“A Canadian soldier was killed by an improvised explosive device in the Panjwayi area about 25 kilometres west of Kandahar," spokeswoman Lieutenant Carole Brown said.
"He was conducting a dismounted patrol at the time of the explosion. He was on foot," she said.
No other soldier or civilians were injured in the blast, she added.
The soldier was on patrol in southern Kandahar province's Zhari district, part of an area where ISAF this month wrapped up its biggest anti-Taliban offensive which it said had driven out entrenched rebels.
The fallen soldier, whose name has not been released at the request of his family, was evacuated by helicopter to the Kandahar airfield, Lieutenant Brown said.
This is the 37th Canadian soldier casualty in Afghanistan since 2002 and comes as Canada's chief of defence staff, General Rick Hillier, visited troops at their base in Kandahar.
Recent suicide attacks, including one by an old man on a bicycle, have underscored the difficulties faced by NATO troops trying to pick out Taliban insurgents out of civilian crowds, General Hillier told reporters.
"You can't just go and find their positions and then go and destroy them in that position because they blend into the population," he said. "Clearly we would never want to destroy the population, so it's a long, slow process."