Social Justice Vestry Motion 2026

The following is a communication from the Anglican Diocese of Toronto as churches prepare for vestry. Below the message is a video featuring our very own Rev. Runza, who is a member of the Diocese’s Social Justice and Advocacy Committee.

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 G7 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 that 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.