TORONTO — A convicted child sex offender who shook hands with Prime Minister Mark Carney during a recent federal by-election campaign also took part in the campaign of Ahsanul Hafiz, the Liberal who narrowly beat Nate Erskine-Smith for the Ontario Liberal nomination in Scarborough Southwest. Erskine-Smith, then a Liberal MP in Carney’s caucus, alleged the vote was marred by irregularities.
Now an independent Ontario Soccer panel has found that Hafiz, while a director of the organization, breached its Code of Conduct by including the offender in his political campaign. In a decision obtained by The Bureau, the panel concluded that Hafiz’s conduct “creates a situation where youth safety was put below a personal interest in getting elected.”
The decision refers to the offender as "YT." He was convicted in 2010 of sexual touching of a 13-year-old girl he was tutoring at the Dhaka Learning Centre in Scarborough, court records show.
The ruling, issued September 19, provides a formal finding that Hafiz’s Ontario Liberal campaign association with YT breached his obligations as an Ontario Soccer director.
It follows The Bureau’s April reporting on YT’s place in the federal by-election campaign of Doly Begum, now the Liberal MP for Scarborough Southwest. The panel lists The Bureau’s reporting among the evidence it reviewed in its decision on Hafiz.
“The Respondent’s inclusion of YT, a convicted child sex offender in his political campaign cannot meet the duty of diligence as prescribed by Ontario Soccer’s Code of Conduct,” the finding says. “It cannot align with a provincial sports organization primarily organizing sports for minors to have a board member publicly platforming a convicted child sex offender.”
It added there was no evidence reviewed suggesting that Hafiz himself is a risk to children.
“However, choosing to be publicly in the proximity of a child sex offender creates real concerns.”
After Erskine-Smith appealed the Hafiz nomination result, the Ontario Liberal Party dismissed his appeal. The provincial party is legally separate from Carney’s federal Liberal Party, though the two share many members, supporters, political staff and campaign teams in Ontario.
The party’s arbitration committee found no irregularities that affected the result of the Hafiz and Erskine-Smith nomination contest.
Erskine-Smith’s appeal had alleged that the party broke its own identification rules during the May 9 vote.
His campaign said “dozens and dozens of asylum seekers voted with their refugee claimant documents.” It also said others proved their addresses with apartment leases, some unsigned, and that digital report cards and Amazon orders were accepted as proof of residency.
The appeal alleged that one voter was allowed to cast a ballot using a foreign passport. Scrutineers, it said, saw people vote and then return to the credentials line, and enter the voting area through the exit. The party’s interim leader, John Fraser, said he stood behind the process and the volunteers who ran the vote.
Hafiz’s sponsor card in a community event advertisement linking him to YT, filed as evidence with the panel, identified him as both “Secretary, Liberal Party of Canada (ON)” and a member of Ontario Soccer’s board of directors.
Hafiz, the Ontario Liberal Party and Erskine-Smith did not respond to detailed questions from The Bureau. Hafiz was asked, among other things, whether the Liberal Party of Canada knew of the Ontario Soccer safeguarding complaint against him.