Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Countries

Canada

Also Known As Canadian
Americas

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Canada has no established church and constitutionally protects religious freedom, and its population today is predominantly Christian, split between Roman Catholic, historically strongest in Quebec through French colonization, and various Protestant denominations elsewhere, alongside a rapidly growing share identifying with no religion. Canada's First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples maintain their own distinct religious and spiritual traditions, and the country's history includes the documented, government sanctioned residential school system, in which church run institutions suppressed Indigenous language and spiritual practice among children forcibly removed from their families, a matter subject to a formal national reckoning and ongoing investigation that the atlas records as attributable historical fact. Substantial Sikh, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist communities, built through successive waves of immigration, make Canada's major cities among the most religiously diverse in North America. Toronto and Vancouver in particular host large, well established Sikh and Hindu communities with temples serving as significant cultural as well as religious centers.

Facts
Law and State
Establishment Status
No Establishment 3
No established church in Canada; the constitution guarantees freedom of religion.
Apostasy or Blasphemy Law
Canada has no live blasphemy law: section 296 of the Criminal Code, which had made "blasphemous libel" an indictable offense punishable by up to two years' imprisonment since 1892 and carried a "good faith and decent language" defense, was repealed by Bill C-51, which received royal assent on 13 December 2018. The section had not been used to obtain a conviction in decades but had been invoked to threaten prosecution against satire and criticism, which the repeal's sponsors cited as the reason for removing it rather than leaving it dormant. Canada has no apostasy law; leaving any religion carries no legal consequence. The repeal was part of a broader bill removing several Criminal Code provisions found obsolete or constitutionally doubtful, and its passage followed Senate amendments the House of Commons ultimately rejected before the Senate let the bill proceed unamended. 4
Registration or Recognition Regime
No law requires a religious group to register. A group that wants tax-exempt status instead registers as a nonprofit with the Charities Directorate of the Canada Revenue Agency under the Income Tax Act, which grants charitable registration only to a body organized exclusively for a charitable purpose, the advancement of religion among them, and devoting all its resources to that purpose. Registered status brings federal and provincial tax relief for the organization, a clergy housing deduction and expedited immigration processing for ministers, and tax receipts donors can claim on their own returns; keeping it requires staying nonpolitical and passing periodic audits. 5
Government
Capital
Ottawa 2
Government Type
federal parliamentary democracy (Parliament of Canada) under a constitutional monarchy; a Commonwealth realm; federal and state authorities and responsibilities regulated in constitution 2
Sovereignty Status
Sovereign UN member state 2
Established Year
1867 2
1 July 1867 (union of British North American colonies); 11 December 1931 (recognized by UK per Statute of Westminster)
Status
Legal Status
No established church; the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission characterized the church-operated residential school system (1880s-1996) as cultural genocide against Indigenous peoples, and the Catholic Church issued a formal papal apology in 2022. 3
Demographics
Religious Composition
Christians (Catholic and various Protestant denominations) just over half the population per the most recent census; religiously unaffiliated over a third; Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and Jewish communities each in the low single digits (Canada census; Pew Research Center, Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020). 1
Geography
Latitude
56.1 degrees north 2
Approximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a country's extent has no single center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a survey measurement.
Longitude
106.3 degrees west 2
Approximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a country's extent has no single center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a survey measurement.
Location
Location of Canada Afghanistan Albania Algeria Angola Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cabo Verde Cambodia Cameroon Canada Chile China Colombia Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Democratic Republic of the Congo Denmark Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia Federated States of Micronesia Fiji Finland France French Polynesia Gabon Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Guam Guatemala Haiti Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Ivory Coast Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kuwait Laos Latvia Lebanon Libya Lithuania Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Mali Malta Mauritius Mexico Moldova Mongolia Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nigeria North Macedonia Norway Oman Pakistan Palestine Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands South Africa South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Sweden Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tanzania Thailand Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City Venezuela Vietnam Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe
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Religion and History in Canada

Canada is religiously diverse and increasingly unaffiliated, with the most recent national census recording Christians, split between Catholic and various Protestant denominations, at just over half the population, religiously unaffiliated Canadians forming the second largest group at over a third, and Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and Jewish communities each in the low single digits, figures broadly reflected in Pew Research's Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020.

