Vancouver: President’s Report 2009

Submitted by: Gisela Montague

The Vancouver Archdiocesan council had elections this year and I am very happy to say that we have a full slate of Officers and Chairpersons. We even have a 1st and 2nd vice presidents. This all happened after the” Leadership Workshop” presentation this past year by Provincial Council, but I think I have to give a lot of credit to our great election team, and of course the willingness of members to let their names stand and “Step forward in Faith and Action”.

Our new diocesan theme is from Psalm 96 verse 3: “Tell His Glory among the Nations”. In our troubled times it is good to know that God is the King of the universe and we are to tell among all peoples of his wondrous deeds.

Celebrations were held in January for retiring Archbishop Raymond Roussin and for the new Archbishop Michael Miller,CSB, the 9th Archbishop of Vancouver.

With the Olympics only months away we were represented at meetings almost every week in the campaign against Human Trafficking. These groups, including our own, compiled and signed a Declaration focussing on Prevention, Protection and Prosecution to be presented to our government representatives.

Other projects include wearing different kinds of pins and buttons: the Salvation Army Sparkle of Hope Campaign, and Buying Sex is not a Sport.

We are approaching various hotels to see if they have signed the Code of Conduct. (but have not had much luck so far). If anyone is interested I have more information on the code.

We circulated a petition in support of Joy Smith’s Bill 268 to increase the minimum sentence to 5 years for human Traffickers of victims under eighteen.

Other ongoing meetings that we are attending in reference to the Olympics (More than Gold) deal with Hospitality, Catholic Services, and Athlete Family Homestay. Interesting for me was to find out that Whistler belongs to the diocese of Kamloops, so our diocese covers the area as far as Squamish.

This year our Diocesan Convention was attended by over 300 members and guests, featured speakers were Mr. Alex Schadenberg on “End of Life” issues (a total of three hours), Mr. Benjamin Perrin, Assistant Professor at UBC on Human Trafficking, including the video “Not my Life”. Monica Murphy spoke about “Life on Campus”, a real eye opener on the issue of Pro Life Groups on campus.

As in the last year our membership continues to increase. New councils “Holy Spirit” in New Westminster, and “Our Lady of Lourdes” in Coquitlam, are up and running and being mentored by Diocesan Officers. These bring our numbers now to 53 councils.

To continue our link with UBC one of our members sponsored a UBC student to attend our Convention. We are hoping she will act as a liaison in the promotion of various CWL projects.

The Archdiocesan Banner was carried in the Victoria March for Life on May 14th. It started with Mass being celebrated with three Bishops and about 20 priests concelebrating. Other denominations also held services, and the one day of summer weather made it a pleasurable event. The speakers were great, including our own Archbishop, a Rabbi and a Baptist Minister.

On the same day the Focus On Life Gala Dinner took place in Vancouver, with more great speakers and entertainment. This is a fundraiser for the life-affirming media initiatives of Signal Hill (formerly Pro Life), like ads for T.V., Internet media, bus benches and billboards.

Last year, our now immediate past President Evelyn Rigby showed you promotional cards for the CWL that one of our members designed. These cards are used by national office now and are available on the CWL website. You might even have received them for any non-renewed members.

As a new president I am looking forward to the challenges and pray that Our Lady of Good Council will guide us in our all our endeavours.