News

By Terry Vanderheyden

OTTAWA, May 3, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Statistics Canada survey on religious practices in the country has revealed a remarkably low level of religious fervour among the populace.

There has been a 9% decline in church attendance among Canadians from a previous study conducted in 1984 as compared to 2004 levels, which revealed that 19% have no religious affiliation whatsoever. Presently 32% of Canadians attend religious services at least once monthly, v. 41% in 1984.

StatsCan described four dimensions of religiosity – church affiliation and attendance, personal practices and the importance of religion – which they combined into a “religiosity index.”

Men are far less likely to be religious, with only 24% admitting to a high degree of religiosity, v. 35% for women. Immigrants were more religious than their Canadian-born counterparts, at 40-41%, v. only 26% respectively.

A significant finding was that the tendency for a child to be religious was very dependent on the religious practices of his or her parents. A child born to two religious parents practicing the same faith has a 33% likelihood of having a high degree of religiosity, whereas only 10% of those whose parents did not practice any religion were themselves religious.

The StatsCan release is based on a study in the May 2006 issue of Canadian Social Trends titled “Who’s religious?” The majority of the data came from the 2002 Ethnic Diversity Survey, conducted from April to August 2002. About 42,500 people aged 15 and over were interviewed by telephone in the 10 provinces.

See details:
https://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/11-008-XIE/2006001/main_religious.htm