The organization drew ire after cancelling a keynote talk by chocolate entrepreneur Tareq Hadhad
The Advocates’ Society has created a task force to make recommendations to the legal organization’s board about its end-of-term dinner, which has been steeped in controversy since the organization cancelled a keynote talk by an entrepreneur who referred to the conflict in Gaza as a “genocide.”
In an email to members on Friday, the organization said it acknowledged “the profound reactions we have received in respect of our decisions surrounding Mr. Hadhad’s invitation to speak at End of Term dinner and to later withdraw that invitation.
“Our members have expressed deep concerns with the way our decisions were made, the basis for them and with the lack of diverse consultation in our deliberations,” the email continued. The organization invited members to provide feedback, and said it took responsibility “for the fact that through these decisions and related communications we have not fully lived up to our mission and core values.”
A spokesperson for the organization did not confirm whether it had decided to reinstate Tareq Hadhad as the dinner’s keynote speaker.
The Advocates’ Society’s email comes on the heels of criticism over its decision to rescind its invitation to Hadhad, the founder of Antigonish, Nova Scotia-based artisan chocolate maker Peace by Chocolate.
On Thursday, dozens of law professors across Canada submitted an open letter to the Advocates’ Society, arguing that the organization’s decision is analogous to US law firms and universities conceding to government pressure.
“In the United States, we have seen powerful and vital institutions place self-interest ahead of their mission and of the common good, prioritizing their own survival over fighting for democracy, pluralism, and the rule of law,” the professors’ letter said.
“The road to obeisance begins with decisions like the one that the Advocates' Society has just made.”
The professors join criticism from multiple legal organizations, including the South Asian Bar Association of Toronto, which argued that the decision “has a chilling effect on the expression of diverse opinions.”
Hadhad arrived in Canada as a refugee in 2012 after his family left Syria, where they had produced chocolate for more than two decades. The Advocates’ Society initially selected Hadhad to deliver the keynote address at the legal organization’s end-of-term dinner in June.
Last week, however, the CBC reported that the organization had rescinded Hadhad’s invitation to speak after some members raised concerns about his social media posts on the conflict in the Middle East.
The Advocates’ Society did not initially reference specific posts. However, the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association said that when it pressed the organization, it responded that the concerns were based on Hadhad’s use of the term “genocide” on social media and his failure to provide “equal comment” on other groups impacted by the conflict.
The Toronto Star reported that last month, Jonathan Lisus of Lax O'Sullivan Lisus Gottlieb LLP sent an email to the Advocates’ Society, laying out why he believed Hadhad was an inappropriate choice as a speaker.
“Sadly, Mr. Hadhad’s record of public statements makes a strong case that while expressing understandable concern for civilian deaths in Gaza he is unsympathetic, and certainly indifferent, to the harm and suffering of Jewish people and the Jewish state,” Lisus wrote to the Advocates’ Society.
“In my respectful view, the society’s choice to feature a speaker who holds such a one-sided view of an issue of overriding concern and great anguish to its Jewish members is highly insensitive and in very poor taste.”
In May 2024, Hadhad posted on X, “Just looking at this and thinking of all the children that we failed everywhere and continue to fail in Rafah and all of Gaza. This genocide must be stopped. Children should wake up to the sounds of birds not the sounds of bombs.”
Michael Karanicolas, an associate professor of law at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University who organized the professors’ open letter, says the decision to rescind Hadhad’s invitation to speak was particularly troubling because Hadhad is “the most benign, positive, Canadian success story that's out there.
“If he’s the one that's getting targeted over this stuff, it suggests to me that there's a lack of principles there,” Karanicolas says. He adds that the Advocates’ Society should have defended their selection of Hadhad and conveyed that their role is “to ensure that diverse perspectives are aired and expressed and that people get a representative sample of the diverse cultural framework that Canada has to offer.”
Muneeza Sheikh, an employment and human rights lawyer in Toronto, told Law Times on Friday, “The fact that someone as passionate about human rights as Mr. Hadhad can get booted off should be incredibly concerning to anyone who stands for free speech.
“Ontario lawyers have spoken in droves (many on their social media platform): Mr. Hadhad has been painted as a divisive figure – he is not,” she adds. “Powerful institutions are engaging in censorship, and the Advocates' Society is one of them.”
