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KAIROS is a social justice and human rights project jointly sponsored by the national offices of 11 Canadian church denominations and organizations.
It was formed in 2001, uniting the work of 10 ecumenical coalitions which had been working on various justice issues since the late 60's.
KAIROS' national office is at 310 Dupont St (at Spadina). It has 21 staff plus 80 local grassroots groups across Canada, three of which are in Toronto. KAIROS also works with 21 partner agencies in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
CIDA recently terminated government matching grants for KAIROS projects, thereby ending a 35-year funding relationship. The Minister for International Development said that the work of KAIROS no longer corresponded to CIDA's priorities. But the Minister of Immigration implied that KAIROS support for Palestinian projects was anti-Semitic.
John Dillon is a native of Sarnia, Ont., and graduated from the University of Western Ontario in 1970. He began work in Toronto in 1973 as a researcher with GATT-Fly (later Ecumenical Coalition for Economic Justice), an economic justice coalition sponsored by several Christian denominations.
Dillon has continued to work based in Toronto for the past 37 years as an economic researcher and educator. In addition to numerous background studies and other publications, he is the principal author of two books, Power to Choose (1981) on Canada's energy policy, and Turning the Tide: Confronting the Money Traders (1997). Since the presidency of Richard Nixon, he has extensively analyzed the Breton Woods financial institutions, the IMF and the World Bank.
Over the years John has frequently worked as a resource for various international justice initiatives in the NGO sector, notably the Common Frontiers project (with Mexico), the Hemispheric Social Alliance, the Jubilee (Millennium) Debt Initiative, and networks concerned with climate change, amongst many others. He has also participated in numerous international conferences and meetings.
Among John's recent KAIROS briefing papers are:
November 2009: "Financial Crisis an Opportunity for a New Global Order"
November 2009: "Pricing Carbon: a Primer"
January 2010: "Why We Must Cancel Haiti's Debt"
