Search Results for: marouf

Over the past couple of years, I have been more assertive in defending my identity.

I am proudly a Jew (in case you didn’t already know). I have never hidden that fact. In university, I refused to write exams scheduled on Jewish holy days or on the Jewish Sabbath (Friday evenings and Saturdays). On my first day of work at Bell-Northern Research in early September in the late 80’s, I informed my boss that I would be missing work in a few weeks for the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. He responded that I wouldn’t have earned any vacation time by then. I made it clear that I wasn’t asking for time off. I wasn’t going to be at work those days; he and HR could figure out how to code it.

In the early 90’s, the CRTC was running behind schedule during a multi-week hearing. The Commission wanted to have sessions on Saturdays in order to catch up. I refused to testify on a Saturday. My boss pressured me, reminding me that I wasn’t “that” religious. I replied saying it is one thing for me to choose to do some work on Saturdays, but it is a different matter for my government to require me to work on my Sabbath. I held firm. Instead, the hearing ran later each day. An observant Jewish member of one of our competitors came up to me and thanked me for holding my ground.

And, that is why I am using this platform to write this post.

When I am publicly defending my identity, I am also standing up for those who don’t have a public persona. I get to raise my voice on social media, and often, some like-minded followers will amplify that message well beyond my customary reach. It is a network benefit.

Back when the Laith Marouf affair was percolating, the story gained traction when Jonathan Kay raised the profile of my complaints. It is for that reason that I believe it is important to write to you.

Followers of this website know that I frequently travel to Israel. Israel is an intrinsic part of my Jewish identity. When Jews pray, we face toward Jerusalem. Our prayers and our bible contain references to Israel. Major Jewish festivals are tied to agrarian timetables and practices in Israel. I am not an Israeli citizen, but I have family who are.

The events of October 7, 2023 have been deeply troubling to me. The response – or more correctly, the lack of moral leadership – by Canadian officials has been disturbing. The sacking of British Columbia’s NDP cabinet member Selina Robinson demonstrates a pervasive rot – or latent antisemitism – among many political leaders.

I am tired of politicians thinking that the way to respond to antisemitic acts is to write on Twitter that “This is not who we are” or claim that “Hatred and violence against Jewish communities have no place in Canada.”. Condemnations on social media are no match for intimidation by throngs calling “Death to the Jews”. Tweets are ineffective against firebombings and shots fired at synagogues and Jewish community centres.

In defending freedom of expression, I have frequently quoted Aaron Sorkin’s brilliant speech from The American President. “You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.”

Still, there are limits to those speech rights. As CIJA said in its statement yesterday, “We cannot allow mob-driven demonstrations to obstruct our right to participate fully in society.”

Which brings me to how you fit in to help in defending my identity. In resigning from the NDP caucus, Ms. Robinson wrote, “I don’t need your hugs and your emojis. What my community needs however, is for you to stand up to antisemitism.”

Call out hate when you see it online. Tell your elected officials that antisemitism isn’t just a problem for Canada’s Jews. Demand action.

And every once in a while, I’d be OK with a hug.

In late January, I noted that we have been waiting for months for Canada’s Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage (CHPC) to follow-up on its October resolution: “That the officials from the Department of Canadian Heritage that were responsible for the funding of Laith Marouf be invited to appear before committee regarding the federal funding provided to the Community Media Advocacy Centre by the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Department officials’ handling of the situation”.

That day of reckoning finally took place on Monday (February 13). You can watch the entire 90-minute meeting on ParlVU. Using my November 1 blog post as a basis (What I Would Say At Heritage Committee), I submitted a brief to members of the Committee which had been distributed to them a few months ago. It is available on the CHPC website.

Michael Geist wrote a piece that I commend to you: “Apologies Without Accountability: Canadian Heritage Committee Seeks Answers on Government Funding an Anti-Semite”. Marie Woolf continued her strong coverage of the Laith Marouf affair in the Globe and Mail in a story headlined “Ottawa hires debt collectors to get grant back from Laith Marouf employer”.

