Rev. Percy Coffin has been elected metropolitan for the ecclesiastical province of Canada. The province has seven dioceses, most of which are ‘shrinking drastically’.

The aptly named Coffin is to preside over a province which is dying because its members are dying; they are not being replaced by ‘younger generations of Anglicans.’ As a parenthetical note, I can’t help observing the customary emphasis placed on ‘Anglican’ rather than ‘Christian’, as if they were distinct and separate categories; perhaps they are in North America.

Evangelism could be the Answer, although I seem to recall that during the Decade of Evangelism, the Diocese of Niagara, of which I was a part at the time, took the entire ten years attempting, without success, to define what the word ‘Evangelism’ means. The ecclesiastical province of Canada is unlikely to have a less solipsistic view so I expect the decline to continue, apace.

From here:

It is a challenging time for the seven dioceses in the province, in large part because the church is shrinking drastically in most areas, he said. Anglophone Anglicans have migrated away from Quebec and many rural communities are losing population to urban areas. While the Anglican population in the diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador, which includes St. John and the economic activity produced by offshore oil, is holding steady or growing, in the diocese of Western Newfoundland it has shrunk by two-thirds, Coffin says, from 37,000 Anglicans in 1977 when the diocese split into three, to under 13,000 now. That drop, he said, is consistent with figures from the last three Statistics Canada census reports, which have shown drops of 12 to 20 per cent in the population of rural communities.

[…..]

Aside from outmigration, Coffin noted that the church is also challenged by the fact that faithful Anglicans are aging and dying, and in an increasingly secular society, they are not being replaced by younger generations of Anglicans.

Note that the decline in the number of Anglicans is 64%, far higher than the population decrease of 12 to 20%.