With loneliness and social isolation reaching crisis levels in Canada—especially among youth—church leaders are being called on to share how their communities are responding, through a new national survey launched by Christian think tank Cardus.
Canadian church leaders have been invited to participate in the survey, which aims to evaluate how faith communities are addressing these growing concerns. The latest 2025 figures show an average of 12.5 deaths per 100,000 are caused by suicide.
Cardus, a Christian nonpartisan think tank based in Ontario, announced the survey by email on Friday, March 21.
“Research shows that faith and faith communities can both protect people from isolation or loneliness and respond to it,” stated the Cardus invite to potential participants. “But what’s not clear is how they are doing it.”
The survey, which should take about 15 minutes for church pastors or leaders to complete, is seen by Cardus as a crucial tool for better understanding the church’s role.
“Their answers will help us tell the story of how Canadian churches are responding to people’s needs for connection and community,” the invite added.
In comments sent to Christian Daily International, Rebecca Vachon, program director for health at Cardus, said the most recent Canadian data suggests loneliness affects almost a quarter of people aged 15 to 21.
The data also show that more than six in 10 Canadians feel disconnected from their communities.
“Previous Cardus research, however, had found some correlation between higher rates of prayer and religious service attendance and lower isolation and loneliness,” added Vachon.
“However, we don’t have a clear picture of how religious communities are responding to people’s need for community and connection.
“So, we’ve launched a survey of Canadian leaders among Christian churches of various denominations to start getting some detail about the helpful programs and practices that they have in place.”
Christian Daily International will report on the Cardus survey results once they are published.
Other surveys mirror the concerns expressed by Vachon. For example, YMCA Canada and YMCA of Greater Toronto, conducting a survey last September in the Angus Reid Forum, found results similar to Vachon’s reference: 60 percent of Canadians surveyed felt “disconnected from their community, with 16% reporting they never feel a sense of community and 44% experiencing it only sometimes.”
According to its website, the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention states that 12 people per day die by suicide in the country. This leaves an average of 120 people bereaved by the loss and another 120 affected in some way by that one death.
The association calls the situation a “critical public health issue” in Canada and lists suicide as the second leading cause of death for young people aged 15 to 34.
Canadian men are three times more likely to die by suicide than women, but women are three times more likely to attempt it and one-and-a-half times more likely to be hospitalized.
It is possible, the association asserts, that the discrepancies are because women use “less immediately lethal methods.”
