By Dennis Gruending

I reported earlier in December that the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) had cut off all funding to the ecumenical justice group KAIROS. I speculated that likely it happened because KAIROS was challenging the government’s support for rapid development in the heavily polluting oil sands in Western Canada. But alert readers raised another possibility for the government’s action. Emily Dee wrote to the Comments section of Pulpit and Politics on December 12: “I agree that the criticism of the tar sands was no doubt a factor, but I think there was another reason — both Jason Kenney and Stockwell Day claim that KAIROS was anti-Semitic because they criticized Israel.” In fact, on December 16, Kenney, the Immigration Minister, was to level just such charges against KAIROS in a speech that he made in Jerusalem at a global forum for combating anti-Semitism.

Kenney is now denying that he said KAIROS was anti-Semitic, but says he made the more limited accusation that KAIROS was supporting efforts to apply economic sanctions against Israel. But for the record, here is what  the Conservative-friendly National Post quotes Kenney as saying in Jerusalem: “We have articulated and implemented a zero tolerance approach to anti-Semitism. What does this mean? It means that we eliminated the government funding relationship with organizations like for example, the Canadian Arab Federation, whose leadership apologized for terrorism or extremism, or who promote hatred, in particular anti-Semitism. We have ended government contact with like-minded organizations like the Canadian Islamic Congress, whose President notoriously said that all Israelis over the age of 18 are legitimate targets for assassination. We have defunded organizations, most recently like KAIROS, who are taking a leadership role in the boycott.” A videotaped version of Kenney’s remarks is also available. Obviously, one must assume that Kenney meant what he said and knew that it would be reported, even though he is now backpedalling.

Bullying KAIROS

KAIROS was surprised when its funding for international projects was cut off but now the organization and its church sponsors are outraged at having Kenney accuse them of being anti-Semitic, a heavily-loaded phrase that carries with it the dark resonance of the holocaust. “Minister Kenney’s charge against KAIROS is false,” KAIROS said in a statement released on December 18. “Two points need to be made: Criticism of Israel does not constitute anti-Semitism; and CIDA was developed to fund international aid and not to serve political agendas”.

Many organizations and governments have criticized the state of Israel for its long-standing and illegal occupation of Palestinian land and its continued harsh treatment of Palestinians. However, for Kenney and others any criticism of Israeli government policies is quickly branded as anti-Semitism. Ironically, there is a freer and much more robust debate within Israel’s own media and among its citizens than is possible in North America with its active pro-Israel lobby.

Church leaders speaking on behalf of faith groups that belong to KAIROS have denounced the government cuts of $7 million. Writing in The Globe and Mail, Michael Valpy reports that, in protest, members of congregations in 250 church groups across Canada “banged bells and pots and pans at their gathering for worship [on December 13].” Valpy also reports church leaders are telling him off the record that they are worried that the controversy will endanger harmony between Christians and Jewish groups.

KAIROS acts on behalf of 13 of Canada’s major churches or church-based organizations, and it includes under its umbrella the Anglican, Catholic, Christian Reformed, Lutheran, Presbyterian and United Churches, as well as the Mennonite Central Committee, the Quakers and others. KAIROS, or its predecessor groups, have received money from CIDA for 35 years to support partners working in some of the world’s difficult trouble spots, including the Middle East. When KAIROS was told on November 30 that it had been cut off, no detailed explanation was given. CIDA’s minister Bev Oda, when questioned in the House of Commons, said KAIROS lost its funding because of shifting priorities at CIDA. She said nothing then, or later, that would indicate that she believes KAIROS is anti-Semitic.

Kenney, however, is a more powerful and rigidly ideological minister. He worked in 2000 to organize the religious right on behalf of Stockwell Day in his campaign against Preston Manning for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance party.  Day won but when his leadership imploded and Stephen Harper succeeded him in 2002, Kenney became a trusted operative. When the Harper-led Conservatives became the government, Kenney was given a key responsibility in winning over new Canadians and certain religiously identified groups to support the Conservatives. One imperative has been to woo Jewish voters and their financial support. Kenney and the Conservatives have clearly chosen sides – supporting Israeli no matter what actions it undertakes. This unflinching support also plays to the fringe elements of the Christian right – who believe that Armageddon in the Middle East would fulfill what they believe is a biblical prophecy that End Times and the rapture are drawing near. Arab and Muslim Canadians have not been amused by the Conservatives’ unwavering support for Israel, but Kenney and Harper have chosen their ground deliberately.

