Many immigrants to Canada are Christians, but newcomers are slowly swelling the ranks of Muslims, Buddhists and especially the non-religious in certain regions.

Canada is welcoming more than the global average of immigrants who are Christian, Sikh, Buddhist and non-religious.

The country, however, is taking in less than the global average of immigrants who are Muslim, Hindu and Jewish.

Those are some of the surprising findings of a sweeping global survey on immigration and religion conducted by the independent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

The report, titled Faith on the Move, provides an enormous amount of data on the religious loyalties of the world’s 214-million immigrants, a group larger than the population of Brazil.

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TABLE: Religious affiliations of Canada’s 7.2 million immigrants

Christian         – 59 per cent

Unaffiliated    – 17 per cent

Muslim             – 9 per cent

Hindu               – 4 per cent

Buddhist          – 4 per cent

Other                – 4 per cent (mostly Sikh)

Jewish              – 2 per cent

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