To those who are critical of the government hiring outside debt-collectors, I observed on Twitter that the point isn’t to get money into the government treasury; it is to get the government money out of the hands of antisemites.

Yesterday, I put together a 6-part Twitter thread capturing some of my thoughts.

I have reproduced them here, with some concluding thoughts at the end.

Just before Monday’s CHPC meeting, the Globe and Mail broke the news that “Laith Marouf once barred from re-entering Canada, interviewed by CSIS”. That raises the question of how a foreign national that was barred from entering Canada in 2009 was able to obtain Canadian citizenship. I suppose that is a question for a different Parliamentary Committee to review at another time. I doubt that Canadians will emerge satisfied from that inquiry, if it ever takes place.

More than 6 months have passed since the Minister was advised of the issue by a sitting member of his own party; nearly a year has passed since the grant was awarded with the Minister appearing in a joint press release with Laith Marouf. Yet, not a single person has been held to account for failures by our government – indeed, these are failures by the very department that is charged with responsibility for developing and implementing an Anti Racism Strategy.

Was it ineptitude or indifference that motivated the inaction by officials at the senior-most levels of the Canadian Government when confronted with evidence of antisemitism by a recipient of Heritage Canada Anti Racism funding? There was inexcusable lethargy in the response that remains unexplained. A number of commentators have observed that antisemitism seems to be treated differently from other forms of hate. “Slander, insult and actual hate against Jews gets a pass — until some truly extreme example calls attention to it. Try referencing any ‘marginalized’ group as ‘bags of feces’ and see how long any journalist, politician or ordinary citizen would last.”

As I wrote on Twitter, “I’m disappointed. I’m angry. And more than anything, I’m sad this is the state of affairs in Canada.”

“If there is no definition of success, there cannot be failure. And if there is no failure, there is no risk of accountability.”

That was the closing line of an editorial in last Saturday’s Globe and Mail, “How to succeed in Ottawa without ever trying.” The article speaks of an aversion in Ottawa to set “a vision married to a measurable outcome, a yardstick by which success or failure could be measured.”

Instead, we have programs, budget line items that allocate pots of cash to hand out for various endeavours deemed worthy. Rural broadband is a juicy one. Innovation is another.

Ministers handing out money makes for a great press release, and maybe even a great photo op. “Our government is proud to contribute to the initiative…”

What could possibly go wrong?

As we now know, the answer to that question is “a lot.”

In a press release dated April 21, 2021, we read a quote attributed to The Honourable Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion:

In Canada, diversity is a fact, but inclusion is a choice. Our government is proud to contribute to the initiative ‘Building an Anti-Racism Strategy for Canadian Broadcasting: Conversation & Convergence.’ Together, let’s continue to build a country that is better, fairer, and more inclusive for everybody, and work together to address issues such as the barriers faced by racialized Canadians. Thank you to CMAC for opening these discussions.

According to Blacklock’s Reporter, a briefing note prepared by Canadian Heritage “says it did a “comprehensive assessment” before awarding a $133,822 grant to a consultant who fantasized on Twitter about shooting Jews.”

Apparently, that assessment wasn’t quite comprehensive enough. No one did a basic web search before awarding the funds, or allowing the Minister to appear in a press release alongside Laith Marouf. In my blog post last April, I asked “Was sufficient due diligence performed when Heritage officials were reviewing this funding request?”

An essay in last week’s New York Times asked “What if Diversity Trainings Are Doing More Harm Than Good?” The article observes that the diversity, equity and inclusion (D.E.I.) “industry” reached an estimated $3.4 billion in 2020 in the United States.

D.E.I. trainings are designed to help organizations become more welcoming to members of traditionally marginalized groups. Advocates make bold promises: Diversity workshops can foster better intergroup relations, improve the retention of minority employees, close recruitment gaps and so on. The only problem? There’s little evidence that many of these initiatives work. And the specific type of diversity training that is currently in vogue — mandatory trainings that blame dominant groups for D.E.I. problems — may well have a net-negative effect on the outcomes managers claim to care about.

