Council of the North chair blasts paper drafted by panel with no Indigenous members as ‘offensive’
Two bishops in the Council of the North, a grouping of northern dioceses that get financial support from the national church, have raised concerns about the process by which a primatial commission has approached the council’s future.
Bishop Lesley Wheeler-Dame of the diocese of Yukon is a member of the Council of the North and Bishop David Lehmann of the diocese of Caledonia is its chair. They’re unhappy that, among other things, the primate’s commission, officially titled Reimagining the Church: Proclaiming the Gospel in the 21st Century, is attempting to start conversations about structures and financing that affect Indigenous Anglicans without any Indigenous members on its roster—though Archbishop Linda Nicholls, former primate of the Anglican Church of Canada and founder of the commission, says Indigenous leaders were consulted in the selection of its members and it will continue to seek guidance from Indigenous leaders as its work proceeds.
At issue is the first of a slate of seven statements or “hypotheses” the commission released this summer, designed to spark discussion on how to solve the church’s structural challenges: “It is time to dismantle the colonial foundations of the Council of the North to fully ‘Embrace mutual interdependence with the Indigenous church.’”
Archdeacon Monique Stone, chair of the commission, says this statement is in turn aimed at pushing the church to consider three important questions:
- Is the work of the Council of the North best supported and funded by General Synod or should the church consider alternative arrangements such as funding it directly through the ecclesiastical provinces?
- Are the governing structures of the Council of the North best suited to serve the needs of Anglicans and Indigenous people in Northern Canada given its origins in colonial missionary work?
- How will the answers to the first two questions fit into the emerging format of the Indigenous Anglican church?
The council was formed in the 1970s with a seven-point mandate, including developing a “strategy of mission in the North” and proposing to General Synod the amount of money needed each year by each of its dioceses. But other dioceses across the country have had to allocate more of their resources in recent years to supporting parishes struggling with falling donations or rising maintenance costs, says Stone. This makes it harder for these dioceses to give to General Synod.
“Behind the Hypotheses,” a supplementary document released in early September, points out that funding the Council of the North is the largest item on General Synod’s annual budget and asks, “Does this expense accomplish the work needed now to strengthen the proclamation of the gospel?”
While many of the church’s Indigenous ministries are in the North, the document says, “the Council of the North’s membership is comprised of a majority of non-Indigenous bishops … In a colonial pattern, the bishops make financial decisions regarding the disbursement of funds collected nationally to fund ministries in Northern regions of Canada.”
Stone emphasizes that this and the other hypotheses are intentionally phrased to be provocative and spark debate. The way the national church’s finances are headed right now, she says, the current model will become unsustainable unless the church addresses these questions now.
“We need to have the conversation now so that we can think of creative and sustainable solutions,” she says. “The primate’s commission’s role in putting this hypothesis together is to draw out the fact that people have been avoiding this question for years.” Heated debate, controversy and even irritation with the commission itself were reactions to the hypothesis that she was prepared for and expecting to see, she adds.
Bishop Isaiah Larry Beardy is suffragan bishop for the Northern Manitoba Area Mission in the Indigenous Spiritual Ministry of Mishamikoweesh, which receives funding through the Council of the North. He says the funding from Southern Canada has never been enough to support his ministry area’s needs. The vast majority of clergy in the North are non-stipendiary, he points out, meaning they receive no salary for their work. The churches he is responsible for, he says, need $2 million for upkeep and infrastructure alone. But rather than worry about funding from the South, he says, Indigenous ministries in the North should look for opportunities to create revenue so they can stand on their own. For example, he suggests, the church could try starting a business to bottle fresh water from Canada’s North, sell it and use the proceeds to fund ministry.
Wheeler-Dame and Lehmann take a different view of the first hypothesis. Both told the Journal they questioned the commission’s ability to comment on matters affecting the church in Northern Canada since most of its members are from more urbanized dioceses in Southern Canada. Wheeler-Dame says she’s profoundly dissatisfied with the lack of Northern Indigenous Anglicans on the commission.
“We are settler people making decisions or making assumptions and recommendations for things we know nothing about. I would not go into one of my [diocese’s] First Nations communities and tell them how they should do things … and yet this is exactly what’s happening through these hypotheses because it comes across as a decision. ‘Dear, we’ll fix this for you.’ It’s a colonial attitude.”
In an email to the Journal, Nicholls said the commission’s members were selected with the help of a group of officers of General Synod, including an Indigenous member, and of the House of Bishops, including both Indigenous and non-Indigenous bishops. Leadership discussed the importance of consulting Indigenous leaders with the national Indigenous archbishop, she said, “while recognizing that at the time of formation of the commission itself, the Indigenous leadership was focused fully on development of the Sacred Circle.
“Though the commission does not have an Indigenous member it is committed to consultation with Indigenous leaders in its work,” she added.
Lehmann, meanwhile, says he’s concerned that the hypothesis will only lead to conversations about cutting more funding to the council, this time dressing the debate in the palatable social justice language of the moment.
“Having this as the first of the hypotheses I find particularly offensive, actually. It’s a financial matter that we’re trying to cloak in other terms,” he says.
General Synod’s annual grant to the council, which held steady at $2.15 million from 2016 to 2023, was reduced to $2.05 million in 2024, and the commission’s “Beyond the Hypotheses” document alludes to “planned modest reductions over the coming years.”
Meanwhile, the relationship of the Northern dioceses with the emerging Indigenous church is a source of concern in both of their dioceses, the bishops say.
National Indigenous Archbishop Chris Harper says he’s glad to see the hypothesis use the language of “mutual interdependence” between the Anglican Church of Canada and its Indigenous-led counterpart. While he is sensitive to the increasing financial strain on General Synod, he says he also agrees with the Council of the North members that adding Indigenous voices to the commission now would be a good step to ensure they have the chance to steer the process toward a fair outcome. He can see advantages to a provincial model of funding for the North, including deeper involvement from more voices at the provincial and metropolitan level instead of one national voice. But at the same time, many voices often disagree, he says, meaning the advantage of the national model is organizational unity.
By contrast, Beardy says a robust consultation process at the grassroots level is more important than having an Indigenous member on the commission. He’s skeptical that having an Indigenous member would guarantee any serious consideration of their perspective.
“I’ve been a token before,” he says.
The Journal sought comment from several other Indigenous leaders in the church but some declined comment and others did not reply in time for publication.
The commission, which has been meeting since the fall of 2023, is discussing the hypotheses with Anglicans across the country and plans to present the results of these discussions with General Synod next June.