French Catholic colonization of Quebec from the early seventeenth century and British Protestant settlement of the remaining colonies produced Canada's foundational Catholic-Protestant divide, formalized constitutionally through provisions protecting denominational school rights at Confederation in 1867, a compromise designed specifically to protect the Catholic minority outside Quebec and the Protestant minority within it.

Indigenous First Nations, Metis and Inuit spiritual traditions, encompassing enormous diversity across the country's many distinct peoples and generally centered on relationships with land, animals and ancestral or spirit beings, were subjected to sustained suppression through the Canadian residential school system, operated substantially by Catholic and Protestant churches under government mandate from the 1880s until the last school closed in 1996, a system whose documented abuses a 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission characterized as cultural genocide.

Residential Schools and the Reckoning with Church Complicity

Canada's Indian residential school system, which forcibly separated Indigenous children from their families and communities and operated substantially through Catholic, Anglican, United Church and Presbyterian institutions under federal government mandate from the 1880s until 1996, subjected an estimated 150,000 children to systematic suppression of Indigenous language, spirituality and culture alongside well-documented physical and sexual abuse, and the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission's final report, drawing on years of survivor testimony, concluded the system amounted to cultural genocide against Indigenous peoples.

The 2021 discovery of what ground-penetrating radar surveys identified as hundreds of probable unmarked graves at former residential school sites, beginning with the Kamloops Indian Residential School, intensified national reckoning with church complicity, prompting the Catholic Church, whose orders had run the majority of residential schools, to issue a formal papal apology when Pope Francis visited Canada in 2022 and, subsequently, to begin releasing some historical records to Indigenous communities and researchers. Indigenous religious and cultural revitalization efforts, including the reintroduction of traditional ceremonies once banned under Canadian law until 1951, have grown substantially since, supported in part by settlement funds from the churches and government involved.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

This source names Canada directly: "at a convention held in Montreal, Canada in September 1998 and formally ratified by the general assembly of convention participants on 6 September 1998."

Source "Cao Dai" vs. "Caodai" (Democratic Voice of Vietnam)Democratic Voice of Vietnam (BPSOS)

This source names Canada directly: "across the United States and Canada."

A Timeline of LGBTQIA+ and Two-Spirit Justice in The United Church of Canada names Canada by its exact full name: The United Church of Canada's own 2019 published timeline records: in 1988, "General C

This source names Canada directly: "dedicated feeds for the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and continental Europe."

This source names Canada directly: "and unnatural, issued as Canada debated legalizing same-sex partnerships."

This source names Canada directly: "The National Screen Institute of Canada carries the same synopsis on its own festival page, and the Asian Film Archive (Singapore) featured the film in its own Asian Cinema Digest."

This source names Canada directly: "Church and the Anglican Church of Canada over the ordination of women and of an openly gay bishop, organised through the Common Cause Partnership formed in 2004; and for its standing today as a..."

Source Anglican Church in North America (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Canada directly: "Committee decision in Quebec City, Canada, documenting the Shrine of Baha'u'llah near Acre and the Shrine of the Bab in Haifa joining the World Heritage List as the first sites of a religion born in..."

This source names Canada directly: "and Britain in 1985, in Barbados, Canada, the United States and Tobago."

Church-run residential schools operated in Canada under government contract, a system whose harms the Truth and Reconciliation Commission documented in 2015.

This source names Canada directly: "At the moment of the 1925 union that formed the United Church of Canada, the Guardian merged with the Presbyterian and Congregationalist papers to become The New Outlook; in 1938 it absorbed two..."

This source names Canada directly: "A 2019 Canada Newswire press release announcing the United Church Observer's rebrand to Broadview, independently corroborating the name change, the nearly two-century publication history and the..."

This source names Canada directly: "congregations from the United States, Canada, Australia and France gathered under a Caodai World Conference and voted to form the Missionary, with two stated objectives: to propagate Cao Dai abroad..."

This source names Canada directly: "across the United States, France, Canada and Australia independently of organisations inside Vietnam."

This source names Canada directly: "Charity Intelligence Canada's profile of Mennonite Central Committee Canada, a registered Canadian charity, reporting about 62.7 million Canadian dollars in total revenue, about 52.6 million dollars..."

