August 6, 2021
Minister Parm Gill,
Minister of Multiculturalism and Citizenship
Government of Ontario
Dear Minister Gill,
The Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation urges your immediate investigation into the funding you awarded to the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC) which has invited an speaker to its Muslim Leadership Conference who calls for the destruction of Israel and hence the genocide of the Jews.
It was well known before Tariq Al-Suwaidan was invited that his regular writing, preaching and video lectures were full of hateful antisemitic vitriol; he represents some of the worst Islamist Jew hatred. His participation in a Canadian event is reprehensible and the recent award of funds to the sponsor group must now be called into question.
It is doubtful that the Muslim Association of Canada can provide impartial and useful anti-racist training when it sponsors Jew hatred.
The Muslim Student Leadership Conference is ill served by an organization that promotes a genocide-promoting speaker, and should he repeat his rhetoric students and all in attendance will have been subjected to abuse, hatred, antisemitism and total disrespect for Canadian values. The government should require that MAC employees and board members undertake education in identifying and combatting antisemitism, starting with the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliances definition of antisemitism.
We urge the government to immediately review its decision to grant funding to MAC especially when funds are designated from a Safe Schools Program.
Respectfully,
Anita Bromberg, President