General secretaries – the chief operating officers – from 31 of the 38 provinces in the Anglican Communion met in Toronto last August. A full day and a half of the eight-day meeting was spent discussing the challenges facing the church in Canada. Secretaries discussed practical issues such as funding, strategic planning and communication, but they also shared news about such events as floods in India and persecution and political violence in several areas. The secretaries also discussed tensions within the church arising from difference of conviction on several issues. It was the fourth general secretaries’ conference; the previous one was in Singapore in 1995.