From the Journal

Bishop James Cowan of the diocese of British Columbia told his synod at the Mar.6-7 meeting that Conservative Immigration Minister Jason Kenney was “insulting” in the way he refused to allow eleven priests from the Anglican Church of the province of Myanmar to visit last fall when the diocese was celebrating its 150th anniversary.

“When Victoria MP Denise Savoie tried to speak on our behalf with Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, she was rudely received and patronized by him. His correspondence with her is insulting to all concerned,” Bishop Cowan told synod.

A New Democratic Party press release last fall accused the Immigration Minister of being “unwilling to take the word of Canadian church officials about a group of priests with unbreakable ties to their home parishes.

Jason Kenney represents one of the few remaining sins that is still acknowledged by the Anglican Church of Canada: he’s politically conservative. And now he has insulted the ACoC apparatchiks by refusing to take their word that the Myanmar Anglican priests would return to their own country.

Although the visit of the Myanmar priests was probably innocent enough,  Kenney’s mistrust of the ACoC is not entirely unfounded: in 2009 the Anglican Diocese of Montreal sponsored Djamel Ameziane, an Algerian terrorist who conspired with Al Qaeda.