On
the Fred Hahn Affair, it was excellent to see CUPE member, Katherine
Grzejszczak, go public with the connection between CUPE National's
Communications Director, Karine Fortin, and Richard Marceau, the VP and
general counsel of The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), the notorious lobby group in Canada that defends Israeli
apartheid and genocide.
It seems Fortin's connections with CIJA were becoming something of an open secret in certain labour circles in recent weeks. In addition to what Grzejszczak exposed, here are more facts that significantly tighten the link between Fortin and Marceau/CIJA.
More photos and the Mulcair connection
Marceau
has served with CIJA and its predecessor, the Canada-Israel Committee,
since 2007. Prior to that, Marceau was a Bloc Quebecois MP first elected
in 1997. To the best of my knowledge, he became a convert to Judaism
while in office.
Marceau has
posted on Twitter pictures of himself with Karine Fortin at the
Broadbent lnstitute's "Progress Summit" in 2019, 2022 and 2023. Fortin
was hired in November 2018 as CUPE National's Director of Communications. The 2019
photo is with Fortin and Marceau flanking Broadbent himself.
There
is an additional March 2015 Progress Summit Twitter photo on Marceau's
account that has several people in it, notably Thomas Mulcair, leader of the NDP and Official Opposition at the time. During this Progress Summit, Fortin had just been promoted to Deputy National Director of the NDP after serving three years as the NDP's Director of Strategic Communications. Marceau and CIJA, it seems, were well acquainted with the NDP-affiliated "Progress Summit". CIJA, it turns out, was well acquainted with Karine Fortin.
Fortin lobbied exclusively by CIJA
While CIJA does not have to register its meetings with NDP politicians and staffers at the annual Progress Summit hosted in Ottawa by the Broadbent Institute, CIJA must do so if it is official Parliamentary business. The Registry of Lobbyists also includes the names of all parliamentarians and party staffers who are lobbied by registered lobbies.
Fortin was officially lobbied ten times while serving under Mulcair, all between December 2012 and August 2014. Every single one of the lobby sessions is with CIJA. No other registered lobby ever met with Fortin according to the Registry of Lobbyists. Six of those lobby sessions she met alone with CIJA, including five of her first six meetings with CIJA.
Fortin's lobbying sessions with CIJA as per the Registry of Lobbyists database:
- December 3, 2012 (solo)
- January 15, 2013 (with Raoul Gebert, Jordan Leichnetz, Hugo Fontaine)
- February 5, 2013 (solo)
- July 22, 2013 (solo)
- April 3, 2013 (solo)
- April 3, 2013 (solo)
- July 22, 2014 (with Karl Belanger, Steve Moran, and NDP MPs Elaine Michaud, Jamie Nicholls, and Robert Chisholm)
- July 24, 2014 (with Karl Belanger and Moran)
- July 31, 2014 (solo)
- August 12, 2014 (with Gebert)
Who's who? Karl Belanger was Mulcair's Principal Secretary (aka: Mulcair's most senior political aide). Raoul Gebert was Mulcair's Chief of Staff and Mulcair's leadership campaign manager in 2011-2012. Steve Moran was Mulcair's Deputy Chief of Staff. Jordan Leichnetz was an NDP policy analyst. Hugo Fontaine was an NDP political advisor.
We do not know if Marceau was present when Fortin was lobbied by CIJA, although Marceau has been registered as a CIJA lobbyist since early 2007 when CIJA was still the Canada-Israel Committee. While Fortin was being lobbied by CIJA, Marceau was registered with CIJA as its "General Counsel and Senior Government Advisor." Here are Marceau's registered positions with the CIJA and its predecessor, the Canada-Israel Committee:
- CIC's Senior Political Consultant, March 19, 2007-September 1, 2009
- CIC/CIJA's Senior Government Advisor, September 1, 2009-March 27, 2012
- CIJA's General Counsel and Senior Government Advisor, March 27, 2012-December 14, 2018
- CIJA's Vice-President, External Affairs and General Counsel, January 11, 2019-present
Unfortunately,
in a glaring loophole, the names of individual lobbyists at specific meetings are not recorded by the Registry of Lobbyists, even though every individual politician and party staffer in every meeting is named.
Israel's 2014 War on Gaza
The final four CIJA lobby meetings with Fortin occurred between July 22 and August 12, 2014
during Israel's bloody 49-day assault on Gaza which killed over 2,300
civilians and wounded ten thousand more. One of the lobby meetings (July 31, 2014) has Fortin meeting solo with CIJA, while the others feature senior Mulcair staffers, and on one occasion, three NDP
MPs (July 22, 2014).
Mulcair spent those 49 days of carnage
defending Israel's so-called right to self-defence. He was widely praised in Canada's right-wing press for ignoring dissent and democracy in his own party. His efforts earned public praise from CIJA's CEO, Shimon Fogel.
 |
| Ottawa Citizen, July 24, 2014. This was published as CIJA ramped up lobbying of NDP MPs and senior staff, including Karine Fortin, the NDP's Director of Strategic Communications. |
Two months after the war ended, Fortin was promoted to Deputy National
Director of the NDP, and held the position until October 2016. Within eight months, Marceau was taking a photo with Mulcair at the Progress Summit. Later that year, during the federal election, Mulcair oversaw the purge of several democratically-selected pro-Palestine NDP candidates. Mulcair would famously blow his election polling lead to Trudeau, lose the Official Opposition, and wind up a distant third place.
What
does all this mean? The CUPE National Executive Board's motion demanding Fred Hahn's resignation not only trampled union democracy and
opened up every union militant to attacks from scabs and union-busters,
but has been busy working alongside a Director of Communications that has a long and questionable relationship with an organization that defends Israeli Apartheid and denies Israel is committing genocide. What
exactly are the loyalties here? Union power and democracy, or an agenda of bombing children and stealing land?