Evidence of meeting #51 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was decision.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Executive Director, Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives (KAIROS)
No, as I said, when I asked what priorities, I was told, “I have no further information.”
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Was there any indication that CIDA, as an agency, had actually approved of your application?
Executive Director, Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives (KAIROS)
No.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Okay. So at that point you weren't aware that CIDA had actually approved of your application, and you only learned subsequently that CIDA, as an agency, had actually approved of your application?
Executive Director, Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives (KAIROS)
No. In the conversations we had in the period between March 2009 and when we learned of having all our funding cut, our sense in conversations was that things had gone very well, that all the questions asked of us had been answered, and that it was merely a question of people being busy, not there to attend to work, a backlog.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
So at that point, up until the phone call, you thought you were going to be getting your funding. You got the phone call. The reasons were not given to you as to why you didn't “meet the priorities”.
Was there any other communication between you and the government?
Executive Director, Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives (KAIROS)
No. In fact, what I did ask when I received the phone call was whether Kairos would receive something in writing, because we hadn't informed our partners. We had two and a half hours from our end of funding.... We didn't receive anything until December 4—it was dated December 3, but it arrived on December 4—and it was quite general.
Executive Director, Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives (KAIROS)
December 16.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Was that the first real indication you had of a reason as to why you weren't going to get the funding?
Executive Director, Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives (KAIROS)
Well, we saw something in The Globe and Mail during that week before December 4 in which the minister was quoted as saying we didn't meet priorities, the new themes that had been introduced at the end of September 2009, and those were food security, children and youth, and economic growth, so—
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Did anything in The Globe and Mail article give you any indication that you were going to be accused of being an anti-Semitic organization?
Executive Director, Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives (KAIROS)
Well, no.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Did Minister Kenney approach you at all prior to his speech in Israel?
Executive Director, Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives (KAIROS)
No. The one piece that is missing is that we did receive a letter, dated December 3, which we got on December 4, which said that CIDA has to make decisions, and that's for efficiency and effectiveness, and also for our priorities on food security, children and youth—
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Thus far, Minister Kenney has not been able to make himself available to this committee. If Minister Kenney were sitting beside you, what would you like to say to him?
Executive Director, Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives (KAIROS)
Well, I would like to say it's been very harmful to Kairos for him to come out and say on December 16, in Jerusalem, at the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism, that there were three ways in which the Government of Canada was proud of fighting anti-Semitism, and the second one was de-funding Kairos. We did feel that must have been a mistake at the time and waited for some kind of apology, and asked for that. But it has never been apologized for or retracted.
Since then Mr. Kenney has on several occasions said in public that we are de-legitimizing Israel. Those things are not true and totally misrepresent our position. In fact, our policies are very close to the policies of the Canadian government.
Conservative
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Thank you.
I think Mr. Albrecht was going to go ahead of me. We may be sharing the time, if that's okay.
Conservative
Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank Mrs. Corkery for being here today. It's good to have you here.
I think it's important to remind members, and also Canadians, that we're not here to discuss the decision made by the minister. I think we all agree that it is incumbent on ministers to make the kind of decision Minister Oda made.
In your opening comments you made the statement, perhaps in your response to Mr. McKay, that Kairos has had funding for 35 years. You also used the term “de-funded”. I think, in reality, what happened was that there was an application in process that wasn't funded. To me, that's different from having your funding cut off in the middle of a contract.
Earlier today, in our conversation with Minister Oda, she indicated that there are literally thousands of NGOs in Canada, and CIDA itself has dealt with I think some 700 of those on an on again, off again basis over the course of CIDA's history. I think all of us will agree that the recent events--tsunamis, earthquakes, flooding, and so on--around the world have seen many of these NGOs come to the table and do really good work on behalf of Canadians. In fact, I'm sure that every MP around this table has had NGOs of various stripes in their constituency offices sharing great ideas as to how they could help alleviate human suffering somewhere in the world, be it in a developing country or as a result of a natural disaster.
We also recognize that because of the number of applications, and Minister Oda indicated that this morning, it's literally impossible for any government agency to meet all of the expectations, even in one particular ministry, let alone government-wide, when the Minister of Finance is charged with the responsibility of developing a budget.
So do you think, simply because of a 35-year historical relationship with any funding agency, be it the United Way at home in a local riding or a member who's applying to CIDA for funding, that it is realistic for that applicant to assume that, simply based on historical track records, they would automatically receive that funding in the next year? I'm just trying to get to the heart of this word you used, “de-funded”.
If you could respond to that, I'd appreciate it.
Executive Director, Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives (KAIROS)
I must say that I never used “de-funded”, which isn't maybe a correct word, at any rate, other than that it was what the government, different government ministers, used. So we picked it up.
Kairos has no sense of entitlement that we should get funding. I think what the NGO community in Canada is looking for, Kairos among them--but we are not at all alone in this--is some kind of timely and substantial response to applications that is accountable to official development assistance that frames what overseas aid is about. In this case, we haven't had that. We don't know why we were de-funded, or why we didn't receive funding. We received two and a half hours' notice. There was no time to talk to the partners who are doing excellent work for human rights, for a study on climate change, or for a group of women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo who are working to stop rape as a weapon of war. We weren't able to even let these people know that they weren't going to get any funding.
To date, there have been many different reasons put on the table as to why we've not been funded. There is, we think, a question of accountability and transparency for aid, and that concerns citizens whose money it is, and it includes the NGO community in particular.
Conservative
Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
But you would agree, Ms. Corkery, that it would be proper, in the interest of fairness, to allow an NGO that perhaps had not received funding in the previous 10 years, but based on their track record...to now apply for funding and actually receive it. That would automatically, unless we have an unlimited budget, mean that some other agency would need to be discontinued in their funding.
Executive Director, Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives (KAIROS)
Yes. I think the question is some accountability for the priorities that defined this decision. The minister has said that she recognizes that CIDA had recommended Kairos for funding. It was quite a strong recommendation, based on consultations overseas and consultations with their own experts on results management, gender, and the environment, and it included foreign desks, so--
