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Anti-hate groups\n are urging the federal government to reconsider which employers can \napply for the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) after \nself-described white nationalist Paul Fromm received COVID-19 relief \nfunds for two of his groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vice<\/a> first reported he received money for the Canadian Association for Free Expression (CAFE) after the government published a searchable registry<\/a> of companies that have accessed CEWS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n CAFE\n is a non-profit that has intervened in several human rights cases \nacross Canada, including on behalf of websites encouraging homophobia \nand Holocaust denial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n CBC News has since learned Fromm also \nreceived money for another group of his \u2014 Citizens for Foreign Aid \nReform, which opposes foreign aid and multiculturalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fromm \nhas appeared in far-right protests, spoken regularly on the white \nnationalist radio show Stormfront, and is the subject of a Hamilton \npolice investigation after complaints he shared the New Zealand mosque \nshooter’s manifesto on the CAFE website. Stormfront describes itself as \nbeing “pro-white news, opinion and inspiration.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I’m a white nationalist,” Fromm said in an interview. “I’m proud of our European heritage and I want to keep it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still,\n he denies being labelled a neo-Nazi or white supremacist, and told CBC \nNews on Wednesday that his organizations met all the requirements to \nreceive CEWS funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The\n criteria as I read it was not ‘What are your politics?’ The criteria is\n ‘Are you an employer, do you have an employer number, have you been \nimpacted by the COVID shutdown and if so, you qualify up to a certain \namount,” Fromm said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Given the rules, there’s not much [the government] can do.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The government was unable to provide an interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Katherine\n Cuplinskas, press secretary for the office of Deputy Prime Minister and\n Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland said the government \n“categorically condemns white supremacy, far-right extremism, and racism\n in all its forms.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Wage subsidy funds can only be used for \nemployee remuneration. Should these funds have been abused, the \npenalties can include repayment of the wage subsidy, an additional 25 \nper cent penalty, and potentially imprisonment in cases of \nfraud,” Cuplinskas wrote in an email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bernie\n Farber, chair of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, said he was shocked to\n learn Fromm successfully applied to CEWS. Neo-Nazi groups getting \ntaxpayer money is a “a glitch in the system” from a government trying to\n navigate a pandemic, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I don’t think any of us can \nreally blame the government for having a glitch in the system. I think \nwe can blame the government if this glitch in the system isn’t fixed \nimmediately,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I think Canadians want to hear our \ngovernment say ‘Whoops, this was a mistake … it’s an outrage at a time\n when people are literally losing their homes and livelihoods and need \nthis money badly, that it would be going to people like Paul Fromm.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fromm\n would not reveal the number of employees in either organization, but \nacknowledged the number was “small and modest.” He also didn’t disclose \nhow much money he received but said it was “small potatoes.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n Cuplinskas wouldn’t\n say whether the government plans to investigate the issue further, but \nKojo Damptey, Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion’s interim executive \ndirector, said he hopes it does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “They should have a list of \norganizations that espouse racist rhetoric, xenophobic rhetoric, and not\n provide them with public funding,” he said. “If our government are \nfunding racist institutions, white nationalist institutions, what kind \nof society are we building and what does it say to many \nmarginalized communities that have been affected by this sort of \nrhetoric?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n With files<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" THE CBC Picked Up a Smear By the Fiercely Anti-Free Speech VICE” — nationalist’ Paul Fromm received federal COVID-19 relief money to fund his groups Canadian Association for Free Expression and Citizens for Foreign Aid Reform both received relief money … Continue reading ![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/i.cbc.ca\/1.5180315.1560886407!\/fileImage\/httpImage\/image.jpg_gen\/derivatives\/original_780\/paul-fromm.jpg\")
Anti-hate groups want government to review system<\/h2>\n\n\n\n