One way was by officers of ships and lay military and civil officials reading services from the Book of Common Prayer regularly when no clergy were present.

The first documented resident Church of England cleric on Canadian soil was Erasmus Stourton, who arrived at the "Sea Forest Plantation" at Ferryland, Newfoundland, in 1612 under the patronage of Lords Bacon and Baltimore.

In the 1662 Preface, the editors note: ... that it was thought convenient, that some Prayers and Thanksgivings, fitted to special occasions, should be added in their due places; particularly for those at Sea, together with an office for the Baptism of such as are of Riper Years: which, although not so necessary when the former Book was compiled, ... is now become necessary, and may be always useful for the baptizing of Natives in our Plantations, and others converted to the Faith.The Hudson's Bay Company sent out its first chaplain in 1683, and where there was no chaplain the officers of the company were directed to read prayers from the BCP on Sundays.

Rice wrote a letter to the Bishop of London detailing his efforts to repair the church which had been "most unchristianly defaced" and asking for help in acquiring communion vessels, a pulpit cloth, surplices and glass for the windows.

As a result of the UK Privy Council decision of Long v. Gray in 1861, all Anglican churches in colonies of the British Empire became self-governing.

In the forty years between self-government in 1861 and 1900, sixteen of the currently existing dioceses were created, as numbers blossomed with accelerating immigration from England, Scotland, and Ireland.

[23] During this time, the Anglican Church assumed de facto administrative responsibility in the far-flung wilderness of Canada and British North America.

Such schools removed children from their home communities in an attempt to forcibly assimilate them into the dominant European culture and language and adapt them as a menial labour workforce.

[24] At the same time, Anglican missionaries were involved in advocating for First Nations rights and land claims on behalf of those people to whom they were ministering (for example, the Nisga'a of northern British Columbia).

This was manifested in the creation of competing theological schools (Trinity versus Wycliffe Colleges in the University of Toronto, for example), a refusal by bishops of one ecclesiastical party to ordain those of the other, and – in the most extreme cases – schism.

This latter phenomenon was famously and acrimoniously borne out in the high profile defection of Edward Cridge, the Dean of the Diocese of British Columbia in Victoria, B.C., together with much of his cathedral congregation, to the Reformed Episcopal Church in 1874, although the movement was ultimately confined to that one congregation in a then-remote town together with a second parish in New Westminster, the then-capital of the originally separate mainland colony of British Columbia.

[27] Missionaries from Canada to Japan included Archdeacon Alexander Croft Shaw, minister to the British Legation in Tokyo, J. G. Waller in Nagano, and Margaret Young in Nagoya.

[27] Despite these changes, the church was still perceived as complacent and disengaged, a view emphasized by the title of Pierre Berton's best-selling commissioned analysis of the denomination, The Comfortable Pew, published in 1965.

[34] In the twenty-first century a division in the Anglican Communion developed when more conservative churches opposed liberal positions on issues such as same-sex marriage and acceptance of homosexuality.

In 2007 the church considered rationalizing its increasingly top-heavy episcopal structure as its membership waned, which could have meant a substantial reduction in the number of dioceses, bishops and cathedrals.

Scott's successor, Michael Peers, continued the close association with the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and was thrust into a high profile in Canadian national life when he insisted that the ACC should shoulder its responsibilities for the legacy of the Indian Residential Schools, and when he protested at what he described as the downplaying of Christian witness in the official commemoration of events of national importance.

Both dioceses and provinces hold synods, usually annually, consisting of the active diocesan clergy and lay delegates elected by parish churches.

It is a more thoroughgoing modernizing of Canadian Anglican liturgies, containing considerable borrowings from Lutheran, Church of England, American Episcopal and post-Second Vatican Council Roman Rite Catholic service books; it was received with general enthusiasm and in practice has largely supplanted the Book of Common Prayer, although the BCP remains the official Liturgy of the Church in Canada.

The preference for the BAS among many parishes and clergy has been countered by the founding of the Prayer Book Society of Canada, which seeks "to promote the understanding and use of the BCP as a spiritual system of nurture for life in Christ".

Like most churches of the Anglican Communion, the ACC was beset by intense conflict over the ritualism controversies of the latter 19th century, leading in some extreme cases to schism.

As is the case in churches directly influenced by Anglican ethos and theology, the ACC tends to reflect the dominant social and cultural strains of the nation in which it finds itself.

Nonetheless, this change – in concert with such moves as allowing the remarriage of divorced persons – caused strains among more conservative parishes, both Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical.

[48] In 2002, the Synod of the Diocese of New Westminster (located in Vancouver and the south-west of British Columbia) voted to permit the blessing of same-sex unions by parishes requesting episcopal authorization to do so.

[49] Since then another ten dioceses (Edmonton, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, Winnipeg-based Rupert's Land, Ottawa,[50] Toronto, London-based Huron,[51] Quebec, Hamilton-based Niagara,[52] Montreal and Victoria-based British Columbia[53] ) have followed suit.

Director of Communications Meghan Kilty told CBC News that many dioceses have been performing same-sex marriages, such as that of bishop Kevin Robertson in December 2018 at the Cathedral Church of St. James (Toronto).

[67] At the same General Synod, a resolution, called "A Word to the Church", was approved that recognised that a diocese may choose to perform same-sex marriages.

[68][69][70] During the 19th century the federal Crown delegated the operation of Indian residential schools to the ACC and Roman Catholic religious orders (with some minimal involvement by the Methodist and Presbyterian churches of Canada as well).

The claims were ultimately comprehensively settled but the damage to the morale of the ACC has yet to be entirely resolved: the Diocese of Cariboo was obliged to declare bankruptcy and was liquidated — its successor is the Territory of the People (called the Anglican Parishes of the Central Interior until 2016), with episcopal oversight by a suffragan bishop to the Metropolitan (of BC).

[79] Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal is notable for having a shopping mall (Promenades Cathédrale) and Metro station (McGill) underneath it.

[83] St Anne's, Toronto is a notable tourist attraction, being "a scale model of Saint Sophia in Istanbul that was decorated in the 1920s by members of the Group of Seven and associates.