HeadingJANUARY 2017 Please read the article below and click on links for further articles

Ontario Freemasons celebrate 300 years

   In 2017 Ontario’s Freemasons will join with those around the world to celebrate the formation of the first organized masonic government

   at the Goose and Gridiron Tavern in St. Paul’s Churchyard, in London.

   Freemasonry is the oldest and largest fraternal organization in the world. Its members share a common goal of helping each other 

   become better men. Its body of knowledge and system of ethics is based on the belief that each man has a responsibility to improve  

   himself while being devoted to his family, faith, country, and fraternity.

   In the course of three hundred years Freemasonry would spread around the globe. Today Freemasonry varies across the continents as

   it adjusts itself to changing social conditions, while observing its fundamental principles of brotherly love, relief and truth. It continues to

   be, as originally conceived, a brotherhood of man under a fatherhood of God requiring a belief in a supreme being. Our focus is “to help 

   good men make themselves better.”

   Many Canadians involved in the development of government and industry in Canada, the formulation of our medical, educational and 

   military systems, and so on, were Freemasons. But we never remember them clearly. The fraternity, or craft (interchangeable words 

   referring to Freemasonry as an institution) does not advertise itself, nor the extent of its support to members and to those outside 

   the membership who are in need of support. This means that while we remember Sir John A. Macdonald as our first Prime Minister few 

   know of his masonic connections and involvement, and fewer still remember him as being Prime Minister over a country of only 

   four confederated Provinces in 1867: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Or that Sir Arthur Currie of Victoria, BC, 

   commander of the Canadian Expeditionary Force of World War I, was a Freemason.

   Our Grand Master, Most Worshipful Brother John C. Green, welcomes this opportunity to introduce a series of articles to outline the

   various dimensions of Freemasonry and to explore the breadth and depth of the involvement of freemasons in the formation and growth 

   of Ontario and Canada.

   In this way we pay our respects to those men who took the unprecedented step on June 24, 1717, to organize a system of 

   masonic government and to those who have followed them. As we  strive to improve ourselves and those around us we honour the 

   memory of our founders.

As prepared by           Michael Jenkyns, Grand Historian, Grand Lodge A.F. & A.M. of Canada

                                    in the Province of Ontario