Rugby Canada was incorporated in 1974, and stems from the Canadian Rugby Football Union, a body established in 1884 that now governs amateur Canadian football as Football Canada; and the now-defunct Rugby Union of Canada, established in 1929.

It previously sanctioned the Super League as the premier level of men's competition in the country, but scrapped that league after the Americas Rugby Championship was created in 2009 as a two-stage competition in which the first involved only Canadian teams.

The union continued to use the English rugby rules, and at the end of the season the winning club of the Quebec Championship played the Ontario Champion for the Club Championship of the Dominion.

To make matters more confusing the word rugby continued to be applied to Canadian football.

In 2022 the international Bingham Cup was held in Ottawa, Ontario.