Political staff had to better vet human rights chief: Harper aide

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OTTAWA — A former aide to then prime minister Stephen Harper who oversaw major appointments is casting doubt on the Liberals’ explanation that the public service failed to properly vet Canada’s new human rights commissioner Birju Dattani.

Howard Anglin, who served as Harper’s deputy chief of staff, said that each appointment for the head of a major agency or board goes through layers of verifications from ministerial staff, the Privy Council Office (PCO) and the cabinet itself.

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But ultimately, the final decision rests with the government of the day, he said.

“It’s incumbent on the political staff to protect the government and make sure that they know every nuance and wrinkle that’s publicly available that could easily be known about a candidate before their appointment,” Anglin said in an interview.

“It’s never an excuse to say ‘sorry, we assumed PCO would find that.’”

Last month Dattani, the former executive director of the Yukon Human Rights Commission, was appointed by Minister of Justice Arif Virani as the new chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC).

Dattani was set to start a five-year term on Aug. 8. But his appointment could be delayed as the federal government has since promised to launch a “formal, independent review” of his appointment because of anti-Israel comments he made on social media years ago.

The comments were made using the alias “Mujahid Dattani” as a graduate student.

Staffers in the PCO took the blame, citing an “administrative oversight” that resulted in them not searching for the alias and said it would be reviewing its background check process.

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Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland also seemed to shift at least part of the blame on the public service this week, saying, “As the minister of justice has said, that’s unacceptable and we need to do better, and the Privy Council needs to do better.”

“PCO regrets its error,” said Daniel Savoie, spokesperson for PCO. “The aliases were also not reviewed nor shared with security partners who conduct background checks. After this oversight was discovered, PCO shared the aliases with its security partners who are now completing necessary reviews.

“It should also be noted that neither the existence of Mr. Dattani’s aliases, nor any forms containing Mr. Dattani’s aliases, were shared with the Prime Minister’s Office or the Justice Minister’s office. This is consistent with our usual practice in these types of appointments, which this incident has caused us to review,” he added.

Anglin said that ministerial appointments usually go through an extensive vetting.

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In his time in government, he said that each minister’s office usually had a junior or mid-level staff member soliciting and reaching out to candidates for appointments that were within the portfolio, and there would be an internal vetting at the ministerial level.

The minister would then propose that name to the Prime Minister’s Office and the PCO.

Anglin said that the PCO would usually do a series of standard checks within the government’s databases, such as the RCMP, CSIS and the CRA to see if the candidate had a criminal record, or owed taxes to the government.

At the same time, he said, the appointment staff within the PMO would be doing “more political checks,” such as scanning the candidate’s social media history.

In Anglin’s words, PCO would “look for things that are pretty clear-cut, objective red flags,” whereas the political process would be searching for “orange flags, amber flags, whatever is in between green and red.”

“There would be things that involve more of a judgment call, like… are they consistent with the government’s philosophy in that file? Often, that requires more of a political judgment, which is more appropriate for the political side to make, rather than the PCO,” he said.

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As for Dattani’s social media alias, Anglin said to just ask. “I think, at this point, you just assume that almost anybody on social media might have an alias or a burner account or something else.”

Anglin noted that political staff would often check in with regional MPs and ministers who might know the person or might have some other relevant information.

“They might know their reputation, or they might know this guy who looks great on paper, but is actually really tough to deal with privately,” he said.

Finally, each cabinet minister is usually provided with proposed appointments ahead of meetings and could have objected to an appointment at any time, he said.

Shortly after Dattani’s appointment, Jewish organizations flagged the problematic social media posts. Dattani has acknowledged that he shared an article in 2014 titled “Palestinians are Warsaw Ghetto Prisoners of Today” but does not agree with its argument.

He has also rejected accusations that he posted articles comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, as an article published in 2015 suggested.

In 2015, Dattani also appeared on a panel in the United Kingdom alongside a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamic fundamentalist group that opposes the existence of an Israeli state. He has since said he was unaware of the other panelist’s affiliations.

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Dattani would become the first Muslim and racialized person to become head of CHRC.

The National Council of Canadian Muslims and a coalition of human rights groups have all voiced their support for Dattani and said in a letter to the justice minister that the efforts to have him vacate his seat without due process is “deeply concerning.”

Dattani has previously told the National Post that he was confident the government’s investigation would “vindicate (his) longstanding commitment to human rights.”

It is unclear what is taking so long for the government to conclude its investigation, but Virani has said it will be concluded ahead of Dattani’s scheduled start date in August.

The Conservatives have already said that they would rescind Dattani’s appointment.

National Post
calevesque@postmedia.com

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