The Edmonton-Toronto Province mainly ministers to the English-speaking population of Canada.

The history of the Edmonton-Toronto Region can be traced back to the year 1832, when the Redemptorists first arrived in North America. They landed in the United States from Vienna, Austria and established themselves among the German immigrants. Two years later, in 1834 Fr. Francis-Xavier Haetscher was the first Redemptorist to arrive in Canada, with further Redemptorist missionaries arriving and preaching in the dominion throughout the 1840s.

It wasn’t until 1874 that the first Redemptorist foundation was established in Quebec, when the Redemptorists assumed responsibility for St. Patrick’s parish in Quebec City. Alongside providing pastoral care to the parishioners, the parish also served as a home base from which missionaries could travel to outlying regions.

A further three foundations followed in Toronto (1881), Montreal (1884) and Saint John (1884).

Administratively speaking, despite these foundations being established in Canadian cities, the Redemptorists in Canada were governed by the Baltimore Province of the Redemptorists in the United States. In 1898, the administration decided to form the Toronto Vice-Province, which lasted for three years.

As the Redemptorist presence in Canada continued to increase alongside the addition of two further foundations: Brandon, Manitoba (1898) and Yorkton, Saskatchewan (1904), a second Toronto Vice-Province was formed in 1912 to encompass the six foundations as well as the 66 members currently serving in Canada.

On May 19, 1918, with 83 Canadian members and nine foundations–an additional three were added under the second Vice-Province in London, Ontario (1912) Regina (1914) and East Kildonan-Winnipeg, Manitoba (1914)–Toronto was granted Provincial status, establishing it as an autonomous Canadian administration.
In the months following the establishment of the newly founded province, preparations were made for the Canadian administration to assume the responsibility of educating English-speaking Canadian men who aspired to join the priesthood. Previously, Canadian members were educated in the United States or in other locations in Canada, such as in Brandon or Montreal. These preparations ended in the founding of St. Mary’s College in Brockville, Ontario, which opened its doors to the public on May 10, 1920. Similarly, the provincial administration established a novitiate at Saint John in the same year, and later established the St. Alphonsus seminary in Woodstock, Ontario in 1930 to aid in their educational responsibilities.

The dawn of the new province also heralded the expansion of the order in parishes across the country. This included parishes in Vancouver (1923), Edmonton (1924), Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan (1927), Calgary (1929; 1931), Charlottetown (1929), Corner Brook, Newfoundland (1931), Grande Prairie, Alberta (1931), Saskatoon (1934), Dawson Creek, BC (1936), Nelson, BC (1938), Williams Lake, BC (1938), Athabasca, Alberta (1940), Wells, BC (1941), Claresholm, Alberta (1941), Winnipeg (1942) and Peterborough (1945).

The rising number of Redemptorists foundations in Western Canada led to the creation of the Edmonton Vice-Province in July 1945, which would be responsible for any foundations that were located west of the Ontario-Manitoba border. In July 1961, Edmonton achieved provincial status and took responsibility of 14 foundations and 80 members.

The Redemptorists continued to expand following the creation of the Edmonton Vice-Province and served in parishes in St. George’s, Newfoundland (1947), Edson, Alberta (1949), Sudbury, Ontario (1949), Whitbourne, Newfoundland (1950), Toronto (1950), Windsor (1952), St. John’s, Newfoundland (1956), and Hinton, Alberta (1958).

In addition to the expansion of the order across Canada, the English-speaking Redemptorists established two missions on an international scale. In 1948, under the Toronto Province, Frs. James Fuller, Raymond Horn and William James were sent to the region around Maizuru in Japan to conduct missionary work. The mission was formally established as the Maizuru Vice-Province in 1966 by Fr. Patrick Hennessey. The Vice-Province continued to remain under the administration of the Toronto Province until 1981, when it was handed off to the Vice-Province of Tokyo, which was under the administration of the St-Anne-de-Beaupre Province.

Not long after its establishment as its own province, Edmonton Province conducted a mission to Brazil. In 1964, Frs. John Molnar and Thomas Coyne travelled to Brazil, arriving and taking charge of St. Joseph’s parish in the rural area of Casa Nova in the state of Bahia in April 1965. The mission was ended in 1982 due to lack of personnel.

