This Library contains documents from all recent United Church governance meetings, including General Council and its Executive. It also includes “Our Beliefs Explained” official policy documents dating back several decades. If you can't find something you think should be included, contact gcbusiness@united-church.ca.
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THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the 31st General Council of The United Church of Canada: 1. REQUEST the government of Canada, in its national budget, to increase socio-economic aid to Third World countries and to increase economic aid to the depressed economic sectors and welfare needs of our own country; and
WHEREAS the Nuremberg Tribunal identified a war of aggression as a crime against humanity, calling it “the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole,” and in so doing specifically rejected arguments designed to justify a pre-emptive military attack;
That the 31st General Council endorse the work presently being done by the (church) in urging all levels of government to redirect cutbacks so that programs designed to help the poor and underprivileged both in Canada and abroad are not subject to funding cuts or closure and encourage the (church) to continue this work on our behalf.
The Remit and Proposals process was designed to allow for democratic input from the appropriate groups within the denomination so that the decision-making process is upheld with integrity to ensure our identity as a conciliar church and to give voice to all. We have recently witnessed “legal loopholes” allow for prior Remits to be circumvented using the Proposal process.
Across Canada, hundreds of farm families find themselves face-to-face with ruin, caught up in the nation’s worst agricultural economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Increasingly, Canadian farmers are trapped in a vicious squeeze exerted by high costs of production, high interest rates, declining land values accompanied by low prices for their produce. As of June 1985, some 34 per cent of all farmers were suffering moderate or severe financial stress accompanied by an even more serious level of emotional stress.
At the 45th General Council 2025, the General Council approved a change to the Basis of Union regarding the composition of the Regional Council to allow Regional Councils to elect additional lay members; and retired designated lay ministers to hold membership in their respective Regional Councils; and authorized a Category 2 remit (including information and study materials) to test the will of the church concerning this change.
The GC45 Planning Committee met in-person in Calgary in December 2024 with the goal of drafting a complete version of the GC45 schedule and assessing the needs of each sub-committee to complete its role in the new year. Though holding this in-person meeting ate into our budget, all involved felt the expense was worthwhile as we faced many complications in drafting the schedule.
The Aboriginal Ministries Council and the Committee on Indigenous Justice and Residential Schools propose: That the Executive of the General Council… 1. Publicly support the call of the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) and the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) for the Government of Canada to convene as soon as possible a National Inquiry into missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls in Canada, with Aboriginal women to have a leadership role in the design, decision-making, process and implementation of this inquiry;
The Canadian health care system is under severe pressure (for example, reductions in federal transfer payments to support provincial health care programmes, cutbacks in hospital budgets and in community services, layoffs to hospital and other health care system personnel, the threat of user fees, and the potential of a two-tiered system). In response to this pressure and sparked by a sense of urgency, Unit IV of the Division of Mission in Canada established a Health Task Group in 1991 to engage the church in a process of education, animation and policy formation.
We believe God/Jesus Christ/the Holy Spirit is calling the church to recognize the lifelong call to ministry and faithful service in response to that call of many current Designated Lay Ministers. While their practice of ministry is indistinguishable from that of ordered ministers in the eyes of many church members, DLMs have been frustrated, hurt and disappointed at continuing to be limited to appointments and not eligible for call, paid at lower minimum salary schedule than ordered ministers, and retaining no status as ministry personnel between appointments and in retirement in many regional councils.