Wedge and conquer

One would expect a national government to promote unity rather than discord, but that faint hope does not account for how the Conservatives do politics. No party in Canada is likely to receive support from a majority of voters in a country beset by regionalism and fractured parliaments. In this context, it is seen as important to mobilize and maintain your core support. One way to do it is to use wedge issues to create division and provoke  anger.  The Conservatives have used a wedge and conquer strategy in their campaigns against same sex marriage and the gun registry to name just two issues. They are using the same tactics against KAIROS and in the way they treat any criticism of the war in Afghanistan. Personal attacks are a staple against any person or group that disagrees with the government lines on anything.

Bullying Richard Colvin

I reported on November 30 about Richard Colvin, a Canadian diplomat who served in Afghanistan, and who has blown the whistle on the government’s complicity in the torture of Afghans taken prisoner by Canadian soldiers and turned over to Afghan prison authorities. The Conservative government responded by denying Colvin’s allegations and attacking his integrity. The Prime Minister and Defence Minister Peter McKay both described Colvin as essentially a dupe of the Taliban. Those ministers and Transport Minister John Baird meet most questions from the opposition parties by accusing them of sullying the integrity and efforts of Canadian soldiers. The strategy is to attack anyone who questions the actions of the military high command or the government’s behaviour as being disloyal and unpatriotic.

Colvin was a trusted civil servant and following his tour in Afghanistan he was assigned as an intelligence officer at the Canadian embassy in Washington. He made his comments when summoned to testify before a Parliamentary committee. He is being punished by the Conservatives for his diligence and honesty and his career may well be in jeopardy as a result. A group of 133 retired Canadian ambassadors has taken the unprecedented step of circulating a petition defending Colvin from his attackers. The former ambassadors say that the Conservative government is politicizing the civil service and that Colvin’s treatment will intimidate all public servants whose job has been traditionally to provide honest advice to the government and its ministers.

Haroon Siddiqui, a Toronto Star columnist, describes the government’s action in the following way: “The extent of Harper’s misuse of power becomes clearer when you realize that the Conservatives are replicating some of the worst practices of the Republicans under George W. Bush and Dick Cheney: Consolidating executive power; eviscerating the legislative branch; operating under extreme secrecy (by keeping an iron grip on information, through endless court challenges and censoring/redacting documents); riding the coattails of the military and questioning the patriotism of political opponents; and forcing out public servants who refused to fall in line.”

KAIROS and its supporters in numerous Canadian churches have chosen not to fall in line. KAIROS is continuing with its campaign to have the CIDA funding cuts restored. See their petition here. Please consider signing it.

And Merry Christmas, happy holidays – really!

By Dennis Gruending

In October, I attended a fund raising dinner and auction at an Ottawa church to support development of a legal clinic to assist women in eastern Congo. In some of their stories, captured on a brief video, the women describe how they had been gang raped and brutalized by young men who fight in armies and militias. These women were the lucky ones. They talked about how others had been murdered during their ordeals or left to die afterward. The goal on that October evening was to raise $25,000, enough money we were told to support the clinic for one year. People that night dug deeply into their pockets for $22,000 and we were asked to make our cheques to KAIROS, the Canadian ecumenical social justice group. Now, a scant six weeks later, we learn that Bev Oda, the minister in charge of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), has cut all funding to KAIROS. The news arrived in a terse telephone call from a faceless official who said that the organization’s projects do not fit with CIDA’s criteria. Tell that to women in the Congo.

KAIROS acts on behalf of 13 of Canada’s major churches or church-based organizations, and it includes under its umbrella the Anglican, Catholic, Christian Reformed, Lutheran, Presbyterian and United Churches, as well as the Mennonite Central Committee, the Quakers and others. KAIROS, or its predecessor groups, have received money from CIDA for 35 years to support partners working in regions experiencing some of the world’s most serious human rights violations. The work of KAIROS is highly regarded in Canada and overseas.

