BRAMPTON, ONTARIO — On an unseasonably cold day at the beginning of spring in Canada, President Jeffrey R. Holland rededicated the Toronto Ontario Temple on Sunday, March 23. The rededication followed more than a year of renovations inside the house of the Lord and comes nearly 35 years after the building was originally dedicated in 1990.
President Holland, the acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, rededicated the house of the Lord in a single morning session that was broadcast to meetinghouses throughout the temple district.
“Today we are happy to break the lock on the Toronto Ontario Temple and its grounds, to have what we pray will be a continuous flow of faithful recommend holders,” President Holland said of the reopening of the house of the Lord in Brampton, just west of Toronto proper.
When the late President Gordon B. Hinckley originally dedicated the temple in 1990, he said Canada was a place where individuals from around the world had come. He prayed that those who served in Canada’s second house of the Lord would “be pure in heart and consecrated in purpose.”
In preparation for the rededication in Toronto, President Holland’s heart was turned to two of his former associates, President Thomas S. Monson and President M. Russell Ballard. Both served in Canada and had a great love for the Saints and other friends in the country. President Monson served as mission president over Ontario and Quebec from 1959-1962. President Ballard served as president of the Canada Toronto Mission from 1974-1976.
“I love being here,” President Holland said. “And I could not help but remember and love and praise President Monson and President Ballard, who loved Toronto so much.”
Pointing to the historical significance of the Church in Canada, President Holland said the Restoration made advances in part because of how the Lord used the country as a type of training ground for early Latter-day Saints and Church leaders. Canada was home to the Church’s first mission outside the United States and was the only non-U.S. country visited by the Prophet Joseph Smith.
“I mentioned in my talk the tie I have through the John Taylor and Leonora Cannon Taylor marriage and lineage,” President Holland explained in an interview following the rededication.
John Taylor, who would become the third President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and his wife were converted and joined the Church in Toronto. Leonora Taylor’s brother, George Cannon, later joined the Church in the British Isles and is President Holland’s great-great-great grandfather.
Because of the ties through both family and fellow Church leaders, President Holland said, “I will simply say that Toronto has a special place in my heart.”
He went on to say that others who have been blessed by ancestors making good decisions owe them a gift that can be repaid by serving at the temple.
“At least one thing we owe them is the gift of our time and the labor of our love that will give them the blessings of this rededicated temple we will now so conveniently visit again,” he said.
President Holland was accompanied at the dedication by Elder Robert M. Daines, a General Authority Seventy and second counselor in the North America Northeast Area presidency, and his wife, Sister Ruth Ann Daines. Elder Kevin R. Duncan and his wife, Sister Nancy Duncan, also attended. Elder Duncan is a General Authority Seventy and serves as the executive director of the Temple Department.
President Holland lovingly reflected on a time when he was not able to be in a temple when he wanted desperately to attend, but he described what he did to help prepare mentally and spiritually as though he were going to the temple.
In telling that story about not being able to be in the temple, President Holland asked what the Saints in the Toronto Ontario Temple district have done to prepare to return to the temple closest to them.
“What have we done with our spiritual lives during these 18 months to prepare to return to the temple, to be ready for this day?” he asked. “I hope we have searched our own souls and have been truly anxious for the temple to reopen.”
In addition to encouraging a Savior-focused soul searching, President Holland also reminded those who have made covenants in the temple of the way to live life after making that search.
“I hope we have remembered that it is what we do when we are outside the temple that testifies we understand what we learned and promised inside the temple,” he said.
He then added an invitation for all who have made those temple covenants to find renewed energy in inviting others to receive those same blessings in their lives.
“There are a lot of things that apply to [a temple’s] grandeur and its significance. But you get a hint of that significance with the two things you see as you enter the temple. Over the door it reads ‘holiness to the Lord’ and ‘house of the Lord.’ When it is dedicated, it is both holy and His house.”
President Holland described that for a temple to be holy must mean more than having a Prophet or an Apostle say a prayer in it. “It is where He would come to reside. It is what He is entitled to when He does come. It is His home as we have homes.”
Outside of the temple being considered as God’s home, President Holland said holiness encompasses the way individuals would act inside it if it were His home.
“If you had an invitation to be with Him — to have face-to-face time with Him — it would be holy time. We would live more holy than we do to prepare for that. Everyone who has been to the temple and had experience there should find it to be a deep, permanent, holy experience,” he said.
