OTTAWA — Canada’s international development minister avoided reporters’ questions Tuesday on whether the widely publicized pause in the government’s funding of a contentious UN agency came before or after Canada had made a promised payment to the agency.
On Monday, columnist Hélène Buzzetti posted in French on X, formerly Twitter, that the federal government had already made the first of four promised $25-million payments to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) — despite last Friday’s announcement from International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen that funding would be paused after evidence emerged that agency employees took part in the Oct. 7 terror attacks on Israel.
