The diocese was established by the Synod of the Ecclesiastical Province of Rupert's Land in 1884 at the beginning of European settlement on the Canadian prairies beyond the vicinity of Winnipeg; it geographically corresponds to the former District of Assiniboia in the then North-West Territories [sic]: indeed, until the 1970s it precisely so-corresponded, and included a strip of territory lying over the Alberta provincial boundary once the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta were created in 1905.

The original Bishop's Court was there but subsequently relocated to nearby Indian Head: it is in a verdant rolling parkland immediately adjacent to the Qu'Appelle Valley, amply treed with aspen and birch groves, with spring-fed creeks in lush coulees and plentiful local supplies of water.

Growth of the diocese was hindered in early years by a number of factors: Owing to some fairly astonishing corruption by latter day standards, another site was chosen instead.

When it became apparent that neither Qu’Appelle nor nearby Indian Head were going to be an important urban centre the diocese acquired a substantial property in Regina on College Avenue east of Broad Street.

(Of special interest on the property is the intended cathedral site laid out at the corner of Broad Street and College Avenue, outlined in caragana hedges.)

The diocese was an early leader in liturgical revision, first publishing The Qu'Appelle Liturgy for local use in 1969, 16 years before 1985's Book of Alternative Services albeit considerably later than a corresponding move by Toronto's St. Mary Magdalene.

This was never wholly accurate, though it certainly had ample documentation: At one point Bishop Harding, the Church of England Bishop, was quoted at a meeting — when he was imprudently unaware that local Canadians were hearing his remarks — as observing that English Anglican migrants might be more attractive settlers than Presbyterian and Methodist Canadians, occasioning considerable adverse notice and animosity against the English in the general community.

The Diocese of Qu'Appelle was very nearly forced into bankruptcy the same way by litigation on behalf of former students at aboriginal residential schools operated by the church who had credibly brought claims of abuse against them.