This report summarizes the first documented quantitative national estimates of the economic value of religion to Canadian society, using similar metrics as used in similar studies of US society (Grim and Grim 2016; 2019) and of faith congregations in Toronto (Daly 2016). The study provides conservative, mid-range, and high estimates.

The study’s most conservative and beginning-point estimate, which takes into account only the revenues of faith-based organizations, is more than $30 billion CAD annually. While this first estimate has the most concrete data, we believe that it is certainly an undervaluation because it focuses on annual revenues rather than on the fair-market value of the goods and services that religious organizations provide.

Our second, mid-range estimate corrects for this in three ways: by providing an estimate of the fair-market value of goods and services provided by religious organizations and charities, by including faith-related food businesses, and by including a valuation of the substance-abuse recovery support groups hosted by congregations. This mid-range estimate puts the value of religion to Canadian society at more than $67 billion annually. By way of comparison, this would make religion the country’s ninth-largest enterprise, just behind TC Energy and ahead of Bank of Montreal (Disfold 2020). Or in terms of national economies, it would make Canadian religion the world’s seventy-second-largest economy, putting it ahead of more than 110 countries (World Bank 2019).

Our third, higher-end estimate recognizes that people of faith conduct their affairs to some extent (however imperfectly) inspired and guided by their faith ideals. This higher-end estimate is based on the household incomes of religiously affiliated Canadians and places the value of faith to Canadian society at nearly $690 billion annually.