Canada's religious communities are trying to broaden the conversation to also include poverty and climate change.  Across Canada, the Canadian Council of Churches and Citizens for Public Justice, an Ottawa-based religious advocacy group, are holding public forums on these issues through their “Justice Tour 2015.”

I recently addressed the forum when the tour stopped in my area.  As both a practicing Roman Catholic and someone who spent many years in politics as an adviser, member of provincial parliament and cabinet minister, I offered the following words of advice: The voice of our faith communities matters.

Religious traditions have a long history of being at the forefront of progressive change in Canada.  Religions are not afraid to challenge conventional wisdom and stress our collective responsibility.

Religious communities deserve a seat at the decision-making table.  There are millions of Canadians who identify themselves as religious.  Their ideas have as much merit as those of business, labour and other advocacy groups.  In some ways, the fact that their perspective transcends the self-interest of their members gives them a more genuine voice.

Faith communities do a good job as “voices in the wilderness,” calling us out on the selfish nature of our society.  They also help establish important directions through aspirational statements and documents that call for wholesale change.

But when it comes to making incremental progress, I think that they could be more effective.  The ill-defined and sometimes unrealistic goals of their “calls for action” often provide cover for politicians, allowing them to portray even the most tepid policy pronouncements as “a step in the right direction.”  It is much harder for politicians to sidestep demands for specific, measurable and realistic initiatives.

Before making these demands, however, faith communities need to ensure that their own houses are in order and that they have the support of those they represent.  Everyone needs to see helping the poor and preserving the environment as central to their faith and its mission on earth.

Faith communities also have to realize that what drives support for tax cuts is not always ideology or selfishness.  Many Canadians have simply lost faith in government.  In a world where the news media lead us to believe that the only thing happening in Ottawa is the Mike Duffy trial, it is difficult to believe that any government can really tackle poverty or climate change.

Religious leaders need to change that attitude.  They need to talk about past successes, acknowledge the complicated nature of these problems, and stress the need for partnerships.  This is not about playing armchair critic while challenging governments to fix all the problems of the world.  This is about working together to achieve realistic goals.

And, finally, build upon the positive.  There is a myth that if outside groups are too positive, politicians will turn their attention elsewhere.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  There is the story of two politicians watching a protest on Parliament Hill.  One turns to the other and says: “We gave this group $10 million and they are protesting because it wasn't enough.  Just think, we could have given them nothing and they still would have protested, but we would have had an extra $10 million to spend.”

Let me close with a concrete example from Ontario.  One of the most appalling aspects of our social assistance system was that a single person on Ontario Works — often the poorest of the poor — had to live on slightly more than $600 a month.  Over the past three years the Ontario government has increased this rate and, as of the most recent budget, singles will now receive around $75 more a month, with a hope that it will soon climb to $100 more monthly.

This significant increase, which in tight fiscal times required significant political capital, tends to be ignored or only mentioned in passing by poverty activists.  What if they sent a different message to the government: “We appreciate the government significantly increasing these rates.  It will make a difference.  We want to encourage the government to continue these increases and identify other concrete ways to address poverty.”

I guarantee you that a message like that, communicated not once, not twice, but hundreds of times from pulpits, in constituency offices and one-on-one meetings would result in a further increase in the next budget and goodwill in working together on other initiatives.

Our faith communities have so much to offer on issues like poverty and climate change.  They represent a significant number of Canadians who — because of their faith — share a genuine concern for all members of our society and the future of our planet.  Through their passion, their energy and the powerful nature of their message, they have the potential to be a much more influential voice in our nation. John Milloy is a former Ontario cabinet minister who served as MPP for Kitchener Centre from 2003 to 2014.  Prior to that, he worked on Parliament Hill, including five years in the office of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.  He is currently the co-director of the Centre for Public Ethics and assistant professor of public ethics at Waterloo Lutheran Seminary, and the inaugural practitioner in residence in Wilfrid Laurier University's Political Science department.  John can be reached at: [email protected] or follow him on twitter at: @John_Milloy.