Religion in Canada encompases a wide range of groups, and Canada has no official religion. The preamble to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms mentions "God" but no specific beliefs are specified, and support for religious pluralism is an important part of Canada's political culture. However, most people report they are Christians.

Top Religious Denominations in Canada

	2001		1991		% change (in numbers)
	Number	%	Number	%
Christian		77		80
- Roman Catholic	12,936,905	43.6	12,203,625	45.2	+4.8
- Total Protestant	8,654,850	29.2	9,427,675	34.9	-8.2
- United Church of Canada	2,839,125	9.6	3,093,120	11.5	-8.2
- Anglican Church of Canada	2,035,495	6.9	2,188,110	8.1	-7.0
- Christian, not included elsewhere¹	780,450	2.6	353,040	1.3	+121.1
- Baptist	729,475	2.5	663,360	2.5	+10.0
- Lutheran	606,590	2.0	636,205	2.4	-4.7
- Protestant, not included elsewhere²	549,205	1.9
- Presbyterian	409,830	1.4	636,295	2.4	-35.6
- Christian Orthodox	479,620	1.6	387,395	1.4	+23.8
- Coptic Orthodox	10,285	0.03	5,020	0.02	+104.9
- Romanian Orthodox	4,675	0.02	4,570	0.02	+2.3
No religion	4,796,325	16.2	3,333,245	12.3	+43.9
Other
- Muslim	579,640	2.0	253,265	0.9	+128.9
- Jewish	329,995	1.1	318,185	1.2	+3.7
- Buddhist	300,345	1.0	163,415	0.6	+83.8
- Hindu	297,200	1.0	157,015	0.6	+89.3
- Sikh	278,415	0.9	147,440	0.5	+88.8
¹ Includes persons who report ?Christian?, and those who report ?Apostolic?, ?Born-again Christian? and ?Evangelical?. ² Includes persons who report only ?Protestant?. * For comparability purposes, 1991 data are presented according to 2001 boundaries.

Non-Christian religions in Canada are overwhelmingly concentrated in metropolitan cites such as Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, and to a much smaller extent in mid-sized cities such as Ottawa, Quebec, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Halifax. A possible exception is Judaism, which has long been a notable minority even in smaller centres. Much of the increase in non-Christian religions is attributed to changing immigration trends in the last fifty years. Increased immigration from Asia, the Middle East and Africa has created ever-growing Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, and Hindu communities. Canada is also home to smaller communities of the Bahá'í Faith, Unitarian Universalists, Pagans, and suscribers to Native American Spirituality.

Islam in Canada

The Muslim community in Canada is almost as old as the nation itself. Four years after Canada's founding in 1867, the 1871 Canadian Census found 13 Muslims among the population. The first Canadian mosque was constructed in Edmonton in 1938, when there were approximately 700 Muslims in the country. This building is now part of the museum at Fort Edmonton Park. The years after World War II saw a small increase in the Muslim population. However, Muslims were still a distinct minority. It was only with the removal of European immigration preferences in the late 1960s that Muslims began to arrive in significant numbers.

According to 2001 census, there were 579,640 Muslims in Canada, just under 2% of the population . In 2006, Muslim population is estimated to be 783,700 or about 2.5% .

Sikhism in Canada

Sikhs have been in Canada since 1897. One of the first Sikh soldiers arrived in Canada in 1897 following Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. Sikhs were one of the few Asian immigrant communities who were loyal members of the British Empire. The irony was that greater entry restrictions were placed on perspective Sikh immigrants as compared to the Japanese and Chinese. While Canadian politicians, missionaries, unions and the press did not want Asian labour, British Columbia industrialists were short of labour and thus Sikhs were able to get an early foothold at the turn of the century in British Columbia. Of the nearly 5,000 East Indians in Canada by 1907, over 98% were Sikhs, mostly retired British army veterans. Sikh immigration to Canada was banned in 1908, and the population began to shrink.

