Alberta human rights commission chief refuses to quit, retains lawyer

Alberta’s human rights commission chief is refusing to resign despite Justice Minister Tyler Shandro’s request to do so on Monday.

Calgary lawyer Collin May was appointed to a five-year term as chief of the Alberta Human Rights Commission by Shandro in July after serving as a member since 2019.

May was asked to resign by Shandro after the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) and 27 other community associations sent a letter to the justice minister on Monday.

May’s review of Israeli-British historian Efraim Karsh’s book Islamic Imperialism: A History on C2C Journal resurfaced in July after several community members expressed their concerns to the NCCM. Independent news outlet The Progress Report also wrote about the comments in July.

In the review, May called the religion “militaristic” in nature.

Since then, the NCCM said it tried to work with May multiple times to attempt to reconcile and build trust with Muslim communities. When May didn’t follow up as agreed, it prompted the NCCM to call for his resignation.

May said he does not hold anti-Islamic views, and the editors of the book review said the essay makes it clear the offending comments were the views of the book author and not May.

May hired Toronto-based lawyer Kathryn Marshall, who tweeted on Thursday that he will not be resigning.

“My client, the first openly gay chief of the Alberta Human Rights Commission, will not be resigning his position,” Marshall said in an emailed statement to Global News.

Opposition NDP justice critic Irfan Sabir said Shandro has the power to fire the human rights commission chief and should do just that.

“Mr. Shandro has the power to fire him and he should follow through on that,” Irfan said in an unrelated news conference on Thursday.

“We know that Muslim communities have been part of this province and this country for more than 100 years… They’ve contributed significantly to the economic, political and social life of this province.

The NCCM declined Global News’ request for comment, saying it is not releasing a statement or conducting interviews at this time.

“We are currently monitoring the new developments and want to ensure we have all the information before doing any interviews,” said Said Omar, NCCM’s Alberta advocacy officer.

770 CHQR reached out to the Ministry of Justice and Solicitor General with a request for comment.

—With files from The Canadian Press.

by 770 CHQR