Fulcrum: An Inflection Point in Canadian Culture

The new census from 2021 shocking many religious observants and non-religious non-observants in the country has been non-shocking to non-religious observant me. The declination has been subtle, but perceivable within the other sparse data sets on Canadian religious demographics.

The country is in a less of a terminal decline vis-à-vis religion necessarily and more in a gradual fading away of customs not passed on convincingly to the next generations. Scandals from the Pope and the Residential Schools system, anti-Muslim sentiment, fundamentalist Catholic and Islamic online groups, anti-Semitism, anti-atheist, and other concurrent phenomena do not explain these trends in full, even mostly.

The decline in religion in Canadian society is in larger part a matter of demographic shifts over generations. Older generations get older and young generations get middle-aged, and the birth rates of each cohort continues to decline, while the passing on of religious custom and belief gets less rigid.

Thus, religious domination of one group inevitably declines over decades. As well, as these are decades-long trends; the notion of rapid shifts or a revivalism are unlikely if not impossible. The nature of large-scale statistical trendlines, e.g., human-induced climate change, is slow and steady: A line of best fit.

Canadian Christianity, as with other staple religions in Canada’s national landscape decline or mostly remain stable; newcomers to part of Turtle Island or…