’t good enough. It’s reasonable to wonder if there are unqualified or inappropriate others who slipped detection and are handsomely paid to inflict harmful policies on Canadians.What’s certain is that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s radical Liberals only appoint those who will carry out their flawed divisive ideological mission — relentlessly targeting some, blatantly favouring others — never seeking the approval of any Canadians.You’d think the Liberal’s known modus operandi would keep opposition members on high alert looking out for the interests of all Canadians. Especially in this case considering the CHRC’s history. It is guilty of discrimination, more than once.But MPs from all parties and their legions of staff were also negligent in the Dattani affair. Where was everybody — that includes Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois MPs now raising a stink — when Dattani was being screened, or before the announcement was formally made on June 14 that he got the job? Weren’t there rumblings that he was the top candidate that should have merited launching their own investigations into his credentials?Dattani would be sitting in that fancy office lording over our human rights if the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) didn’t do the work of opposition MPs by raising the alarm and filing complaints.In doing so, the CIJA may have done all Canadians a service. Dattani’s role would have included ‘combatting’ hate posts and wielding penalties of up to $20,000 under the Liberal’s Online Harms Act that is designed to persecute those who exercise their free-speech right.Maybe Dattani shed his past ways — as he claimed after first crying victimhood, then innocence, then confessing with a kinda, sorta mea culpa — and would have been fair. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe isn’t good enough.After CIJA’s concerns went public, Justice Minister Arif Virani launched a fact-finding mission through the law Filion Wakely Angeletti LLP. What an insult to our sensibilities. Why wasn’t there a thorough fact-finding mission when Dattani was being considered for the job? Why did Canadians have to pay a law firm to do what Liberals are already paid — and obligated — to do?"The findings were submitted to Virani July 31 in the Report Regarding Appointment. In a nutshell, Dattani “deliberately de-emphasized” his anti-Israel academic work regarding the Palestinians, failed to “directly disclose this work,” but might not be antisemitic and maybe doesn’t harbour biases towards Jews or Israelis.This is extraordinarily generous considering Dattani’s pattern of questionable comments and affiliations.Deputy Conservative leader MP Melissa Lantsman said Dattani's resignation came “way too late.”But answers are still needed.Lantsman rightfully demanded the federal government open an investigation into how Dattani was hired. It’s one of two things, as she pointed out in a post on X — the deciders were “either grossly negligent or willfully blind.”“Dattani’s past writings were easily discoverable with a simple Google search,” she said. “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.”OK. Apparently, the Conservatives and Bloc don’t know how to do simple Google searches. Why didn’t they? It’s a fair question when something as critical as human rights are at stake under the Trudeau regime hellbent on stripping Canadians of their rights. This was no time for the opposition to drop the ball or be too timid to challenge potentially racist rogues.Canadians need to know what if anything, the Liberals paid Dattani to go away? No one will comment on that suggesting he was indeed compensated, which would be infuriating.So many contradictory claims.When Virani trumpeted Dattani’s appointment, he assured it was “the result of a rigorous, open, transparent, and merit-based selection process.” Rigorous?Last week the Privy Council Office (PCO,) responsible for background checks of Governor-in-Council appointments, said due to an “administrative oversight” it didn’t search aliases Dattani used for now-scrubbed controversial postings.Virani’s office initially said Dattani didn’t share the aliases when he was undergoing a security assessment. Then it said he did but only with public servants and certainly not with the justice minister or the prime minister. If that’s so, you’d think heads would be rolling over such a serious misstep. Don’t hold your breath.“We do not accept Mr. Dattani's suggestion that his choice of name was sometimes 'just whimsical'. Mr. Dattani was strikingly thoughtful in respect of what names he chose to use and when,” said fact-finding report. Dattani’s antisemitic social media posts were made under the name Mujahid Dattani.Dattani told federal interviewers he regretted delivering a lecture in 2014 during which he called terrorism a “well-calculated strategy” for Muslims. He said he has changed his views and now believes terrorism is wrong.No idea what led to his great epiphany.But his lecture to the Muslim Research Forum in Istanbul focussed on “the value of the concept of terrorism,” according to Blacklock’s Reporter.“Terror is not an irrational strategy pursued solely by fundamentalists with politically and psychologically warped visions of a new political, religious, or ideological order. It is in fact a rational and well-calculated strategy that is pursued with surprisingly high success rates,” he said.Success rates that leave trails of blood, terror, and displacements in pursuit of this desired new order. But whatever.He shared an article comparing Palestinians to that of prisoners in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Second World War. But oh no, he didn’t agree with the article.So, he just shared radical articles like people share apple pie recipes?He was a panelist during “Israeli Apartheid Week” events at Cambridge University in 2014 and 2015.Dattani spoke on one panel in 2015 alongside a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the wildly radical Islamic fundamentalist group that decries Israel’s existence and aims to establish a new caliphate. Heck, he had no idea the guy was with Hizb ut-Tahrir. Was he napping when the zealot was talking?Dattani participated in an anti-Israel protest following the death of a senior Hamas terrorist.And so on.Dattani was the first Muslim appointed to head the CHRC, which has nothing to do with anything. Predictably, Muslim organizations piously cried “witch hunt.” That’s getting tiring, people. Waiting for the day you denounce caliphates and Jew-hate and fight for everyone’s equality and freedom. Then you’ll have some credibility.Initially, Dattani declared he was “confident that the investigation will vindicate my longstanding commitment to human rights.” Well, that didn’t pan out and there’s no question someone with his past doesn’t belong anywhere near the CHRC, never mind leading it.Lantsman was right to say his resignation came “way too late.”Well, so did the opposition’s response. They should have been vigorously on top of this from the get-go. It should never have gotten this far.With an election on the horizon the Liberals are going to ramp up getting their kind of people in place to carry on their radical, destructive, freedom-crushing, discriminatory ideologies.It’s time for the Conservatives to take the reins and stop reacting to bad Liberal decisions after the fact. Prove you have what it takes now.