Here are a few statistics from the Anglican Church of Canada from 1932 to 1997. The statistics are extremely imprecise for a number of reasons, but the general trends portrayed are probably reliable.

More recent statistics are hard to find. The article linked here gives some reasons why.

Some context for current statistics of religious affiliation is given at the Statistics Canada website. Some comparative data are given by this private website, but I haven't double-checked its accuracy.

1. "Stipendiary parish clergy" are full-time salaried clergy serving parishes. Thus the number does not include part-time clergy, retired clergy, and clergy in non-parish settings.

2. "Total on parish rolls" cumulates diocesan totals, which in turn cumulate parish totals. Parish totals are submitted annually by the incumbents of parishes. The Anglican Church of Canada does not define church membership as such, and therefore different clergy may interpret "total on parish rolls" in very different ways. More recently clergy have been asked to enumerate "number of identifiable givers," which is a more precise category.



Stipendiary parish clergy Total on parish rolls Identifiable givers
1932-36 1404 861,110
1937-41 1372 860,998
1942-46 1352 872,452
1947-51 1374 1,024,348
1952-56 1541 1,198,208
1957-61 1711 1,320,649
1962-66 1810 1,347,113
1977 997,371 246,679
1987 1678 808,220 252,151
1997 1546 717,708

228,413

2000 650,997


3. For 1932-1966 this category is called "total parish contributions for all purposes", for 1977-1987 "total parish income".

4. For 1932-1966 this category is called "total value of all property"; for 1987 there is "parish buildings valuation" and "diocesan buildings population" which have here been combined. "Property" is a more inclusive term than "buildings" and the categories may therefore not be entirely comparable. However, it appears that the former term "property" was used to mean buildings, since the intent appears to have been to show the congruity of insurance coverage.

5. The deflator, based on Statistics Canada (formerly Dominion Bureau of Statistics) data, uses 1935-39=100. It means that in 1932-1936 $93 would have bought what in 1987 would have required $1118. This is a very rough-and-ready guide, principally since many things which consumers bought in 1987 did not exist in 1932, or were of different quality.


Total parish income Value of property

Deflator 1933-7=100

Total parish income deflated Value of property deflated
1932-36 5,036,226 47,177,082 93 5,415,296 50,728,045
1937-41 5,070,885 48,167,916 107 4,739,144 45,016,743
1942-46 6,368,884 50,916,940 130 4,899,141 39,166,876
1947-51 10,442,644 76,415,171 194 5,382,806 39,389,263
1952-56 18,199,243 131,971,298 230 7,912,714 90,728,655
1957-61 30,670,091 208,675,908 249 12,317,305 83,805,585
1962-66 34,705,632 273,825,402 270 12,853,937 101,416,815
1977
1987 155,355,880 1,172,781,000 1118 13,895,874 104,899,910
1997 214,602,196   1476 14,539,444  


Statistic for members on parish rolls for 2000 is taken from this media factsheet, which gives general information on the Anglican Church of Canada.

For the total population of Canada at each census since 1851, see the Statscan webpage linked.