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CIDA Cuts Funding to KAIROS - Urgent Action is Needed

On November 30, KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives received notice from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) that its project proposal for 2009-2013 had been declined. No explanation was given for this decision other than its program did not fit CIDA priorities. In fact, the KAIROS proposal was developed within two priority sectors of CIDA: promoting good governance (human rights) and advancing ecological sustainability (reducing the impact of climate change and addressing land degradation) and it was approved at every level of CIDA before being declined on November 30. The cuts in funding will devastate human rights work overseas.

The CRC is a founding member of KAIROS and has two members on the Board. We wish to join other Church leaders and members of the national KAIROS network in the mobilization designed to reverse the Minister’s decision to cut vital CIDA funding of KAIROS programming. Time is of the essence. Go to the next page by clicking on the above title to view the model letter you can use to send to your local MP. We invite you also to consider a visit with him concerning this urgent matter. Letters to the Prime Minister, the Minister of International Cooperation and Margaret Biggs, President of CIDA would also be appreciated. Their e-mail addresses are included in this briefing notes PDF document. For further information log on to theKAIROS web site.

Pastoral Letter on Human Trafficking

The Catholic Bishops of British Columbia and the Yukon have published a Pastoral Letter on the trafficking of women and children. The publication of this Letter coincided with the Vancouver launch of the CRC resource and awareness kit described in the article below We are a Global Vlllage. The event took place February 10 At Saint Patrick Regional High School with more than 80 students present.

CRC Meets with the Assembly of Western Catholic Bishops

Edmonton - February 17, 2009: Twenty three bishops from dioceses and eparchies gathered together this week for the Assembly of Western Catholic Bishops (AWCB). It is customary for the AWCB to take a day and a half during their annual meeting to study a contemporary issue of social injustice. This year, the AWCB looked to Sister Sheila Smith, RSCJ from the Canadian Religious Conference (CRC) to help them to deepen their understanding of the global problem of human trafficking and Canada’s implication. Read CRC's report of this meeting.

Stop the Demand for Trafficking in Women & Children Campaign

Montreal, October 22, 2008 -- The CATHII Collective helped launch the 2008-2010 UNANIMA International campaign: Stop the Demand for Trafficking in Women & Children. The purchase and sale of human beings for sexual exploitation is today’s most common form of slavery. It requires the same attention as that given to protecting and reintegrating victims who have already been trafficked. To learn more about this campaign and to access the facilitation tools, click on the above title.

CRC Statement on Human Trafficking

Since 2004, the Canadian Religious Conference (CRC) is committed to work toward the eradication of violence in all its forms including human trafficking. In 2006, the CRC renewed the commitment to further the efforts against human trafficking by encouraging greater support for victims and by deepening critical analysis of the social and ideological context that creates the demand for trafficking. Based on this experience, the CRC states the importance of a comprehensive stategy for addressing this issue.

Ecology and Social Justice

JPIC National - We are developing an increasing awareness that human beings are in the process of destroying the planet’s resources, gradually making it less habitable for others. Let us only consider water that is becoming rarefied; air that is polluted; climactic changes that trigger natural disasters; fossil fuels that engender the greenhouse effect, etc. affecting poor nations whose agricultural industry will be threatened, or whose land will simply become plainly submerged by the rising sea in the south.

CRC Calls On Prime Minister Harper to Sign UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples

CRC President Donna Geerneart, SC, has called on Prime Minister Stephen Haper to reverse his government's position and have Canada sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

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