CIDA’s “priorities”

KAIROS worked with its global partners to develop a program for years 2009-2013, focussing upon human rights and ecological justice.  The budget was for $9.2 million over four years, with CIDA contributing just over $7 million of that amount. The proposal was submitted to CIDA in March 2009, where it moved through various levels of approval before arriving on Bev Oda’s desk in July 2009. There seemed to be little cause for concern. KAIROS had received a positive audit report for its 2006-2009 work and a good evaluation. When, in September 2009, the agreement had still not been signed, KAIROS was granted a two-month extension on a previous contribution agreement. Sources say it was then that people at KAIROS began to worry. They were hearing that there was “trouble at the top”, which meant the minister’s’ office, or more likely with this government, the prime minister’s office.

On November 30, KAIROS was told that it had been cut off. The organization says in a new release: “We asked for an explanation and were informed that our program did not fit the government of Canada’s priorities. This was the last day of an extension to our current proposal.  No written explanation has been provided.” In one telephone call, the Canadian government appears to have terminated a long-standing relationship between CIDA and KAIROS or its predecessor organizations. KAIROS says the decision, if not reversed, “would cut funds to 21 ecumenical and citizen’s organizations in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and cut educational work that helps Canadians across the country to develop skills and knowledge in the exercise of their global citizenship.”

Minister Oda did not communicate with KAIROS about its fate — she rarely communicates publicly with anyone about her portfolio except in the most controlled of circumstances. But the “trouble at the top” may well have had more to do with the work of KAIROS within Canada than with its overseas projects. KAIROS has questioned, on environmental and hence ethical grounds, the rapid development of the tar sands in Western Canada. KAIROS hosted a forum in Calgary in October 2008 and organized a delegation of Canadian church leaders to visit the tar sands in May 2009. The Reform Party and the Canadian Alliance, prior to their takeover of the Progressive Conservative Party, were beneficiaries of generous support from the oil and gas industry. The Harper Conservatives exist on similarly friendly terms with the carbon industry and will not hear of any proposal that would scale back rapid development – despite the environmental problems such development is causing. The implied criticism from KAIROS may have excited the ire of Conservatives at the top, even though most of the KAIROS budget is provided by the organization’s own donors and not by CIDA.

Canada as petro state

The eyes of the world are upon Canada as 192 countries meet in Copenhagen to discuss measures that would start to slow the runaway train of carbon pollution that causes global heating. Canada, which used to be respected among nations, is becoming a pariah due to its stubborn insistence to do little to mitigate the creation of greenhouse gases – and the Canadian tar sands are among the largest emitters. George Monbiot, a columnist for The Guardian in Britain, recently wrote: “So here I am, watching the astonishing spectacle of a beautiful, cultured nation turning itself into a corrupt petro-state. Canada is slipping down the development ladder, retreating from a complex, diverse economy towards dependence on a single primary resource, which happens to be the dirtiest commodity known to man.”

The treatment of KAIROS is not only a punishment; it is a warning. Citizens for Public Justice, another fine ecumenical organization, has also questioned tar sands development, albeit in a polite and almost tentative way. Might CPJ expect repercussions? The Catholic aid agency, Development and Peace, has had a multi-year campaign to bring attention to the corporate behaviour of Canadian mining companies abroad. D&P receives CIDA funding. Should the organization be looking over its shoulder?

Fighting the cuts

KAIROS and its supporters are not going down quietly.  The organization is asking its people to contact their MPs, requesting that the decision be reversed. A variety of NGOs and churches, including the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, which does not belong to KAIROS, have criticized the government’s decision.

The issue appears to have some political legs as well. All opposition parties, including the Greens, who do not have a seat the House of Commons, have called for the move to be reversed. Liberal MPs Bob Rae and John McKay, as well as other opposition members, have raised the issue in Question Period in the House of Commons. As I wrote this, church and NGO Leaders  announced that they would convene a news conference on Parliament Hill to address what they call” the unprecedented decision” to cut all funding to the human rights program of KAIROS.

KAIROS is asking its supporters, in addition to contacting their MPs, to send email messages to: Prime Minister Stephen Harper, pm@pmo-cpm.gc.ca; Bev Oda, minister of international cooperation, oda.b@parl.gc.ca; and Margaret Biggs, president of CIDA, Margaret.Biggs@acdi-cida.gc.ca. KAIROS asks that those who write also copy their letters to KAIROS at info@kairoscanada.org.