Archdeacon Dennis Drainville, known for his commitment to social causes and his service as an Ontario provincial legislator, on Oct. 12 was elected co-adjutor bishop (with right of succession) in the diocese of Quebec. He received 22 clergy votes and 55 lay votes on the third ballot in an election held in Quebec City, with 22 clerical and 50 lay votes needed to elect.
The other candidates were Rev. David Oliver, Rev. Michael Canning and Dean Walter Raymond.
Mr. Drainville, who is 53, was most recently Archbishop Bruce Stavert’s missioner to the diocese of Quebec, responsible for deployment, congregational development and Christian education. He is also archdeacon of the Gaspe area of the diocese.
Ordained to the diaconate in 1982 and to the priesthood in 1983, Mr. Drainville served in the mid-1980s as executive director of STOP 103, an agency that provided a number of services to the poor of urban Toronto. In 1986, he was appointed to Christ Church Cathedral in Montreal, serving as Anglican chaplain at McGill University.
An environmentalist, in 1989 he was arrested for protesting timber clearcutting in northern Ontario forests. In 1990, he was elected to the Ontario provincial parliament from the east-central Ontario riding of Victoria-Haliburton as a member of the New Democratic Party. He was deputy speaker from 1992 to 1993, but resigned from the legislature in 1993 after falling out with the Bob Rae government.
From 1994 to 2006, Mr. Drainville was a full-time instructor at the CEGEP (college) de la Gaspesie et des Isles in Gaspe, Que., teaching humanities, English, drama and history.
He has served on the Council of General Synod and as a member of General Synod
He holds bachelor of arts and master of divinity degrees from Trinity College, Toronto. He and his wife, Cynthia Patterson, have a daughter, Aurora.