Published On: March 16, 2023

In 2022, at General Council 44, the National Indigenous Council proposed that the church identify and remove any structural barriers that would prevent the development and sustaining of an autonomous National Indigenous Organization within The United Church of Canada. When any requested change in church structure will alter the Basis of Union of The Manual, as this will, a Category 3 Remit is required.

This remit. asks if the church will agree to remove these structural barriers so that the Indigenous Church can determine its place and structure within the United Church. The 44th General Council authorized this remit to test the will of the church with respect to this change.

Approval of this remit will enable the creation of an autonomous National Indigenous Organization within The United Church of Canada. This would acknowledge Indigenous peoples’ rights to their own spiritual identities and to self-determination, and would be consistent with the Caretakers of our Indigenous Circle’s Calls to the Church and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The results will be reported to the Annual Meeting of the General Council of the United Church in October 2024.

The General Council’s decision was in response to proposal NIC-01: Restructuring of the Indigenous Church from the National Indigenous Council, which named its vision of the two parts of the church (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) working side-by-side, and recommending the identification and removal of “all the structural barriers to developing and sustaining an autonomous Indigenous Church within The United Church of Canada”. The way to remove these “structural barriers” is named in a proposal from the General Secretary, GS-10: Living into Reconciliation, which asks the church to give pre-emptive remit approval for whatever the Indigenous Church determines in the future as the place it will have in the United Church, guided by the Calls to the Church—and without the need for further remit approvals.

This is a Category 3 Remit, and so requires a vote by every regional council and each pastoral charge’s governing body. If a regional council or a pastoral charge does not register a vote, that is considered a vote against the proposal.

There is one question to be voted on, as follows.

Does the regional council/pastoral charge agree to amend the Basis of Union to reflect:

  1. That The United Church of Canada will be organized as follows: (1) a three-council structure, consisting of communities of faith, regional councils and a Denominational Council*; and (2) an autonomous National Indigenous Organization; and
  2. That once the new autonomous National Indigenous Organization is established within The United Church of Canada, it will have its own mechanisms to make any future changes to its structure and processes, and, therefore will not be subject to the remit process under section 7.4.1 of the Basis of Union**; and
  3. The changes required for the establishment of the autonomous National Indigenous Organization.