Canadian flag. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

A Canadian government minister has said he will examine possible disciplinary action against an anti-racism consultant currently working on a federally-funded project for a series of antisemitic and racist tweets.

Ahmed Hussen, Canada’s diversity minister, said over the weekend that the tweets posted by Laith Marouf — a Lebanese consultant for the Community Media Advocacy Center (CMAC), a group that has received over $100,000 in grants from Canadian Heritage, a government-financed agency — amounted to “unacceptable behavior.”

“Our position is clear — antisemitism and any form of hate have no place in Canada,” Hussen said. “The reprehensible and vile comments made by this individual go against everything our government, and our country, stand for.  That is why I have asked Canadian Heritage to look closely at the situation involving disturbing comments made by the individual in question.”

Several of Marouf’s tweets unearthed over the last few days vilified “Jewish white supremacists” and included obscene comments about Irwin Cotler, a Jewish former government minister and an internationally-recognized human rights campaigner.

Marouf described Cotler as “the Grand Wizard of Zionism in this Colony [Canada],” invoking the title of the leader of the US racist organization, the Ku Klux Klan.

“Notice how he looks like a d**k without makeup as he spews his bulls**t,” Marouf added.

In another tweet, Marouf expressed his desire to rid the State of Israel of its Jewish population.

“You know all those loud mouthed bags of human feces, aka the Jewish White Supremacists; when we liberate Palestine and they have to go back to where they come from, they will return to being low voiced bitches of thier (sic) Christian/Secular White Supremacist Masters,” he posted.

Other tweets by Marouf spoke of “Holocaust porn” in Israel. He has also targeted Black people, attacking former US Secretary of State Colin Powell as the “Jamaican house slave of the Empire,” and French-speakers, whom he called “frogs” with “much less IQ.” One posting showed him standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, displaying his middle finger alongside a message reading, “telling him what I think of his shi**y colony.”

Marouf is listed as a senior consultant on CMAC’s website and is quoted as saying that CMAC is “excited to launch” the “Building an Anti-Racism Strategy for Canadian Broadcasting: Conversation & Convergence Initiative” with funding support from Canadian Heritage’s anti-racism action program.

Marouf did not respond to requests for comment from a range of Canadian media outlets. His lawyer, Stephen Ellis, stated in an email that his client harbours no “animus toward the Jewish faith as a collective group.”