Pastoral Letter from Rev. Bill

Friends,

Public life runs on stories. The stories we tell shape belonging. They shape safety. They shape who feels secure and who carries the weight of exposure.

Following Premier Danielle Smith’s February 19 address announcing a proposed 2026 referendum that includes questions related to immigration, I have heard real concern from people within our congregations and across the wider community. The proposals and the tone surrounding them speak directly to questions of access, eligibility, and provincial identity. Those questions do not stay on paper, nor are they simple numbers on budget lines. They travel into neighbourhoods, workplaces, schools, and sanctuaries.

Immigration policy and language are personal for our churches. They ought to be. Refugees and immigrants worship with us, and have since our congregations were founded. They serve on committees. They lead worship. They teach children. They volunteer in food ministries. They run small businesses. They share their faith stories. They shape our congregational leadership. They raise families. They contribute to the moral, social, cultural, and economic fabric of our communities. Our shared ministry and our shared life carry their fingerprints and their prayers.

In last night’s February episode of Prepared to Drown, we spent an evening reflecting on “truth stories” — the narratives that claim to explain who we are and how the world works. Stories carry power. They influence how responsibility is distributed. They determine whose struggles are seen as systemic and whose presence is framed as strain. They can widen compassion. They can narrow imagination. That reality, and that concern, moves me to write to you today.

Alberta has spoken in recent years about immigration as a source of growth and vitality. The public conversation surrounding this week’s announcement carries a different energy. When newcomers are named within discussions of fiscal pressure, housing scarcity, or service strain, the cumulative effect shapes public sentiment. It shapes how people are looked at in grocery lines. It shapes how children understand their place in a classroom. It shapes how confidently a family walks into a clinic or a job interview.

As someone entrusted with leadership in my own sphere, I know how easily tone can travel farther than intention. Language shapes atmosphere. Atmosphere shapes behaviour. Our shared life, our self-perception, and our relationship with the world around us are shaped by the stories we tell and the stories we are told.

Leadership carries privilege, and privilege often shields those who set the climate from bearing its full cost. Leaders are accountable for the climate their language cultivates. Here I need to be clear: when leaders tether vulnerable communities to narratives of blame or pressure, racism and discrimination surface. Human history reveals that consistent pattern.

The consequences of these narratives are real. They range from quiet hostility and whispered suspicion to overt racism in our public life, our policies, and the ways we provide for one another. The people who absorb these consequences are rarely the ones who authored the rhetoric. They are immigrants, refugees, visible minorities, and their children.

So today I am especially mindful of immigrants, refugees, and visible minorities who may feel their belonging tightening in this moment. Belonging is not an abstract ideal. To anyone who feels singled out by Thursday’s address, I want you to know this: you are not alone. You are loved. Your place is here.

The Christian story anchors me here. Scripture calls God’s people to remember displacement and dependence. Jesus consistently honoured the dignity of those whose worth was questioned by prevailing systems. The Gospel asks something of each of us: that we carry and support one another in times such as these.

Our national story carries a related aspiration. Canada has long understood itself as a place where people are invited to live and thrive in safety and mutual support, free from threats to life and livelihood. That vision has been imperfectly lived, especially in the history of harm toward Indigenous peoples whose lands we share. Even so, the aspiration toward shared safety and mutual flourishing has shaped our country’s development and continues to call us forward. It also shaped the founding spirit of the United Church of Canada — a denomination born in 1925 from a conviction that diversity within unity could strengthen the common good. From their beginnings, both our nation and our church have named diversity as a gift and mutual care as a responsibility.

The strength of our community — the strength of our province — is revealed through its care for those whose footing feels unsteady. Our faith is reflected in our commitment to ensuring everyone has a place at the table.

My concern is pastoral and moral. As we receive a message that situates members of our community as problems to be managed, we remember the foundational conviction of our faith: every person bears the image of God. Every neighbour deserves stability, fairness, and belonging. The moral climate of our province does not shift by accident. We have agency in how we respond.

For my part, in the months ahead, I will continue listening to those most directly affected. I will continue to name and give thanks for the gifts and leadership of refugees and immigrants within our congregations and within Alberta. I will pay renewed attention to the blessing of living in such abundant diversity as children of God. I hope you will join me in discerning how you will respond.

Whatever that response may be, I encourage thoughtful, informed, prayerful engagement as these referendum questions move forward.

May Christ’s peace steady those who feel exposed.

May our courage rise alongside our compassion as we carry one another.

May the stories we tell honour the full humanity of every neighbour.

Grace and peace,

Rev. Bill Weaver