LILLEY: Handshake or government funding to racist, which is worse?

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What’s worse, shaking fingers with a person deemed to be a racist with extremist views or handing over taxpayer’s cash to run a government-backed program?

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There have been two tales on this entrance over the past week and a few appear to suppose the handshake is the worst factor that would’ve occurred.

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Let’s make no mistake, racism is alive and nicely in Canada. Pretending there aren’t any racists on this nation is like pretending the sky is inexperienced.

We aren’t fairly within the state of affairs some activists would have us consider with a racist behind each nook and each trigger they don’t agree with. That’s been the method of the Trudeau authorities in some ways, calling these they disagree with racist, misogynist folks with undesirable views.

But, over the past week, the Trudeau authorities has been dealing with some powerful questions over funding a person with racist views to run anti-racism packages. They’ve tried to deflect from this by saying their $133,000 contract for coaching was truly with the Group Media Advocacy Centre and never Laith Marouf himself.

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That sounded believable at first, however we’ve since discovered that Marouf and CMAC are basically one in the identical. The tackle for the group is seemingly his house, the cellphone quantity listed on the group’s web site and on authorities paperwork is his cell quantity.

It makes me surprise if all of the nasty issues he’s stated about Israel, “Jewish white supremacists,” Francophones and Black People have been typed out on that cellphone, the one he informed the federal government to contact CMAC on. That there was no vetting of this group searching for funding from the division of Canadian Heritage is now clear.

Marouf’s lawyer has stated that Marouf doesn’t have “any animus towards the Jewish religion as a collective group” and emphasised that his tweets made a transparent distinction between “Jewish White Supremacists” and Jews basically.

Clearly, that is obscure or settle for.

Now then again, now we have the story that’s driving Liberals mad, that Conservative management candidate Pierre Poilievre shook fingers with a person named Jeremy Mackenzie. Upon listening to his identify and calls for that I write tales on this atrocity, I did what the bureaucrats handing out cash to CMAC and Laith Marouf didn’t do – I Googled him.

Mackenzie is dealing with quite a few firearms costs after and RCMP raid on his Nova Scotia house earlier this yr. He’s additionally been charged with harassing Nova Scotia’s chief medical officer over COVID insurance policies. Not precisely a nationwide determine Poilievre ought to know.

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Mackenzie can be related to a bunch referred to as Diagolon which, relying on who you consider, is both a giant web joke or a terrorist group (Mackenzie has denied that his statements may incite violence). Mackenzie has been described as a racist in a number of media reviews (which he denies) and it’s on that foundation that there have been calls for for Poilievre to denounce him after he shook his hand in a photograph line at a latest occasion.

“I denounce racism and anybody who spreads it. I didn’t and don’t know or acknowledge this specific particular person,” Poilievre stated in response to media requests.

That ought to have been the top of it, however some need to paint Poilievre as evil.

Politicians of all stripes get caught in conditions like this, sometime I’d. Once you’re within the public eye, all types of individuals cease and ask you for a photograph, you don’t know who they’re or have time to vet them.

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Trudeau has been photographed in comparable circumstances with recognized racists or individuals who have been accused of horrible intercourse crimes. He couldn’t have recognized that on the time and might’t be held accountable, however now his supporters need to maintain Poilievre accountable for a similar sin.

There’s an enormous distinction between taking a fast picture at a public occasion and having the federal government fund somebody with an extended monitor file of claiming vile issues. One is preventable, the opposite isn’t.

Earlier than Liberals beginning screaming racism from the rooftops this week, they finest take an extended look within the mirror.

blilley@postmedia.com