Liberal MP rescinds award to man called anti-Semite
OTTAWA — A Liberal MP has apologized and rescinded a certificate of appreciation she presented last week to a man a Jewish advocacy group calls a purveyor of anti-Semitism.
Mississauga-Erin Mills MP Iqra Khalid said she was unaware of some of the views held in the past by Amin El-Maoued, the public relations chief of Palestine House, when she gave him a certificate of appreciation for his volunteer work during a barbecue in her riding.
B’nai Brith Canada CEO Michael Mostyn sent Khalid a letter this week, demanding she rescind the certificate.
The letter alleged that El-Maoued led a July 2017 rally “laden with hate-filled and antiSemitic slogans,” including chants of “Israel and Hitler are the same.”
After receiving the letter, Khalid says she “looked into the matter extensively” and concluded that El-Maoued’s past views were contrary to what she stands for and inconsistent with her efforts to “promote diversity and inclusion.”
As a representative of the federal government, she said she has a particular responsibility to condemn anti-Semitism.
“I will have more thorough due diligence in the future in the allocation of these certificates and I apologize for this mistake,” Khalid said in a statement Thursday.
“Anti-Semitism has no place in Canadian society. It is against what I stand for and is against the work I have done as an MP to promote diversity and inclusion.”
While Khalid said she was unaware of El-Maoued’s views, this is not the first time she has been criticized for associating with him. She was denounced last April for giving El-Maoued another award on behalf of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, at an event that featured a Palestinian archbishop who had purportedly defended terrorists and suicide bombings.
Palestine House, which describes itself as “an educational, social and cultural centre of the Palestinian Canadian Community ,” lost all federal funding in 2012. The then-Conservative government cited what it called a “pattern of support for extremism.”