This source names Canada directly: "Chris-Anne Donnelly, based in Toronto, Canada, as the creator of The Light Seer's Tarot and The Muse Tarot, both decks that began as independently funded Kickstarter editions before Hay House later..."

Christians, Catholic and various Protestant denominations, just over half the population per the most recent census.

Source Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020Pew Research Center

This source names Canada directly: "law jurisdictions, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, written by four Indigenous legal scholars."

Source Discovering Indigenous Lands: The Doctrine of Discovery in the English ColoniesRobert J. Miller, Jacinta Ruru, Larissa Behrendt and Tracey Lindberg

This source names Canada directly: "7 January 1920 in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, was a Canadian writer and spiritual educator who co-founded the Findhorn Foundation alongside Peter and Eileen Caddy."

Source Dorothy Maclean (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Canada directly: "7 January 1920 in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, worked for British Security Coordination in New York from 1941, moved to England and into spiritual work during the 1950s, joined Peter and Eileen Caddy as..."

Source Dorothy Maclean (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Canada directly: "open Anglican missions across India, Canada, New Zealand and East Africa over the following century, becoming one of the two principal engines, alongside the Society for the Propagation of the..."

This source names Canada directly: "the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada."

Source Evangelical Lutheran Worship (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Canada directly: "Grant v. Canada (Attorney General), decided by the Federal Court of Canada, Trial Division, in 1995, is a primary legal judgment."

Source Grant v. Canada (Attorney General), [1995] 1 F.C. 158 (T.D.)Federal Court of Canada, Trial Division

This source names Canada directly: "Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, the Commission's own 2015 official final report, documents that about 150,000 children passed through Canada's residential school system."

This source names Canada directly: "Nations, Metis, and Inuit Issues in Canada, Chelsea Vowel's 2016 scholarly guide from Portage and Main Press and HighWater Press, by a Metis lawyer and scholar, is a widely taught guide to First..."

This source names Canada directly: "examining the United Church of Canada's membership decline, reporting both the church's own official membership figures (about 480,000 in 2011 falling to about 350,000 in 2021) and the broader..."

This source names Canada directly: "the First World War, with Belgium, Canada, France, Great Britain, Greece, Japan and the United States as its first member states."

Source International Astronomical Union (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Canada directly: "across the United States and Canada over the century, a longer and more layered story than the postwar European wave."

This source names Canada directly: "(including Islamic Relief USA, UK and Canada) and is registered as a charity in England and Wales, publishing independently audited annual accounts."

This source names Canada directly: "across the United States and Canada plus ten further countries including India, the United Kingdom and Germany, gathering around the Jain principles of nonviolence, many sided viewpoints and non..."

This source names Canada directly: "and Mennonite Central Committee Canada under a shared covenant, MCC carries out relief, development and peace programs in dozens of countries worldwide, sponsored in the United States by Mennonite..."

Source Mennonite Central Committee (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Canada directly: "today with Mennonite Central Committee Canada."

Source Mennonite Central Committee (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Canada directly: "joint international program with MCC Canada; it does not include MCC Canada's own separate operations."

Source Mennonite Central Committee U.S. and Subsidiaries: Consolidated Financial Statements, Years Ended March 31, 2025 and 2024Mennonite Central Committee U.S. and Subsidiaries; audited by Brown Plus

This source names Canada directly: "concentrated in the United States and Canada."

Source Special Investigating Committee Presents Report to OCA Holy Synod and Metropolitan CouncilSpecial Investigating Committee, Orthodox Church in America

This source names Canada directly: "through the eighteenth century to Canada, the West Indies, Australia and West Africa."

Source Our History (USPG)

This source names Canada directly: "in 1804 before expanding to India, Canada, New Zealand and the Mediterranean."

This source names Canada directly: "The Anglican Church of Canada's liturgical propers for Florence Li Tim-Oi document her recognition across the Anglican Communion as its first woman priest, her ministry in China and later in Canada..."

This source names Canada directly: "Rabbis of the United States and Canada, led by its president Rabbi Israel Rosenberg, convened a herem, a formal excommunication ceremony, against Kaplan at New York's Hotel McAlpin, declaring the..."

