The Anglican Church of Canada is convinced that a mysterious unnamed party put the kibosh on further taxpayer funding for Kairos. The church may well be wrong, of course, but just in case it isn’t, I would like to say “Thank You” to the unknown party: may all your Earth Days be brightly illuminated with incandescent bulbs.

From here:

The ecumenical justice group, Kairos, has questioned the “transparency and accountability” of the Canadian International Development’s granting process after it was recently revealed in the House of Commons that an unknown party had intervened to have its funding cut.

CIDA initially said in November 2009 that Kairos’ grant application of $7.1 million had been rejected because it “no longer fits CIDA priorities.”

But a parliamentary committee was told on Dec. 9 that CIDA  had actually approved the Kairos application. Minister for International Cooperation and CIDA president, Bev Oda, told the Standing Committee for Foreign Affairs and International Development that it was her decision to discontinue Kairos’ funding…..

Minister Oda testified that when she signed the document, it had not contained the word “not.” She said that she did not add the word, “not,” nor did she know who did. Still, Oda said that she stood by the decision to deny funding to Kairos, which lobbies for peace and human rights in Canada and around the world…..

The Anglican Church of Canada, which is a member of Kairos, has been urging the restoration of the organization’s funding.