Mississauga, Ont.
A law firm contracted by the Anglican Church of Canada is in negotiations with the United Church of Canada on the former’s exit from an $8.18 million lease on 300 Bloor St. West, Toronto, Canon (lay) Clare Burns, chancellor of General Synod, told the Council of General Synod (CoGS) Nov. 27.
Burns announced at General Synod in June that former general secretary Archdeacon Alan Perry had signed the lease without consulting CoGS. The lease would have seen the Anglican Church of Canada’s national office move into space shared with the United Church of Canada and the Presbyterian Church in Canada in a property rented from the United Church. Anglican Church of Canada financial statements peg the cost of the lease at $8.18 million for the first five years of tenancy.
Because negotiations about the terms of exiting the lease are ongoing, Burns told CoGS Nov. 27 she could share few other details about how the process was going or when it would be complete. However, she was able to confirm it was moving in a positive way.
CoGS is meeting Nov. 27-30 in Mississauga, Ont.
Burns added that when the discussion reached a point where the churches were ready to discuss settlement numbers, further information and any related decisions would be presented to CoGS for approval. Archbishop Shane Parker, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada and General Secretary Andrea Mann had been working in parallel to maintain a good ecumenical relationship between the Anglican, United and Presbyterian churches as the process proceeded, she added.
Meanwhile, Parker told CoGS, the team tasked with resolving questions about the church’s property would be working out how to make best use of its current office at 80 Hayden St., known as Church House. Staffing reductions and reorganization would necessitate changes to the use of the four stories of the building that are currently owned by the church. Church House is currently occupied by the office of General Synod’s staff and partner organizations Alongside Hope and the Anglican Foundation of Canada as well as the offices of the presiding elder of Sacred Circle.
These changes would include consolidation of office space as well as potentially opening new revenue streams by, for example, renting part of the space out to a commercial enterprise, he said. Details on what kind of enterprise that might be would depend on a proposal from a real estate firm contracted to study the site and make recommendations. Redeveloping the space for housing is likely out of the question, however, he said, as managing a residential property would not be the best way for the church to equip itself for ministry.
“We’re going for highest and best value. The vision would be for Church House to self-fund as much as possible,” said Parker.
Consideration of the church’s values and the civic environment surrounding the building would also be part of the process for determining what commercial uses might fit, he confirmed in response to a question from Archdeacon Jordan Haynie Ware of the ecclesiastical province of Northern Lights.
The decisions surrounding 80 Hayden St. and 300 Bloor St. West make up one of the three pillars on which General Synod’s current plans for change rest, said Parker. The other two are concerned with the six “pathways for transformational change” approved by General Synod last summer and the staffing of Church House.
The task forces for each of the six pathways are either complete or in the process of being formed, Parker told CoGS in his opening remarks. The approval of the pathways, he said, represented an unambiguous mandate for change from the Anglican Church of Canada’s governing body. That work would need to be done in the less than three years before General Synod meets again in May 2028 in St. John’s, Nfld., he said. According to one model for guiding institutional change he added, a key first step to the process is creating a sense of urgency. However, he added, “I don’t think we need to do a lot of heavy lifting to create a sense of urgency.”
Church House staffing is closely related to the second pathway: management overview and restructuring, said Parker. It would be handled by the Pathway 2 team, now largely assembled, and by himself and General Secretary Andrea Mann in their capacities as CEO and COO of General Synod. This work would also determine some of the needs of the property process, he said, as the final size and organization of the Church House staff would determine the size and configuration of working space they needed.
One guiding principle of the staffing decisions to come would be to consider what purposes only Church House could serve to facilitate ministry for parishes and dioceses across Canada, he said. One example he gave was the staff’s role in facilitating the work of the primate. “That’s not happening anywhere else except Church House,” he said, adding that the primate needed to be well-informed and connected to Anglican Communion, interfaith and ecumenical partners, as the primate serves as the face of the Anglican Church of Canada to other organizations.
Parker would serve that function in part by travelling to Canterbury to represent the Anglican Church of Canada at the installation of Archbishop-elect of Canterbury Sarah Mullally, and to Jerusalem to do the same at the installation of Lutheran Bishop-elect Imad Haddab. During that trip, he would also be expressing solidarity and love for Christians in the region, “who still face just a horrific situation,” he said.
His pastoral ministry as primate will also include representing the national church in visits to each of its dioceses over his term as primate as well as serving as pastor to and convener of the House of Bishops, he said. At the most recent meeting of the latter, he said, bishops had begun their own discussion of the pathways, demonstrating an attitude of trust in the process, in each other, and of willingness to collaborate and move forward quickly.
Speaking on the Church House pillar, Mann said most of the national office’s 37 full- and part-time staff are the only people doing the job they do following previous cuts to staffing there. Many had lived through previous rounds of renewal and restructuring, she said.
“This moment, however, feels different,” she added. “Church House is in a state of heightened awareness. Some of us, maybe many of us, are openly relieved and excited, eager to contribute and hopeful of a positive transformation. Others are quietly anxious, concerned about their livelihoods, about the loss of friends and community and meaningful work.” All shared a desire to be informed and included in the transformation work, she said.
Staff, volunteers, committees and the Pathway 2 team will be considering what Church House’s core functions to communicate, connect and convene will look like in concrete terms, she said.
“These are also difficult, challenging and emotional times,” Mann said, adding that staff numbers will continue to reduce. “These decisions are necessary in this time … But a foundation is being prepared—a foundation for what comes next, a foundation for the transformation upon us and before us.”
