Claire Hoy No free reign on spending public money

The late English writer Douglas Adams once quipped that, “If somebody thinks they’re a hedgehog, presumably you just give ‘em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.”

Which, in a way, applies to Kairos, a gaggle of mainstream Canadian Churches, and Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois politicians, outraged over the Tory decision to zap the group’s $7 million annual gift from Canadian taxpayers.

They continue to portray Kairos as an apolitical band of religiously-inspired saints, or harmless hedgehogs bent on making the world a better place, without fear or favor, completely devoid of its own radical political agenda.

They are outraged that the Tories have also looked in a mirror and have seen Kairos for what it is - a radical, pro- Palestinian movement with a decidedly far- left political agenda.

Like any group, of course, they are entitled to believe whatever they want. But they aren’t entitled to do it with public money and the government has every right to say so. During the 1970s, 80s and 90s, successive federal governments routinely dispatched multi-million dollar cheques to prop up radical left-wing advocacy groups purporting to represent the interests of Canadian women.

Other groups making the same claim, but advocating a right-of-centre approach, were routinely denied any public funding. I don’t recall any Canadian church leaders, nor Liberals and NDP politicians, being upset at the notion that the government was making decisions based on its own partisan/ philosophical interests. The feeling was that that’s just the way the business of governing is conducted.

But when a Conservative government does exactly the same thing, well, that, dear hearts, is a scandal.

And so we have letters from the heads of many mainstream Canadian Churches - including Anglicans, United, and, I’m saddened to say, even Presbyterians - calling on Ottawa to reverse its decision and send Kairos the money it says it needs.

Those Churches should look into their own mirrors and figure out why they are in such rapid decline in Canada, one of the main reasons - the one that made me stop attending regularly - being their penchant to advocate left-wing politics and cloak it in the language of Christ.

United Church moderator Mardi Tindal, for example, wrote to International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda last week saying she was “dismayed” by the government’s decision, adding that Kairos “has also had its good name attacked - again with no credible explanation.”

Oh, there is an explanation. Kairos was outraged in late 2009 when Immigration Minister Jason Kenney accused it of playing a leadership role in a movement to boycott, divest and sanction Israel for its supposed human rights abuses against Palestinians.

Kairos flatly denies this - and its denials are echoed by its many apologists. The facts, alas, belie their claims of innocence. Just as the United Church general council meeting where Tindal was elected moderator in 2009 also criticized Israel - but not its’ apparently peace-loving neighbors - and encouraged its congregations to “study, discern and pray” and undertake anti-Israeli initiatives, “which may include economic boycotts” (against Israel), Kairos has consistently been critical of Israel while conveniently turning a blind eye to the murderous actions of its neighboring enemies.

Not that Israel is blameless. Who is? But it’s dealing with some pretty hostile neighbors yet is constantly criticized by these groups - as well as the United Nations - while those whose aim in life is to destroy Israel are routinely portrayed as innocent victims of Israeli aggression.

Kairos, to cite just one example of its anti-Israeli penchant, openly promotes a campaign against Canadian companies “doing business in Israel or the Occupied Palestinian Territories (that are contributing directly or indirectly to violence, occupation or other human rights abuses in the region) ...”

There is no equivalent campaign against regional terrorist organizations trying to destroy Israel. Indeed, when the Tories put Hamas and Hezbollah on Canada’s terrorist group list they attacked the Tories, not, it seems, the aforementioned terrorist groups bent on destroying Israel.

And so it goes.

The one valid part of the whole “scandal” - such as it is - over the Karios funding debacle is that Oda, the minister, stupidly mishandled it, inserting the word “NOT” into a document from senior officials who initially approved the grant. She made it worse by denying responsibility, an outright lie.

There’s no excuse for that - although if we start firing politicians for trying to “mislead” other politicians, we’ll soon have none left. (Not a bad either, but we digress.)

What Oda should have done - and what Prime Minister Stephen Harper is attempting to do now, although not particularly well, is to come straight out and say that the government has every right to cut funding to Kairos and if Kairos wants to pursue its’ anti-Israeli agenda fine, but it can pay its own way.

Period. End of story.