Since its organization in New York in 1830, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) has had a presence in Canada. Several church-related items that were the first of their kind outside the United States include: missionaries preaching (Upper Canada), establishment of a stake (Alberta Stake), and construction of a temple (Cardston Alberta Temple).

With the church reporting more than 200,000 members at year-end 2024, Canada ranks as having the 4th largest body of LDS Church members in North America and the 12th worldwide. The 2021 Canadian Census survey reported approximately 0.2% of the population (about 87,725 people) identified themselves as church members.

In the winter of 1829–30, Oliver Cowdery and Hiram Page visited Upper Canada while seeking money to finance the publication of the Book of Mormon. After its publication in March 1830, the unbaptized convert, Phineas Young, preached in Ernestown Township, Ontario.

Joseph Smith and Don Carlos Smith—the first official Latter Day Saint missionaries to preach outside of the United States—visited Upper Canada in September 1830 and preached in villages north of the St. Lawrence River. In January 1832, converts Brigham and Phineas Young went to Upper Canada to convince their brother, Joseph to join the church. After Joseph's baptism, the Young brothers taught their family and friends in Canada and baptized over 150 individuals and established four branches of the church, including ones in Kingston and Sydenham.

Joseph Smith preached in Upper Canada in September 1833 with Sidney Rigdon and Freeman Nickerson. Also in 1833, future apostle, Lyman E. Johnson, preached in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Later, John E. Page and apostle Parley P. Pratt served successful missions to Upper Canada; Page baptized over 1,000 individuals between 1834 and 1836 and Pratt converted a number of individuals who would play a prominent role in the church, including John Taylor, Joseph and Mary Fielding, and William Law.

By 1850, approximately 2,500 residents of Canada—most of them from Upper Canada—had joined the LDS Church. However, most of these members joined the gathering of the Latter Day Saints in Kirtland, Ohio, Nauvoo, Illinois, and eventually Salt Lake City, Utah, and by 1861, the census of Ontario listed only 73 Mormons.

In 1887, John Taylor—who was then the church president—sent Charles Ora Card, president of the church's Cache Stake, to Canada's Northwest Territories to establish a LDS Church colony that was beyond the reach of the United States government's anti-polygamy prosecutions. Card led a group of followers and established a settlement along Lee's Creek; the settlement was eventually renamed Cardston in Card's honour. The church's Alberta Stake, the first outside of the United States, was created in 1895, with Card as its president.

Mormon pioneers continued to colonize what would become Alberta in 1905. Before the turn of the century, Latter-day Saints had founded Mountain View, Aetna, Beazer, Leavitt, Kimball, Caldwell, Taylorville, Magrath, and Stirling. After 1900, colonies of church members were established in Woolford, Welling, Orton, Raymond, Barnwell, Taber, Frankburg, Glenwood, and Hill Spring. Church apostle John W. Taylor—the son of church president John Taylor—played a leadership role in assisting Latter-day Saint emigration from Utah to Alberta.