From his office at St. James the Apostle, a 160-year-old Anglican church in downtown Montréal, Rev. Graham Singh is telling us about taxes. “Churches don’t like to talk about wealth. They almost pretend as though they’re poor.” In fact, as he points out, Christian churches in North America are the largest single landowning category of the charitable sector.
We spoke to Singh as part of our ongoing anthropological research into the complicated relationship between religion and public money in Canada. Since early 2023, we have been following Singh’s efforts to rebrand St. James as St. Jax, a church that houses not just worshippers but dozens of secular community groups and activities. Pivotal to his strategy: turn the building’s property tax exemption into rent subsidies for social organizations in a real estate market putting the squeeze on local non-profits.