According to century of struggle and success the Sikh Canadian experience "With the advent of World War II and the internment of Japanese Canadians, Sikhs were able to prosper. Before going to the internment camps Japanese preferred to sell their homes and properties to their Sikh neighbors who they had known for so long. As the war economy picked up speed and moved into high gear, Sikhs were given positions of greater responsibility on the factory floors across the country as well as sharpening their skills as successful businessmen. Just as the war helped to emancipate North American women, showing that they were capable of doing a man's job, Sikhs were showing that they were just as talented as their European counterparts. One of the last major roadblocks remained the right to vote. The year was 1947, fifty years since the first Sikh immigrants had arrived, yet they were still denied this fundamental right. A right that was long overdue and Sikhs rallied to the cause, holding town hall meetings and lobbying local politicians and the government in Ottawa to try change the law."

After the 1960s Canada's immigration laws were liberalized and racial quotas were removed, allowing far more Sikhs to immigrate to Canada. The Sikh population has rapidly increased in the decades since. Major Sikh communities exist in most of the major cities of British Columbia and Ontario. Sikhs have become an integral part of Canada's economy and culture.

Canadians with no religious affiliation

Non-religious Canadians are most common on the West Coast, particularly in Greater Vancouver.Non-religious Canadians include atheists, agnostics, humanists as well as other nontheists. In 1991, they made up 12.3 percent which increased to 16.2 percent in 2001 of the population according to the 2001 census. Some non-religious Canadians have formed some associations, such as the Humanist Association of Canada or the Toronto Secular Alliance. In 1991, some non-religious Canadians signed a petition, tabled in Parliament by Svend Robinson, to remove "God" from the preamble to the Canadian Constitution, after which he was relegated to the backbenches by his party leader. Shortly afterwards, the same group petitioned to remove "God" from the Canadian national anthem, "O Canada", but to no avail. According to www.religioustolerance.org, among the estimated 4,900,095 Canadians of no religion, an estimated 18,605 would specify atheist, 17,815 would specify agnostic, and 1,245 humanist.

Christianity in Canada

The majority of Canadian Christians attend church infrequently. Cross-national surveys of religiosity rates such as the Pew Global Attitudes Project indicate that, on average, Canadian Christians are less observant than those of the United States but are still more overtly religious than their counterparts in Britain or in western Europe. In 2002, 30% of Canadians reported to Pew researchers that religion was "very important" to them. This figure was similar to that in the United Kingdom (33%) and Italy (27%). In the United States, the equivalent figure was 59%, in France, a mere 11%. Regional differences within Canada exist, however, with British Columbia and Quebec reporting especially low metrics of traditional religious observance, as well as a significant urban-rural divide. The rates for weekly church attendance are contested, with estimates running as low as 11% as per the latest Ipsos-Reid poll and as high as 25% as per Christianity Today magazine. This American magazine reported that three polls conducted by Focus on the Family, Time Canada and the Vanier Institute of the Family showed church attendance increasing for the first time in a generation, with weekly attendance at 25 per cent. This number is similar to the statistics reported by premier Canadian sociologist of religion Prof. Reginald Bibby of the University of Lethbridge, who has been studying Canadian religious patterns since 1975. Although lower than in the US, which has reported weekly church attendance at about 40% since the Second World War, weekly church attendance rates are higher than those in Northern Europe (for example, Austria 9%, Germany 6%, France 8%, Netherlands 6 % and UK 10%).

As well as the large churches?Roman Catholic, United, and Anglican, which together count more than half of the Canadian population as nominal adherents?Canada also has many smaller Christian groups, including Orthodox Christianity. The Egyptian population in Ontario and Quebec (Greater Toronto in particular) has seen a large influx of the Coptic Orthodox population in just a few decades. The relatively large Ukrainian population of Manitoba and Saskatchewan has produced many followers of the Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches, while southern Manitoba has been settled largely by Mennonites. The concentration of these smaller groups often varies greatly across the country. Baptists are especially numerous in the Maritimes. The Maritimes and prairie provinces have significant numbers of Lutherans. Southwest Ontario has seen large numbers of German and Russian immigrants, including many Mennonites and Hutterites, as well as a significant contingent of Dutch Reformed. Alberta has seen considerable immigration from the American plains, creating a significant Mormon minority in that province. And according to the Jehovah witness year report there are 111 963 active members(members who actively preach)in Canada.