"There seems to be growing concern about the growth of Islam, arising from high-profile incidents in the news. That may lend itself to more debate about immigration and multiculturalism -- which would be the wrong conclusion to draw, to my point of view."
Jack Jedwab, executive director, Association for Canadian Studies

The first results released to the public of the controversial National Household Survey compiled by Statistics Canada are expected to reveal some interesting statistics. Primarily initially about Canada's swiftly increasing Muslim population. The controversy of the National Household Survey did not exist in its revelations about how Canadians feel with respect to the growing Muslim population in Canada, however.

Rather, it was that the Government of Canada had instructed Statistics Canada that the survey would henceforth be voluntary in nature, not compulsory, as was formerly the case.

That decision was decried by those who insisted that the voluntary survey would not be as reliable and useful in its statistics-gathering capacity as the old compulsory designation of the survey, where people were directed to complete the survey or face the potential of being fined and even imprisoned. A controversy that led to the resignation of the-then chief officer of Statistics Canada.

But the resulting voluntary survey saw a quite good response rate of 68.6% from the 4.5-million households invited to participate.

This is the first survey in ten years that offered a comprehensive gathering of data relating to religion in Canada, since the replacement of the mandatory-to-complete long-form census. The decade has seen the number of Muslims increased by over 62% through immigration. A number that is expected during the next several decades to increase by triple, giving Canada a 2.87-million Muslim demographic.

In March, Leger Marketing conducted a 1,500 person survey for the Association for Canadian Studies. That survey revealed that less than half of those respondents held a positive opinion of Muslims, at 46%. That same survey resulted in a 70% apoproval rating for Catholics, 74% for Protestants, 69% for Jews, and 61% for atheists. Almost four in ten claimed to trust Muslims "very little", or "not at all".

Perhaps not surprising, since Catholics, Protestants, Jews and atheists don't represent hugely as committed violent jihadists. The results of that poll were retrieved before the more recent terror plot against Via Rail and the earlier Boston Marathon bombing, despite the Muslim community having denounced both incidents as representing crimes against Islam, rejecting that they represented actions taken in the name of Islam.

The 2011 National Household Survey whose results are shortly to be revealed, collected data on religious affiliation across Canada, assembling information on religious denominations, how immigration affects the reporting of religious denominations and that segment of society reporting no religious affiliation. The incidence of reported agnosticism or atheism has grown from less than 1% in 1971 to 16.5% in 2001.

"I expect an increase in the number of people who say (they have) no religion. I also expect to see increases in people who identify with religions other than Christian ... The net result would be a decrease in the number of people who identify as Catholic or Protestant", said Jack Jedwab, anticipating the release of data based on retrieval from the 2011 National Household Survey.