Several missions were also conducted on a smaller scale during this period. From 1947-1949, Frs. James Dwyer, Joseph Dever and John Lambert were sent to the British West Indies as missionaries under the Belgian Vice-Province of Roseau. Also in 1947, St. Clements Mission House in Ottawa was purchased to act as a foundation from which missionaries would conduct their missions from without the addition of parish duties. However, this proved to be a short-lived experiment and the foundation was suppressed in 1954.
The Redemptorists also took advantage of the radio broadcasting time available to them during and following the Second World War. In 1943, Fr. Arthur Ryan became a radio announcer with the BBC and eventually organized “The Faith of Millions” weekly program which ran for more than a decade. He was followed by Fr. Martin Foley who joined the radio broadcast in 1947, becoming the voice of “The Catholic Hour of the Prairies” in 1949. Also in 1947, Fr. Matthew Meehan began what would become a 45 year media career, moving from CBC radio broadcasts to television programs as the technology evolved in 1957.

The 1950s saw a Canada-wide fundraising campaign among the Redemptorists by Toronto Provincial Superior J. Arthur Ryan as part of an initiative to modernize Redemptorist education, and eventually resulted in the establishment of a joint novitiate and joint seminary in Keswick, Ontario and Holy Redeemer College in Windsor respectively.

Previously, the novitiate that had been located at Saint John’s had been temporarily moved to the St. Alphonsus seminary in Woodstock in 1947. In 1950, it was moved to Quebec, first to L’Abord- à-Plouffe in 1950 and then to Senneville in 1956 once the number of novices had outgrown the property in L’Abord- à-Plouffe. Senneville, however, also proved to be insufficient and the novitiate was moved to Keswick in 1958.

Following the closure of the St. Alphonsus seminary in Woodstock in 1958, the seminary was moved to the newly opened Holy Redeemer College in Windsor in 1959. The new location also allowed for seminary students to earn affiliate university degrees through an agreement with the newly-chartered Assumption University, also located in Windsor. The fundraising campaign also covered the costs of the opening of an additional preparatory college in Edmonton in 1960, which was also named Holy Redeemer College.

The beginning of the 1960s saw the peak of the English-speaking Redemptorists in Canada, with 30 foundations and 400 members. Following the Second Vatican Council in 1965, however, membership began to decrease. In the next few decades, both the Toronto and the Edmonton Province began to withdraw from parishes across the country due to a lack of personnel able to serve in these parishes.

They began with Athabasca in 1966. In the 1970s, the number of parishes that the Redemptorists withdrew from dramatically increased, and over the decade, they left parishes in Montreal, Charlottetown, London and Winnipeg. The 1980s saw them withdrawing from Calgary, Peterborough, Windsor, Edson, Hinton and Nelson while in the first half of the 1990s they withdrew from Yorkton, East-Kildonan-Winnipeg, Calgary, Toronto and Williams Lake.

Though this was a period of withdrawal from many Redemptorist parishes across the country, a handful were also opened. The Redemptorists briefly assumed the care of St. John the Baptist parish in Springhill, Nova Scotia and Blessed Sacrament parish in Amherstview, Ontario from 1968-1972. For a similar span of time, the Redemptorists assumed care of St. Paul and Peter parish in Harbour Main, Newfoundland from 1981-1984. They were also offered several parishes in Kelowna, BC, which they took responsibility for in 1987 and 1989.

Both the decline in numbers and the Second Vatican Council also had an impact on the educational institutions run by the Redemptorists and on the novitiate. Discontent among the student body led to the closure of the seminary at Holy Redeemer College in Windsor in 1965, though seminary formation continued to be offered at the college until 1972. The closure of the novitiate in Keswick followed not far behind in 1966. In 1969, St. Mary’s College closed its doors due to a decline in enrollment, graduating its last class on June 28, 1968. Similarly, Holy Redeemer College in Edmonton closed its doors for similar reasons in 1970, though the building continued to be used by the Redemptorists for other purposes until it was sold in 1974.

