The Faith Project

Jetan Mistry is a mechanical engineer who has grown up in the Swaminarayan Hindu community in the Greater Toronto area in Ontario. The opulent temple near his home is the focal point in his life. In its halls of carved marble, he softens and lays down before sacred images of deities and gurus.

Nearly 90% of the province’s Hindu population of 367,000 lives in the Greater Toronto area, and 74% of the nation’s overall Hindu population resides in Ontario. With a national population of 498,000, Hindus make up 1.5% of Canadians.

Allison Chubb is a chaplain at the University of Manitoba and an ordained priest in the Anglican Church. She “loiters with intent” on campus, counselling students of all backgrounds. She also connects physically with God through the Christian service of Eucharist in the university chapel that is under her stewardship.

Allison is one of approximately 800,000 Christians living in the province of Manitoba. Christians form Canada’s largest religious community, numbering approximately 22 million across Canada (roughly 67% of Canada’s 32 million people). Members of the Anglican Church—one of the many denominations of Christianity—account for 1.6 million of the nation’s Christians.

Kashif Pasta is a recent university graduate and a filmmaker from Surrey, British Columbia, a suburb of Vancouver. As a young Muslim studying in downtown Vancouver, Kashif struggles to find time and space to perform his daily prayers. He manages to find a quiet spot in a secluded stairwell on campus, even though his focus is interrupted by the occasional passerby.

The Greater Vancouver area is home to 73,000 of British Columbia’s 79,000 Muslims. In fact, the majority of Canada’s 1 million Muslims live in the country’s three largest metropolitan areas (Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver). Muslims make up about 3% of the Canadian population.

Ivana Yellowback is a student and youth mentor in Winnipeg, Manitoba. As a Cree woman living in the city and away from her land, she struggles to maintain her spiritual identity. Knowing that other Aboriginal youth struggle as she does, she helps them find balance by re-engaging with traditional practices that have been suppressed for centuries.

Ivana is one of approximately 7,000 Manitobans who practice traditional Aboriginal spirituality. Across Canada, approximately 65,000 people practice traditional Aboriginal spirituality. They represent 4.5% of Canada’s Aboriginal population of 1.4 million, which also includes practitioners of other faiths. Aboriginals make up about 4% of the Canadian population.

Aviva Chernick is a recording, performing and touring musician, a prayer leader and a teacher of voice and prayer at congregations in and around Toronto, Ontario, and as a guest across North America. She anchors her leadership of Jewish worship through private prayers in her home, combining traditional Jewish practice with mindfulness and chanting.

The province of Ontario is home to nearly 60% of Canada’s Jewish population, with approximately 195,000 Jews. The national Jewish population of 329,000 makes up roughly 1% of Canada’s overall population.

Preetinder Narang is a behaviour specialist for children with autism, and a Sikh living in the metropolitan area of Vancouver, British Columbia. Preetinder and her husband, Manpreet, perform daily prayers together every evening in the family home her mother designed, a home that was built around their family prayer room.

77% of the province of British Columbia’s Sikh population of 156,000 resides around Vancouver. The province is home to Canada’s largest Sikh population, some 44% of the nation’s 455,000 Sikhs. Sikhs represent about 1.4% of Canada’s population.

Sonam Tsering is a freelance DJ and community organizer in Toronto, Ontario. Despite his frantic schedule—working in the family store and volunteering in the Tibetan community—he quietly recites Buddhist mantras in the bus with his prayer beads, and makes time to visit the neighbourhood monastery.

Sonam is one of Ontario’s 164,000 Buddhists. The province’s Buddhist population is the largest in Canada, representing about 45% of the national Buddhist population of 367,000. Buddhists make up roughly 1% of the overall Canadian population.