According to the minutes of its meeting last October 25, the Parliamentary Heritage Committee agreed “That the officials from the Department of Canadian Heritage that were responsible for the funding of Laith Marouf be invited to appear before committee regarding the federal funding provided to the Community Media Advocacy Centre by the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Department officials’ handling of the situation”. The officials are to “appear before the committee following the conclusion of the consideration of Bill C-18”.

Consideration of Bill C-18 concluded before the year-end holiday break. There have not been any meetings scheduled yet.

When will the Heritage Committee take a comprehensive look at the failures that led to a serial purveyor of hate being engaged under the guise of of an anti-racism program? It is long overdue for an examination of federal funding provided to CMAC, and the Department officials’ handling of the situation.

I have been taking some time to consider (and reconsider) my views on legislation to deal with online harms.

Last week, I had the pleasure of joining MP Anthony Housefather (Liberal – Mount Royal) in participating in an online event entitled “Exposing Antisemitism: Online Research in the Fight Against Jew Hatred”. My presentation looked at “Encountering and Countering Hate”.

I took the attendees through my experience over the past two years of dealing with the online presence of Laith Marouf, a subject that has been canvassed here frequently over that period.

As I described to the webinar attendees, it is important to distinguish between “hate” and what is “merely offensive”. In my view, we may not like encountering offensive content, but that doesn’t mean there should be legal restrictions on it. My readers have seen me frequently refer to Michael Douglas’ address in Aaron Sorkin’s “The American President”.

That said, Mr. Housefather argued that we should examine the algorithms that seem to amplify those messages that elicit visceral emotions and thereby get shared and forwarded by those readers who agree, as well as those who oppose.

Aviva Klompas and John Donohoe wrote “The Wages of Online Antisemitism” in Newsweek last week.

The old saying goes, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Turns out that when those words are propelled by online outrage algorithms, they can be every bit as dangerous as the proverbial sticks and stones.

The authors write, “When it comes to social media, the reality is: if it enrages, it engages… Eliciting outrage drives user engagement, which in turn drives profits.”

In the next month, the US Supreme Court will be examining a couple of cases that challenge certain shields for online platforms found in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. As described in last Friday’s NY Times:

On Feb. 21, the court plans to hear the case of Gonzalez v. Google, which was brought by the family of an American killed in Paris during an attack by followers of the Islamic State. In its lawsuit, the family said Section 230 should not shield YouTube from the claim that the video site supported terrorism when its algorithms recommended Islamic State videos to users. The suit argues that recommendations can count as their own form of content produced by the platform, removing them from the protection of Section 230.

A day later, the court plans to consider a second case, Twitter v. Taamneh. It deals with a related question about when platforms are legally responsible for supporting terrorism under federal law.

The UK has been examining its Online Safety Bill for nearly two years. Its intent is to “make the internet a safer place for everyone in the UK, especially children, while making sure that everyone can enjoy their right to freedom of expression online”.

Key points the Bill covers
The Bill introduces new rules for firms which host user-generated content, i.e. those which allow users to post their own content online or interact with each other, and for search engines, which will have tailored duties focussed on minimising the presentation of harmful search results to users.

Those platforms which fail to protect people will need to answer to the regulator, and could face fines of up to ten per cent of their revenues or, in the most serious cases, being blocked.

All platforms in scope will need to tackle and remove illegal material online, particularly material relating to terrorism and child sexual exploitation and abuse.

Platforms likely to be accessed by children will also have a duty to protect young people using their services from legal but harmful material such as self-harm or eating disorder content. Additionally, providers who publish or place pornographic content on their services will be required to prevent children from accessing that content.
The largest, highest-risk platforms will have to address named categories of legal but harmful material accessed by adults, likely to include issues such as abuse, harassment, or exposure to content encouraging self-harm or eating disorders. They will need to make clear in their terms and conditions what is and is not acceptable on their site, and enforce this.

These services will also have a duty to bring in user empowerment tools, giving adult users more control over whom they interact with and the legal content they see, as well as the option to verify their identity.