Latter-day Saints around Ontario
The Church has now grown to include more than 200,000 members and additional temples in Halifax, Montreal, Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. The Cardston Alberta Temple was the first temple dedicated in Canada and the sixth globally in this dispensation. President Russell M. Nelson announced a temple for Lethbridge, Alberta, in April 2023 general conference. The groundbreaking for that 10th house of the Lord in Canada will take place next month. The Victoria British Columbia Temple was announced in April 2024 general conference and will be the 11th temple in Canada.
“I’m overwhelmed,” said Judy Chivers, from the city of Sarnia, located more than two hours away on the southern tip of Lake Huron. “It’s my anniversary today. … To go back into the temple to see it rededicated is an honor for me.”
Barbara Murphy, also from Sarnia, said she and Chivers served together during the temple’s open house. She said they traveled to Detroit, Michigan, in the United States to attend the temple while the house of the Lord in Toronto was being renovated. “It’s nice to be able to stay in our own country to go to the temple,” she said.
For 10-year-old Beatriz Casamiro, the chance to see an Apostle of the Lord was one of her favorite reasons to attend the dedication.
“I feel very excited to see one of the Apostles, and I’m also very lucky to because some people don’t,” she said. “And I’m also very blessed because I get to come here to the dedication, so it’s just really cool.”
Casamiro and her parents traveled more than an hour to be at the dedication. She said her parents attend the temple often and that she looks forward to returning when she is old enough to participate in baptisms for family members who have already passed on.
Alex and Silvana Padrón are from Wasaga Beach, Ontario, and traveled 90 minutes to the temple for its rededication.
Alex Padrón serves in his stake’s stake presidency and said their entire stake is happy to see the temple reopening so that they can spend more time remembering their covenants. Specifically, he noted that there are many older members in his stake who have missed being able to spend time serving in the house of the Lord.
“We’ve been doing temple recommend interviews like crazy,” he said.
Silvana Padrón is looking forward to spending more time, more regularly in the temple.
“It’s a place for answers. It’s a place to find clarity,” she said. “Being able to do work for others is an opportunity for us to remember our covenants again and to understand more deeply the plan of salvation.”
And while Silvana Padrón knows the blessings available by being in and serving in the temple, she also knows that absence from service in the temple can make individuals forget blessings and teachings they had previously experienced.
“I don’t think we can fully grasp at this point what we have been missing with the temple closed,” she said. “But we’ll start remembering that as we start coming back.”
Georgia Osei-Kuffour said this house of the Lord will enable local Latter-day Saints to do work they have been waiting for. “The temple will now be open for us to do a lot of endowments that we have been waiting to do,” she said. “We are so excited for that.”
A salute to youth
Last week, President Holland shared an invitation on social media to encourage youth to attend the temple.
“Being in the temple is one of the most important things you can be doing right now, my young friends,” he said. “The gospel restored in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is God’s very truth.”
President Holland went on to say that he doesn’t have time left in his own mortal life to be playing any kind of game or pulling the wool over anyone’s eyes when testifying.
“This is the truth,” he said.
Speaking after the rededication in Toronto, President Holland again pointed to the youth of the Church as the future and as “one of the great modern moments.”
He talked about hearing stories of youth around the world making sacrifices to attend the temple in early morning hours before going to school.
“I salute that,” he said. “I am so impressed by that. I am so grateful for it. It adds to the enthusiasm of the work, including enthusiasm for family history.”
Ultimately, President Holland’s counsel to those of any age who serve and worship in the temple was to live outside that holy house the way they feel inside it.
“We talk about going through the temple as if the experience were to go in one door and out the other,” he said. “The point isn’t ‘going through’ anything. It is to have the temple come into us. It is when we leave the house of the Lord that it matters. We are all trying to be good inside it, but we have to make sure we are trying to be good when we are outside it.”
Toronto Ontario Temple facts
Address: 10060 Bramalea Road, Brampton, Ontario
Announced: April 7, 1984, by President Gordon B. Hinckley, counselor in the First Presidency
Groundbreaking: Oct. 10. 1987, presided over by President Thomas S. Monson, second counselor in the First Presidency
Dedicated: Aug. 25, 1990, by President Gordon B. Hinckley, first counselor in the First Presidency
Closed for renovation: Oct. 23, 2023
Rededicated after renovation: March 23, 2025, by President Jeffrey R. Holland, acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
Property size: 13.4 acres
Building size: 55,558 square feet
Building height: 171 feet
Temple district: 8 stakes in Ontario
