Dear Friends,

I want to let you know that this week Christ Church Cathedral is in arbitration with QuadReal regarding the annual payment under the long-standing density agreement between the Cathedral and QuadReal.

The arbitration hearing is taking place Monday through Friday of this week, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. each day. After the hearing concludes, the three-member panel of arbitrators will render a decision. We have been told that this could come anywhere from within two weeks to within two months.

The purpose of the arbitration is to determine the annual payment for the new twenty-year period running from October 1, 2024 to October 1, 2044. For the previous period, that annual payment was $300,000. The new level will now be set through this arbitration process.

By agreement with the Diocese, this annual payment is received each October and placed in the Cathedral’s Heritage Building Fund, where it is held in the Diocesan Consolidated Trust Fund. These funds support major infrastructure, building maintenance, and building improvement, and also help the Cathedral meet important operational needs.

This process is part of the Cathedral’s responsibility to steward well the resources entrusted to us. It matters a great deal for the Cathedral’s financial future. For many years now, the Cathedral has operated with a structural deficit. In plain terms, our ordinary annual revenue has not been enough to meet our ordinary annual expenditures, and so each year funds have had to be transferred from reserves in order to balance the budget. Our most recent budget projections put that structural deficit at approximately $800,000 per year.

At the same time, whatever the outcome of this arbitration, it will not remove the ongoing need for the Cathedral to grow its ordinary revenue and strengthen its long-term financial life. We will still need to raise support through donations, bequests, and grants in order to fund the ministry and mission of this place. That includes the daily and weekly life of the Cathedral: ministry through the Maundy Café, the cost of music and singers, and the many other things that make possible our worship, service, and witness in the heart of the city.

In other words, this arbitration is important, but it is not the whole story. A favourable outcome will help us significantly, but it will not remove the need for faithful giving, careful stewardship, and the long work of building a stronger and more sustainable financial future..

Please keep this process, and all involved in it, in your prayers. And please continue to pray for Christ Church Cathedral, that we may be faithful stewards of what has been entrusted to us, and strong and generous in the work God has given us to do.

Blessings,
Dean Chris