The NDP attacked the CIDA funding of a development project in Uganda carried out by a partner of Crossroads, one of the biggest and most popular Evangelical Christian ministries in Canada. Crossroads runs the Crossroads Television System, home of the flagship program 100 Huntley St., which has been a fixture in Christian homes for decades. Crossroads also supports various overseas development missions.
The issue arose in Question Period Feb. 11 when NDP MP Helene Laverdiere questioned International Co-operation Minister Julian Fantino concerning a CIDA grant to Crossroads. She called Crossroads “an anti-gay organization.” The grant provides funding to build wells and provide clean drinking water in Uganda.
“It’s shocking to hear Minister Fantino defending the indefensible, standing up today and defending a group that on its web site is attacking something that’s recognized and protected by Canadian law,” Mulcair told journalists.
“So it goes against Canadian values. It goes against Canadian law.”
“As a lawyer in addition to being a politician, Mulcair, I would hope, would have a more considered position in regards to Canada’s constitution and laws in regard to religious freedom, including engagement of public policy matters or the delivery of public services,” said Evangelical Fellowship of Canada vice president and general legal counsel Don Hutchinson.
CIDA funding is “based on delivery of services not religious or other beliefs.”
“Nothing that Crossroads is doing is contrary to Canadian law,” said Catholic Civil Rights League executive director Joanne McGarry. “There is no tradition in Canadian grant-making that you put recipients to a belief test. You look at whether they can fulfill the project’s requirements.”
Mulcair also compared the views of Crossroads to those of the Ugandan government, which criminalizes homosexual behaviour.
McGarry called Uganda’s approach “horrible,” but Mulcair’s equating Crossroads’ views with those of the Ugandan government is “totally unjustifiable.”
“There is no way Crossroads is pushing an agenda that’s hateful or anti-gay,” she said.
Several journalists have pressed Mulcair, pointing out the views of Evangelicals do not differ much from those of the Catholic Church, but Mulcair said Crossroads equated homosexuality with bestiality and pedophilia, based on a statement on its web site that has been taken down.
The NDP praised the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace and KAIROS at the same time it attacked Crossroads.
Laverdiere accused the Conservative government of taking a “dislike to organizations like KAIROS and Development and Peace that work for the welfare of people around the world and have achieved tangible results in the field.”
“Meanwhile, religious groups that promote their own ideology have made inroads with these same Conservatives,” she said. Fantino said her premise was “bogus.”
While Development and Peace and KAIROS may have the support of the NDP now, McGarry noted growing efforts to restrict access to the public square “for no other reason than a religious tie.” She noted the pressure by legal groups to block Trinity Western University from establishing an accredited law school as an example.