This source names Canada directly: "of abusing children in Italy and Canada before the Salesians assigned him to St John Bosco High School in Bellflower, California, in the 1960s."

This source names Canada directly: "Wikipedia's article on Sikhs in Canada, community-edited."

Source Sikhs In Canada (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Canada directly: "North America before its shift to Canada, Asia and Africa."

This source names Canada directly: "General Council in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, that divorce is permitted only for fornication including adultery or for desertion by an unbelieving spouse, and that remarriage is permitted to the..."

This source names Canada directly: "submission to a House of Commons of Canada committee on Bill C-229 argues for the term "Nazi Hakenkreuz" rather than "swastika" in proposed Canadian hate symbol legislation."

This source names Canada directly: "Parks Canada, the Government of Canada's heritage agency, maintains this directory entry on the Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints National Historic Site of Canada, the..."

This source names Canada directly: "bodies from the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, New Zealand, Wales and Tuvalu."

This source names Canada directly: "constituents in the United States and Canada for the first time in the organization's history, alongside a stated global figure of 5.75 million constituents in more than 200 nations and territories."

This source names Canada directly: "Church and the Anglican Church of Canada over the ordination of women and of an openly gay bishop, organizing first through the Common Cause Partnership formed in 2004."

Source Anglican Church in North America (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Canada directly: "tion to Knapp Island, British Columbia, Canada, which this file does not use."

Source Tsubaki Grand Shrine Of America (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Canada directly: "home near Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, thanking the Reverend and Mrs Barrish for their years of dedication at the prior Washington state site and directing visitors to the new centre for all..."

This source names Canada directly: "On 8 July 2008, meeting in Quebec City, Canada, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee inscribed the Baha'i Holy Places in Haifa and the Western Galilee on the World Heritage List, twenty nine years..."

This source names Canada directly: "synagogues in the United States and Canada, founded in 1898 by Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes and representatives of about fifty congregations to unify and strengthen Modern Orthodox congregational life."

This source names Canada directly: "across the United States and Canada, and attendees from ten further countries including India, the United Kingdom and Germany."

This source names Canada directly: "Charity Intelligence Canada's profile of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Canada, reporting the charity's Canada Revenue Agency T3010 filing figures for fiscal year 2022 and flagging a..."

This source names Canada directly: "Revolution closed that field to Canada, the West Indies, and eventually Australia and West Africa; over three centuries it sent some fifteen thousand missionaries abroad before merging in 1965 with..."

Source Our History (USPG)

This source names Canada directly: "organizations across the UK, Canada, Georgia, India, the Netherlands, Pakistan and the United States, with objectives spanning poverty relief, education, sickness relief and the provision of burial..."

Source The World Zoroastrian Organisation Ltd: Charity Commission Filed Accounts, Year Ended 31 December 2024The World Zoroastrian Organisation Ltd (trustees' annual report and accounts, filed with the Charity Commission)

This source names Canada directly: "adherents across the United States and Canada, an increasingly significant center of the global diaspora alongside the historically larger populations of India and Iran."

Originated Here

The Ant Hill Kids arose in Quebec, Canada.

Source World Religions and Spirituality ProjectDavid G. Bromley (founding director) and the profile authors of record
Inuit, Cultures
Ojibwe, Cultures

Ojibwe First Nations span Ontario and the Canadian prairie provinces.

Source Ojibway HeritageBasil Johnston

Spread Events Here

Quebec, founded 1608, the seat of New France's Catholic missions.

Vancouver, British Columbia.

Source Sikhs In Canada (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

Vancouver harbour, where the ship was refused entry; the fatal aftermath took place at Budge Budge, India, named in the description rather than anchored to a second place entity.

Source Sikhs In Canada (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Sources
1. Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020
Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 2025View the Source
2. The World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency)
Central Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence AgencyView the Source
3. Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)
Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2024View the Source
4. Library of Parliament (Canada): Legislative Summary of Bill C-51
Library of Parliament, Government of CanadaView the Source
5. International Religious Freedom Report
United States Department of State, Office of International Religious Freedom, US Department of State, 2023View the Source
The Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition
Oxford University Press, Oxford University Pressdemonym / adjectival formView the Source
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