Keeping faith: The changing face of religion in Canada

Just as immigration is driving population growth, it is driving growth in some religions:

University of Lethbridge sociologist Reginald W. Bibby has spent several decades surveying Canadians about their attitudes on faith.

He isn’t optimistic about a Protestant turnaround anytime soon.

“The United Church, the Anglicans, the Presbyterians and the Lutherans were all being fed with these wonderful immigration pipelines for an awfully long time with people coming from Europe.”

“What’s happened,” says Bibby, “is those pipelines have been shut down.  And the reality is unless those groups do some proselytizing, they are going to continue to decline rapidly as far as numbers.”

Proselytizing — not to mention their often livelier church services — may have helped some Evangelical Christians buck that downward trend.

The Angus Reid survey, which Bibby co-designed, suggests roughly 12 per cent of Canadians are members of an Evangelical group, and unlike other Protestant groups, that percentage has kept relatively constant with population growth.

Catholics, as well as non-traditional religions in Canada, such as Muslims, Sikhs and Buddhists, have fared far better than Protestants in terms of overall numbers.

Roughly, one in five immigrants — particularly those from the Philippines and South America — come to Canada and bring their Catholic faith with them.

“No question the whole religious scene in Canada has been lit up a lot by immigration,” says Bibby.

So, in spite of an overall drift away from organized religion, he notes there are some religious hot spots.

Keeping faith: The changing face of religion in Canada – Canada – CBC News.