The novitiate meanwhile was suspended for a number of years before being moved to the Provincial Residence in Toronto in 1969 where it stayed for a year. In 1972, it moved to Gerard House, remaining there until 1976, when it was moved to a house on Howland Avenue. In 1979, it moved to Scala House in Edmonton, which briefly acted as a joint novitiate between the Edmonton and Toronto Provinces. It was replaced by Clement House in 1987.

In 1981, A joint novitiate between the Toronto and Oakland Provinces was held at Holy Redeemer College in Windsor from August of that year until August 1983, where after Oakland withdrew and Toronto continued to hold their novitiate there until August 1986. The Toronto novitiate briefly returned to the college in 1990, where it was held until 1992. The Redemptorists then withdrew from Holy Redeemer College in 1995, after which it was operated as a private boarding school.

The Second Vatican Council also had an impact on the frequency of missions held by the Redemptorists, with fewer requested over time. In the 1970s, priests and bishops from across the country, especially from Western Canada, began to appeal to the Redemptorists for missions once more, hoping that they would provide a solid and renewed evangelization. In 1975, the Edmonton Province formed the Western Mission Team as an answer to this appeal. Rather than stressing fear as they had previously done, the missions conducted by this team focused on the love of God and hope instead.

In the Toronto Province, the missionary focus was on developing retreats that were geared towards high school students as well as a couple of confreres travelling Eastern Canada and delivering missions in a more informal format. During the Provincial Chapter in 1983, the provincial administration decided to establish a central mission centre at the Provincial Residence in Toronto.

The 1980s also saw the Redemptorists expand their apostolic programs. In 1985, the Edmonton Province established the Redemptorist Centre for Growth, a counselling centre for priests and religious needing help. In 1992, the Redemptorist Bioethics Consultancy was established, offering moral theology consultancy services to hospitals and other healthcare institutions.

A new form of lay ministry was launched in 1988 by the Toronto Province, the Summer Endeavour in a Redemptorist Volunteer Experience (better known as S.E.R.V.E). A six-week summer program, it allowed young men and women (beginning in 1992) an opportunity to develop a Christian community and provide their services to volunteer agencies in the area. In time, the program became a model for other Redemptorist Provinces such as Edmonton, Yorkton as well as Redemptorists in Australia, to launch their own versions of the program. In 1995, in collaboration with Villagers Media Production, the Toronto Province launched the Our Mother of Perpetual Help Devotions television program.

In 1996, due to declining numbers in both provinces, the Edmonton and Toronto Provinces were merged into the Edmonton-Toronto Province.

The newly combined province continued to see the number of parishes administered by the Redemptorists shrink. They withdrew from Quebec City and Edmonton in 1999, Moose Jaw in 2002, Kelowna in 1999, 2002, and 2005 respectively, Saint John in 2006 and Sudbury in 2012.

The early 2000s, however, also saw the return of a Redemptorist presence to St. Patrick’s parish in London. Fr. David Furlonger returned to the parish as it’s administrator in 2002, and was joined by Fr. Charles Goakery in 2010, with both remaining there until 2016. In addition, in 2015, Fr. Jon Hansen assumed responsibility of Our Lady of Victory parish in Inuvik, NWT and remained there are its sole pastor until March 2018, when he was installed as the Bishop of the Mackenzie-Fort Smith Diocese.

Many of the apostolic programs that were established in the 1980s also remained present in the province, and some such as Our Mother of Perpetual Help Devotions established an online presence in 2009. As many of the previous missionaries were becoming older and had growing health concerns, missions were adapted to better meet those needs. In 2010, four missions were launched in Redemptorist parishes across the country using a new experimental model for preaching. Later that year, 20 Redemptorists from Canada and the United States alongside a number of Canadian lay missionaries, travelled across the Archdiocese of Grouard-McLennan in pairs. In the latter half of the 2010s, several Canadian Redemptorists also conducted missions to Ireland.

The 2010s also saw the return of the novitiate to the Provincial Residence in Toronto in the form of the interprovincial novitiate. Previously located in Chicago, Illinois, the interprovincial novitiate was for novices from Canada, Europe, the Caribbean, Mexico and the United States. It moved to Toronto in 2010 and remained there until 2017.

In 2019, the Edmonton-Toronto Province merged with the other two Redemptorist Provinces located in Canada, Yorkton and St-Anne-de-Beaupre, to become the Province of Canada.