Thanks to Igor Alexander for the tip

Since Mr. Beauregard’s death, Rights and Democracy has been divided by accusations that recent Conservative appointees to its board are trying to steer the agency in a pro-Israel direction. Staff and four former presidents of the organization, which receives about $11-million a year in federal funding, have called for the resignations of senior board members whom they accuse of hounding Mr. Beauregard over Middle East issues in the year leading up to his death.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Human+rights+group+choice+disputed/2602079/story.html

Human rights group choice disputed

Tories playing politics at troubled agency, Ignatieff says

By Graeme Hamilton, National PostFebruary 23, 2010

Human rights group choice disputed
Tories playing politics at troubled agency, Ignatieff says
By Graeme Hamilton, National PostFebruary 23, 2010

Rights and Democracy, whose president, Remy Beauregard, died of heart failure after an acrimonious meeting last month, was created by the former Progressive Conservative party under Brian Mulroney.
Rights and Democracy, whose president, Remy Beauregard, died of heart failure after an acrimonious meeting last month, was created by the former Progressive Conservative party under Brian Mulroney.

Photograph by: Julie Oliver, Canwest News Service Files, Canwest News Service

The Conservative government’s choice to head the troubled human-rights organization Rights and Democracy is a former Canadian Alliance candidate who has argued for restrictions on Muslim immigration to Montreal.

Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon yesterday named Gerard Latulippe, a Quebec Cabinet minister in the 1980s who now works for a democracy-promotion institute in Haiti, to replace Remy Beauregard. Mr. Beauregard, 66, died of a heart attack last month, the night after a heated meeting of the organization’s board of directors.

Since Mr. Beauregard’s death, Rights and Democracy has been divided by accusations that recent Conservative appointees to its board are trying to steer the agency in a pro-Israel direction. Staff and four former presidents of the organization, which receives about $11-million a year in federal funding, have called for the resignations of senior board members whom they accuse of hounding Mr. Beauregard over Middle East issues in the year leading up to his death.

Speaking to reporters yesterday in Ottawa, Mr. Cannon stood behind the board, saying it has the government’s full confidence “to direct the destiny of Rights and Democracy.”

The news release announcing Mr. Latulippe’s nomination suggested Mr. Cannon believes that Rights and Democracy had gone astray under Mr. Beauregard; it called Mr. Latulippe “the ideal candidate to return Rights and Democracy to the promotion of Canadian values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.”

Mr. Latulippe was solicitor-general under Liberal premier Robert Bourassa but quit the Cabinet in 1987 amid allegations of conflict of interest and favoritism involving his girlfriend and his former law firm. He did not seek re-election and was named Quebec’s delegate-general to Mexico and later Brussels.

In 1994, after the Parti Quebecois came to power, he provoked an uproar in Quebec when he announced that he had converted to separatism. The conversion allowed him to hold onto his job in Brussels and led one columnist to dub him “the rubber man of Quebec politics.” In the 2000 federal election, he was the chief Quebec organizer for Stockwell Day’s Canadian Alliance. He ran in the Quebec City riding of Charlesbourg-Jacques-Cartier and finished third. He is currently director of the Haiti program of the National Democratic Institute, a U.S.-based non-profit organization that promotes democracy around the world.

In 2007, when Quebec was in the throes of debate over the reasonable accommodation of religious minorities, Mr. Latulippe submitted a 37-page brief to a provincial government commission studying the issue. Mr. Latulippe warned that Quebec’s open immigration practices were leading to the creation of Muslim ghettoes in Montreal, which could easily become breeding grounds for terrorism.

“Some ethnic groups insist on living according to their own life codes, which run counter to our values and sometimes even our fundamental rights,” he wrote. The smooth functioning of Quebec society, he said, is harmed by “the increasingly large geographical concentration [in Montreal] of immigration from Muslim countries.” Among the solutions he proposed were a requirement that immigrants settle outside Montreal and a pre-immigration test to verify that a potential immigrant’s values conform with those of Quebec society. He also said such religious symbols as the Muslim headscarf and the Sikh kirpan should be confined to the “private sphere.” On the other hand, Cath-olic symbols such as the crucifix in the provincial legislature reflected Quebec’s “national identity” and should be preserved, he said.

Mr. Cannon said he will consult opposition parties on Mr. Latulippe’s nomination, as required by the law creating Rights and Democracy, but he does not need their approval. Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff called the choice to replace Mr. Beauregard disappointing. “We are in a situation where the Conservative party hyper-politicized Rights and Democracy, and this trend continues with the nomination of a former Alliance candidate,” he said.

Rights and Democracy, created in 1988 by Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government to promote human rights and democracy in the developing world, has been in turmoil for the past year. A group of board members led by chairman Aurel Braun criticized Mr. Beauregard’s leadership, accusing him of giving grants to anti-Israel groups in the Palestinian territories. One board member, Jacques Gauthier, circulated a confidential memo to Mr. Braun and two other board members last May in which he alleged that Mr. Beauregard met with representatives of the banned terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah during a 2008 conference in Cairo.

After Mr. Beauregard learned of the allegation, he called it “patently false” and an attack on his reputation. In the memo, which was addressing perceived problems in Mr. Beauregard’s performance, Mr. Gauthier also said he was “very surprised” to learn that Rights and Democracy has no Jewish employees at its Montreal head office. Mr. Beauregard called it “completely unacceptable” for a board member to inquire about the religious affiliation of staff members.

In an interview yesterday, Mr. Gauthier, who has been acting president since Mr. Beauregard died, said he considers Mr. Cannon’s comments yesterday a vindication of the board’s actions at Rights and Democracy. Since his arrival, three senior managers have been suspended with pay, a private investigator was brought in to examine staff computers, a new executive director quit less than a week after his hiring and a forensic auditor was hired to examine a number of Rights and Democracy transactions from 2005 to 2009 “that caused concern.”

The union representing Rights and Democracy’s employees said naming a new president will not be enough to resolve the crisis at the organization.

“Our members have been subjected to religious profiling and intimidation. The workplace atmosphere is intolerable. The staff are enduring a witch hunt and are, quite frankly, outraged,” John Gordon, president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, said in a statement. “This should have been fixed months ago.”

ghamilton@nationalpost.com