Federal Court negates Muslim vet’s challenge
The Federal Court has dismissed a challenge by Idris Ben-Tahir, a prominent member of Ottawa’s Muslim community and former mayoral candidate, of a decision by a veterans affairs tribunal that denied him a disability pension.
At the hearing into his application for judicial review of the 2014 decision by a panel of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board, BenTahir, who appeared without a lawyer, told the court he was the victim of a bullying or hazing incident in 1965.
He said the assault was ordered by his commanding officer at CFB St. Jean while he was serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force reserve.
“He described that he was stripped of his clothing, shoes and glasses, his feet were tied, CocaCola was poured on his head and he was thrown into a swimming pool,” recounts Federal Court Judge Catherine Kane in her July 17 decision.
Ben-Tahir filed a grievance following the incident, but said he was encouraged to withdraw it.
He argued that the bullying incident, along with associated stress, “resulted in or contributed to” hearing loss and a persistent vertigo disorder, Kane wrote in her decision.
“Mr. Ben-Tahir submits that his hearing loss and vertigo did not exist prior to the bullying incident and were exacerbated over the years since the incident,” the judge wrote.
Ben-Tahir also said he was exposed to significant noise at CFB Uplands while in the reserve and later, in a civilian capacity, at CFB Trenton and CFB Cold Lake, which also contributed to his hearing loss.
But the Veterans Review and Appeal Board panel found that his hearing loss and vertigo “did not arise out of and were not directly connected to” his service in the reserve force, Kane’s decision says.
The board also cast doubt on the bullying incident, saying it had not been proven. Ben-Tahir told the court that much of the relevant information about the 1965 incident has been destroyed.
In her decision, Kane found that the board’s findings were reasonable and dismissed the application for judicial review.
Ben-Tahir, now 76, is a wellknown figure in the city’s Muslim community. In 2010, he ran for mayor, finishing 10th in a field of 20 candidates. He has also run unsuccessfully for city council, the school board and the federal Conservative nomination in Ottawa Centre.
In an interview Friday, Ben-Tahir called the Federal Court decision “a joke.”
“I’m really upset,” he said. “I have lost my hearing in my right ear totally. I’ve been in and out of hospital for vertigo. And I have to walk with a stick outside and a walker inside because I fell down and almost cracked my head.”
Kane, he said, “had all that record. She dismissed everything as fair.”
Moreover, Ben-Tahir — the first Muslim to serve in the Royal Canadian Air Force — received Kane’s judgment on Eid, the last day of Ramadan, a day Muslims are commanded by Islamic law to enjoy.
“On Eid day, she destroyed any happiness that I should have,” he said. “I was completely shaken. How come she had to send it to me on that particular day?”
Ironically, Ben-Tahir applied to become a member of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board in 2010, but was not accepted. For that reason and others, he argued that the board was biased against him, noting that board members “acted in an amused and mocking manner” in response to his account of the bullying incident.
But Kane said none of BenTahir’s submissions met the legal standard of reasonable apprehension of bias.
While Ben-Tahir could appeal his case to the Federal Court of Appeal, that seems unlikely. “You have to have money to go there,” he said. “And I have zero.”