Freedom of expression will be protected because these laws are not about imposing excessive regulation or state removal of content, but ensuring that companies have the systems and processes in place to ensure users’ safety. Proportionate measures will avoid unnecessary burdens on small and low-risk businesses.

Finally, the largest platforms will need to put in place proportionate systems and processes to prevent fraudulent adverts being published or hosted on their service. This will tackle the harmful scam advertisements which can have a devastating effect on their victims.

I wrote a couple pieces last year that are worth a second look:

• The need for more diverse perspectives, February 1, 2022
• Testing democratic freedoms, February 22, 2022

I also think back to “Free from online discrimination”, an article I wrote 3 years ago when ministerial mandate letters called for creation of a Digital Charter so that Canadians would have “the ability to be free from online discrimination including bias and harassment.”

Will Canada follow the UK lead in developing our own legislation?

Does a UK approach adequately protect our Charter freedoms of expression?

Another year is about to go into the history books.

Long time readers know that I have used lyrics from Joni Mitchell’s Circle Game for my year-end wrap for more than a decade. Last year’s post was entitled “Then the child moved ten times round the seasons”, so this year I’ll finish that stanza:

Then the child moved ten times round the seasons
Skated over ten clear frozen streams
Words like, ‘When you’re older’ must appease him
And promises of ‘someday’ make his dreams

I was never one who was appeased by such statements, even when I was younger. I didn’t have the patience to put up with “when you’re older” back then, and especially not now that I am well into that state of “older”. I commented last year that my age may be contributing to an increased level of impatience with the sometimes glacial paces of activity in certain areas of our government.

As Canadians witnessed this year in our passport offices, and at our airports, there has been a lack of leadership driving operational excellence from too many branches of our public service. It’s as though executives in the government bureaucracy are satisfied with mediocrity. How else do we explain the hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses handed out last year in departments with such failures in service delivery?

How else do we explain the 5-week delay in getting a public statement from anyone in government associated with the Laith Marouf affair? Where is the accountability, not just for the injudiciousness of awarding an anti-racism contract to a purveyor of such hateful speech, but also for the failures to respond in a timely manner by multiple departments, including the Prime Minister’s Office? I have trouble imagining any reasonable excuse for the uncomfortably long silence, other than political operatives wishing it would all blow over.

Last week, I wrote “We can do better”, observing that actions (and inactions) by our political leadership are contributing to a normalization of antisemitism within mainstream society.

As I described in my blog post in early November, these episodes could have left me profoundly disappointed. Still, each of these failures can be viewed as representing an opportunity for improvement. In the Toronto Star yesterday, Michael Levitt quoted the late Max Eisen saying, “In the face of racism, you must not be a bystander but an upstander and speak out against hate”. He continued, suggesting there can be no better New Year’s resolution for all of us.

In the coming year, I am also convinced that we can be doing more to understand and address the factors that are impacting digital adoption, as I discussed last week.

As we approach 2023, I will keep driving ahead because I know we can do better on files like these. We have to do better.

The promises of ‘someday’ make my dreams.

Every so often, I think back to the denouement in Jeff Daniels’ monologue at the opening of The Newsroom:

We stood up for what was right! We fought for moral reasons, we passed and struck down laws for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were, and we never beat our chest. We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and cultivated the world’s greatest artists and the world’s greatest economy. We reached for the stars, and we acted like men. We aspired to intelligence; we didn’t belittle it; it didn’t make us feel inferior. We didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election, and we didn’t scare so easy. And we were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed.

Being well informed is an important prerequisite for responsible leaders.

Helping you stay informed is one of the reasons I added more than 120 blog posts to “Telecom Trends” over the course of 2022, on average continuing to write more than 2 posts per week, a pace 50% higher than pre-pandemic levels. There are more than 3160 posts in the archives (fully searchable).

Through this blog, it is my objective to be a source of quality information on Canadian telecom policy, with occasional gastronomical diversions. In each case, I am trying to share elements of my expertise accumulated over decades. One look at my profile and you’ll realize that you can’t get a physique like mine overnight.

I look forward to continuing to engage with you in the New Year.

I wish you and your families a happy, healthy, safe and peaceful holiday season.