Laith Marouf said Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez’s department “begged us” to take a $133,822 government subsidy. Marouf, who has been widely denounced for antisemitism, said he was contacted by the Department of Canadian Heritage and promised funding in less than a week..“Heritage Canada outreached to the Community Media Advocacy Centre, the group that I work for, which is the global authority on this issue, and begged us to apply within four days to receive funding to create a series of conferences across the country that bring together racialized and Indigenous broadcasters, media producers, academics, to discuss a strategy for anti-racism in the media,” said Marouf..“We were shocked because there were no funding packages open for us to apply to,” said Marouf. “We applied anyways and we got the money very fast. We did all this work.”.According to Blacklock's Reporter, Marouf made his remarks in an October 23 interview with an American podcaster. He did not name the department official who first called with the offer of a cash grant..Marouf’s Advocacy Centre was awarded the sole-sourced contract to conduct campus workshops. The initiative under an Anti-Racism Action Program was announced September 21, 2021..The department acknowledged from July 19 it was told of anti-Semitic remarks by Marouf including posts on his Twitter account in which he called Jews “human feces” and fantasized about shooting Jews. The federal funding was pulled August 22..“They went into a frenzy to attack my tweets,” said Marouf, who challenged his critics to “put me in court and charge me with hate speech.”.“They were calling me names, all these MPs, the minister of heritage, defaming me, misrepresenting me, libeling me,” said Marouf. “Now Heritage Canada broke the contract and is asking for all the money back from the Community Media Advocacy Centre,” he added..Marouf conducted workshops in Vancouver, Montréal and Halifax before the funding was pulled. Additional workshops scheduled in Calgary, Winnipeg and Ottawa were cancelled..“We had already spent half of the money of course, more than half the money, on all the events and the speakers and the fees and the rooms and the food and the hotels,” said Marouf. “As this debacle shows, the media across Canada are Jewish white supremacists or supporters of Jewish white supremacy,” he added..In addition to the $133,822 “anti-racism” grant, Marouf’s Advocacy Centre received $32,147 directly from the Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission and an additional $433,814 in grants from the CRTC-mandated Broadcasting Participation Fund..Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez in testimony last Friday at the Commons heritage committee said he only learned of Marouf’s funding and history of anti-Semitism from media. “I have asked my department to make sure we look at everything,” said Rodriguez.
