Johnson

As Canadians gathered to celebrate Thanksgiving, Archbishop Colin Johnson, metropolitan of the ecclesiastical province of Ontario, asked them to reflect on the 300,000 Ontarians who must rely on food banks to survive.

“...pause and imagine looking down at a half-empty plate of plain food, [at] a meal that will leave you hungry…,” Archbishop Johnson wrote in an advertisement that appeared in the Toronto Star on Oct. 8, a few days before Canada’s Thanksgiving holiday.

The ad, written as an open letter, urged Anglicans to “continue to give more generously and do more for those who are poor in our communities.” It also urged the provincial government to add a $100 “healthy food supplement” to the monthly incomes of people living on social assistance.

Another ad is planned for December. The goal is “to remind people that Christmas is about Jesus Christ, not about Santa Claus,” said Stuart Mann, the diocese’s communications director, adding that it’s also to encourage Anglicans “to continue the good work on behalf of the poor.”