Bishop: The Rt. Rev. Dennis Paul Drainville
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Phone: 418-692-3858 (Synod office)
E-mail: bishop@quebec.anglican.ca
ORDINATION DATE:
To the diaconate: May 30, 1982, by Rt. Rev. Allan Read, Bishop of Ontario, St. George's Cathedral, Kingston
To the priesthood: May 6, 1983, by Bishop Read, St. George's Cathedral
Elected as Coadjutor Bishop at the Synod October 12 th 2007, ordained as bishop January 18, 2008 at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Quebec. Seated as the Twelfth Lord Bishop of Quebec on the Feast of Penecost May 31st, 2009
VOLUNTEER/CIVIC POSTS:
Dennis was a founder and trustee of a community based charitable foundation to respond to the spiritual, social and health needs experienced by English-speaking people in the Greater-Gaspé-Percé area. In 2004, the Gaspé Ecumenical Chaplaincy Foundation was established to meet these needs.
He was elected to the Percé City Council in 1995 and until 2003 served the people of Barachois, Belle Anse and Malbay as a municipal councillor.
Dennis has served as a board member and fund-raising chair for the Auberge Madeleine Women's Shelter in Montréal, as well as on the board of Le Garde-manger Pour Tous, a Montréal food bank, and of St. Michael's Mission, a Montréal drop-in centre for street people. During 1985-1986 Dennis was chairperson of the National Conference on Hunger. He chaired a steering committee of representatives of numerous agencies that led to the first Conference on Hunger in Canada, held in 1987 in Toronto. He has also provided leadership for the Social Planning Council of Metro Toronto and served on the Toronto Working Group on Equality Rights and worked with Rural Dignity of Canada. As a social justice activist, he has been invited to speak in every province in Canada, giving more than 250 addresses to conferences, seminars and workshops, and has given lectures to dozens of schools, community groups and service clubs. Dennis received the Canada 125 Commemorative Medal for service to the community.
EDUCATIONAL TRAINING:
Dennis received both his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Divinity degrees from Trinity College at the University of Toronto.
SECULAR EMPLOYMENT HISTORY:
From 1994 to 2006, Dennis was a full time teacher at the CEGEP de la Gaspésie et des Isles, in Gaspé, QC. He has taught Humanities, English, Dramatic Arts and History. He was also elected Vice-President of the Teachers Union 1996-1997.
In 1990, Dennis was elected as the member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario for the constituency of Victoria-Haliburton, serving as chair of caucus, chair of the select committee on confederation, parliamentary assistant to the ministers of citizenship and municipal affairs, and an assistant Speaker of the House.
In 1984, he was appointed Executive Director of STOP 103, a multi-service agency in the urban core of Toronto. Its mandate was to serve the poor and to address root causes of marginality. Dennis was responsible for organizing and training staff and volunteers, raising and administering a budget of more than $650,000 and to be a resource person for the board of directors and carry out their policy decisions. In this job, and later as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Dennis worked extensively with the media, especially in the areas of hunger and poverty in Canada and casino gambling and parliamentary reform. He was a regular guest on many national news reports and on television talk shows.
CHURCH EMPLOYMENT:
Dennis was appointed incumbent of the Anglican parish of Land O' Lakes in 1982 and in 1986 was appointed to Christ Church Cathedral in Montréal with duties as Anglican chaplain at McGill University. He was asked to help set up new social ministry in downtown Montréal and educate members of the cathedral parish about mission and social justice issues. He was appointed incumbent of Fenelon Falls and Coboconk in the Diocese of Toronto and in 1989 that diocese's Bishop Douglas Blackwell appointed him regional dean of Victoria-Haliburton. Dennis was named honorary assistant in the Greater Parish of the Gaspé in 1994 and in 1998 was appointed the United Church minister for the Cap-Aux-Os-Gaspé pastoral charge, with the approbation of the Bishop of Québec; he was named minister emeritus for that United Church charge in July of 2007. In 2002 he was appointed both archdeacon of Gaspé and co-incumbent of the Greater Parish of Gaspé in the Anglican Diocese of Québec. Dennis in 2004 was appointed as chaplain to the lay readers of the diocese. In that role he produced The Daily Offices and Prayers for use by lay readers in our diocese. It is now being used unofficially in other dioceses. Dennis was also appointed chaplain to the Diocesan Anglican Church Women in 2006. He served as the Archbishop's Missioner to the Diocese of Québec from 2006 until his election as Coadjutor Bishop.
RESPONSIBILITIES IN THE WIDER CHURCH:
Dennis has served the Diocese of Québec on the Central Board of Church Society and as a member of the Diocesan Executive Council. He was elected a member of General Synod in 2003 and 2007, and was elected to the Council of General Synod for both terms. Until his election as a bishop he served as the Anglican Church of Canada designated partner to the Episcopal Church of the United States.
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION:
Dennis is the author of numerous newspaper and magazine articles on a wide range of political and social justice topics, as well as of Poverty in Canada, a report prepared for the Anglican Church of Canada and published in 1985 by the Anglican Book Centre, and of The Final Report of the Select Committee on Ontario in Confederation, Ontario Government Publications, March, 1992. Dennis served as a corporal in The Toronto Scottish Regiment of the Army Reserve from 1970 to 1972. He speaks both English and French.
PERSONAL INTERESTS:
Dennis calls himself a "student of things Medieval and inspired by the life and writings of Mahatma Gandhi." Dennis and his wife, Cynthia Patterson, have a daughter, Aurora.
