[2] In the early 1600s, the French were the first European nation to establish permanent colonies in Canada, calling the areas they colonized New France.

[4] However, the French aspiration to make Roman Catholicism the foundation of society in New France was never fully realized.

[5] The British sought to expand Protestant faith throughout the territory through missionary conversions of native populations and the immigration of Protestants to Canada, favoring the British Church of England and initially suppressing the Roman Catholic Church .

Roman Catholics have remained the largest religious group in Canada since 1961 and Protestant membership is declining.

[8] Religion has played a large role in Canadian public life and politics, and secularization in Canada was a long process.

However, while the Protestant faith has particularly declined since secularization, Evangelical Protestantism has grown more popular in Canada.

[4] Canada's largest Protestant branch, the United Church of Canada, underwent dramatic liberalization during the 1960s, abandoning evangelical tendencies and creating a gap in the religious market, which may have benefited Evangelical denominations in terms of gaining followers, particularly in more socially conservative areas of the country that are resistant to the modernization and liberalization that has accompanied Canadian Independence and secularization.

[citation needed] While Protestantism was once the faith of the majority in Canada, the Protestant share of the population has declined by over half of what it was around 150 years ago.