Guilbeault admits he didn’t track funds sent to activist group tied to Antifa in court

Former Liberal heritage minister Steven Guilbeault revealed that his department “doesn’t capture” how much of the over $700,000 given to the Canadian Anti-Hate Network went to “Antifa."

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Former Liberal heritage minister Steven Guilbeault revealed that his department “doesn’t capture” how much of the over $700,000 given to the Canadian Anti-Hate Network went to “Antifa or other extremist groups,” or what guardrails it puts in place to ensure tax dollars aren’t “funnelled” to such groups.

In response to an Order Paper Question submitted by Conservative MP David Bexte on how the nearly $1 million in federal tax funds given to the organization by both the ministries of Public Safety and Canadian Heritage is spent, Guilbeault revealed that the department doesn’t track the taxpayer funds after awarding grants.

In 2022, a small claims court judge accepted evidence that CAHN “did in fact assist Antifa,” and concluded that Antifa “has been violent.” CAHN has disputed the ruling and was not a participant in the legal proceeding.

A subsequent appeal of the ruling filed by CAHN board member Richard Warman in 2024 was dismissed by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice Divisional Court. CAHN, which describes itself as “proudly anti-fascist,” denies allegations that its organization has ever supported “terrorism, violence or criminality.”

The term “Antifa” is used by its proponents to mean “anti-fascist.”

In his response, Guilbeault noted that Canadian Heritage approved $708,400 for the group. He said $268,400 for the group on October 5, 2020, and allocated it in annual payments of $126,700 for fiscal years 2020-21 and 2021-22, for “containing and countering Canadian Hate Groups.” A total of $440,000 in Canadian tax dollars was approved by Canadian Heritage on February 7, 2024, to be disbursed in annual payments between fiscal years 2023-24 and 2025-26.

To Bexte’s question on how much of the funding was “funnelled to Antifa and other extremist groups” and how the ministry ensures the money is not used to fund Antifa cells, Guilbeault responded, saying, “The information requested is not captured in the department of Canadian Heritage’s tracking systems.”

Jaques Ramsay, the Parliamentary Secretary for the Liberal public safety minister, answered the same questions, noting that Public Safety has already publicly disclosed it had given CAHN $200,000 to “create an ethical framework for research on far-right organizing in Canada. Unlike Guilbeault, Ramsay noted that “none of the funding” was funnelled to Antifa or other extremist groups.

“The Community Resilience Fund agreement with Canadian Anti-Hate Network expressly prohibits redistribution of funds to any other organizations or entities,” Ramsay said on behalf of Public Safety Canada. “All expenditures must align with pre-approved project activities and are verified by Public Safety Canada officials prior to disbursement.”

Additionally, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service also noted it “does not generally disclose details related to contracts or expenditures” beyond those publicly disclosed.

He noted that the agency’s’ Community Resilience Fund Terms and Conditions includes “oversight and accountability mechanisms” to ensure that the funds are used “only for approved purposes” such as reviewing of expenditures by a Steering Committee involving several federal departments.

The Canadian Anti-Hate Network rejected the premise of Bexte’s question that Antifa groups were extreme and told True North that CAHN has never reallocated public funds.

“The premise of this order paper question, that anti-fascist groups are equivalent to extremist groups or are extremist groups by definition, is 100% false. Regardless, we have never reallocated public funds outside the terms of our funding agreements and we receive clean audits,” a representative of the organization said. “We use those funds, broadly speaking, to investigate and educate about far-right movements and groups which harbour racism and hate and are incompatible with a multicultural democracy.”

The group claimed that suggesting that the organization “funds, supports or endorses violence and criminality” is “defamatory.”

As noted in previous reporting by True North, the court evidence included CAHN articles which called for “physical disruption” to get their message across, Bernie Farber, a co-founder, praising Antifa’s “muscular resistance.”

CAHN also published and republished a “flagship” article titled “40 Ways to Fight the far right” which includes Mark Bray’s Antifa, the Antifascist Handbook and Stanislav Vysotsky’s American Antifa: The Tactics, Culture, and Practice of Militant Antifascism as recommended reading.

Bray’s book explains that many adherents of Antifa ideology view fascism as a product of capitalism and that “to be consistently antifascist is to be consistently anticapitalist.” Bray justifies Antifa violence by saying “militant anti-fascism is a form of collective self-defence” and glorifies Antifa for “stamping out” what they label as fascism by “any means necessary.”

In CAHN’s Pride protest guide, it recommends followers use sound devices so loud that their users should wear ear protection against those they deem as “hate protesters.” Montreal Antifa protesters used such sound devices as well as smoke bombs and firecrackers to disrupt this year’s Quebec March for Life event this summer. The crowd included protesters ranging from infants to 92-year-olds. There’s no record of CAHN promoting this Antifa counter-protest.

Both Canadian Heritage and Public Safety Canada were silent when asked about the group’s funding and alleged ties to Antifa in September, ties which CAHN denied.

Antifa was designated as a domestic terrorist group through an executive order signed by U.S. President Donald Trump in September. The Trump administration began the process of designating European Antifa cells as foreign terrorist organizations in November.

True North mistakenly attributed an article written by Evan Balgord to CAHN and incorrectly reported that in it Balgord praised Antifa’s “physical disruption” of events. The evidence referred to in the court, which is no longer publicly available, merely noted that Balgord referred to Antifa’s physical disruption. True North regrets the error.