New human rights commissioner on leave after review, minister says

Justice Minister Arif Virani says he has received the review of online comments made by incoming human rights commissioner Birju Dattani, and that Dattani has “agreed to take a leave” just one day before he was set to begin serving in his new role. 

“While I carefully consider this matter, Mr. Dattani has agreed to take leave,” Virani said in a statement Wednesday night. 

“I will have more to say in the coming days.”

The minister said his top priority is maintaining confidence in the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) and its chief commissioner. 

Conservative Deputy Leader Melissa Lantsman called for Dattani to be fired.

“Nothing about this review is independent or transparent as the whole process has been set up by the same Liberals who have spent weeks trying to cover up the truth about this appointment,” Lantsman said in a statement.

Past social media posts discovered

Dattani’s appointment was announced in June, after which a Canadian Jewish advocacy group called attention to some of his past social media posts, saying they were antisemitic. 

“The appointment of someone with such a deeply flawed background only exacerbates the skeptical public perceptions of the CHRC and undermines our confidence in the commission’s ability to adjudicate issues of hate and discrimination,” the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said at the time.

The minister’s office originally said it was unaware of the posts, but later said Dattani made them under the alias “Mujahid Dattani.” 

The Privy Council Office (PCO), which conducts background checks for all Governor-in-Council appointments, says it did not initially look into this alias. A PCO representative said that once the oversight was identified the alias was shared with the security partners who perform the background checks and that it would be reviewed.

In 2015, Dattani also spoke on a panel in the U.K. alongside a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamic fundamentalist group that seeks to establish a new caliphate and which opposes Israel’s existence.

Dattani said he was unaware of the other panellists’ affiliations and had never met them before.

Last month, Dattani’s lawyer, Muneeza Sheikh, told CBC News in an email that her client “disclosed all information requested of him by the government” and has no insight into how the information was used or to whom it was given.

In an email to CBC News Wednesday evening, Sheikh said he had no comment “at this time.”