Vestry motion for 2026: Recommitting to "protect, sustain, and renew the life of the earth."
In our baptismal covenant, we pledge to “safeguard the integrity of God’s creation and respect, sustain, and renew the life of the earth.” This is part of our worship of God who created all things and our duty of care to our neighbour, particularly those who are most vulnerable to a changing climate. Cast the Net call #8 in particular, calls us to “intensify advocacy and action in response to the climate crisis.”
For many of us in the Diocese of Toronto, 2025 was the year that the climate crisis truly hit home. Wildfires, an increasingly regular feature of summers in much of northern and western Canada, raged in our own communities of Kawartha Lakes and Haliburton. Farmers’ crops and suburban gardens suffered under drought conditions. And the city of Toronto had six heat warnings this past summer – double or triple those in recent years.
Since 1990, the Government of Canada has made many domestic and international commitments to address climate change, including commitments to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and reach net‑zero emissions by 2050. Yet Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions have decreased by only 8.5% in the 19 years since then. Oil production from the tar sands generates as many CO2 emissions as all Canada’s other human-generated sources combined. Canada is the worst performing of the G-7 countries in terms of meeting its targets, and was recently awarded the “Fossil Award” at the COP30 climate conference by Climate Action Network. While the federal government has stated its commitment to achieving its emissions targets under the Paris Agreement, it has jettisoned or delayed many of the policy tools which were meant to achieve those goals, leaving open the question of how we as a nation will do our part.
There are things we can do as individuals and as parish communities to minimize and mitigate our climate impacts. But we also need to raise our voices with our elected officials and hold them accountable to their own climate action commitments.
This vestry motion was approved by the College of Bishops on Oct. 23, 2025 and presented to the Regional Deans and Archdeacons on Nov. 20, 2025. Additional resources are being prepared and will be added to this page between now and January 2026.
Additional resources
Additional Resources are being developed and will be posted soon!
Tips for presenting and following up on the motion
- Circulate the motion and backgrounder before the vestry meeting
- Identify parishioners who are ready to speak to the motion both before and at vestry.
- Consider exploring the subject in advance through an information session, like a “lunch and learn” after a Sunday service.
- Follow up with a letter (or a visit!) to your local elected official (municipal councillor, MPP, or MP, depending on the level of government addressed). You can do this as an individual or as a parish, or both. We can help you with a template letter for each year’s vestry motion.
Our parish passed the motion. Now what?
If your parish presented the motion, whether it passed or not, please contact Elin Goulden, Diocesan Social Justice & Advocacy consultant, at egoulden@toronto.anglican.ca to report. Not only would we love to know if the motion passed, we’d like to know what kind of discussion it generated, and if you found our resources helpful, or have a suggestion for what we could do in the future. If your parish altered or amended the motion at all, send us the text of what was passed. Clergy are also reminded to check the Social Justice Vestry Motion box on the Incumbent’s Return if this year’s motion passed in your parish.
Why do we present the vestry motion? What effect does it have?
Throughout the history of this Diocese, bishops and church leaders have spoken out on issues affecting our society. Our bishops regularly communicate with government through letters and meetings, and they’re invited to comment on budgets and new legislation. Canadian law recognizes these communications as aspects of the Church’s charitable purpose.
For nearly two decades, the Social Justice and Advocacy Committee has drafted annual vestry motions on concerns our Diocese is connected with. The College of Bishops approves their final wording before commending them to parishes for consideration.
When parishes support social justice vestry motions, it strengthens the bishops’ voices in their advocacy with government. The motions also invite Anglicans into Diocesan advocacy efforts. Each year the committee prepares a brief “backgrounder” on the issue at hand, which can be used as a bulletin insert, as well as offering other resources.
Results of the motions are used in communication with different levels of government and to support other faith-based and community organizations’ advocacy efforts. Through our Social Justice Vestry Motions our Diocese has played a part in improving minimum wage and working conditions in Ontario as well as in reconciliation efforts at the federal level.
Some parishes shy away from presenting a social justice motion at vestry, seeking to avoid conflict. This may be understandable in some contexts. No parish is required to present the motion, and any parish can change its wording if this is the will of its vestry.
But the Church can’t be insulated from issues that affect the world God loves. Learning about and speaking out on these matters – even learning to disagree well together – is part of the witness we bear to Christ, who makes all things new.