Réal Ménard is a Canadian politician, who was a Bloc Québécois member of the House of Commons of Canada from 1993 to 2009. He was the second Canadian member of Parliament to come out as gay.
Church and Wellesley is an LGBT-oriented enclave in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is roughly bounded by Gerrard Street to the south, Yonge Street to the west, Charles Street to the north, and Jarvis Street to the east, with the core commercial strip located along Church Street from Wellesley south to Alexander. Though some LGBT-oriented establishments can be found outside this area, the general boundaries of this village have been defined by the Gay Toronto Tourism Guild.
Glen Ronald Murray is a Canadian politician and urban issues advocate who served as the 41st Mayor of Winnipeg, Manitoba from 1998 to 2004, and was the first openly gay mayor of a large North American city. He subsequently moved to Toronto, Ontario, and was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as a Liberal Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Toronto Centre in 2010, serving until 2017.
Denis Coderre is a Canadian politician from Quebec. Coderre was the member of Parliament for the riding of Bourassa from 1997 until 2013, and was the Immigration minister from 2002 to 2003 and became the mayor of Montreal in 2013, but lost in 2017 to Valérie Plante. In 2021, he was defeated once again by Valérie Plante after a second mayoral race. He has been an administrator of Eurostar since 2018 and special advisor for the FIA since 2019. He is a candidate in the 2025 Quebec Liberal Party leadership election.
Operation Soap was a raid by the Metropolitan Toronto Police against four gay bathhouses in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which took place on February 5, 1981. Nearly three hundred men were arrested, the largest mass arrest in Canada since the 1970 October crisis, before the record was broken during the 2006 Stanley Cup Playoffs in Edmonton, Alberta.
Louise Harel is a Quebec politician. In 2005 she served as interim leader of the Parti Québécois following the resignation of Bernard Landry. She was also interim leader of the opposition in the National Assembly of Quebec. She represented the riding of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve in the Montreal region, and its predecessors, from 1981 to 2008. She ran for Mayor of Montreal as the representative of the Vision Montreal municipal political party in the 2009 election, but was defeated by incumbent Gérald Tremblay. In the 2013 Montreal election, Harel supported federalist Marcel Côté for mayor but failed to be elected to her own council seat.
Canadian lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) rights are some of the most extensive in the world. Same-sex sexual activity, in private between consenting adults, was decriminalized in Canada on June 27, 1969, when the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1968–69 was brought into force upon royal assent. In a landmark decision in 1995, Egan v Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada held that sexual orientation is constitutionally protected under the equality clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In 2005, Canada became the fourth country in the world, and the first in the Americas to legalize same-sex marriage. In 2022, Canada was the third country in the world, and the first in North America, to fully ban conversion therapy nationwide for both minors and adults.
Kaj Hasselriis is a Canadian journalist, community activist and politician.
Gerry Rogers is a Canadian documentary filmmaker and politician. She was leader of the Newfoundland and Labrador New Democratic Party from 2018 until 2019. She served in the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly as NDP MHA for the electoral district of St. John’s Centre from 2011 to 2019. She became the party's leader after winning the April 2018 leadership election. She resigned as party leader prior to the 2019 provincial election and did not seek re-election.
This is a timeline of notable events in the history of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in Canada. For a broad overview of LGBT history in Canada see LGBT history in Canada.
Frank Zampino is a former Montreal politician and is a chartered accountant. He served as the Chairman of the executive committee of the Ville de Montréal and was the city's second-ranking official.
Chantal Rouleau is a Canadian politician who was elected to the National Assembly of Quebec in the 2018 provincial election. She represents the electoral district of Pointe-aux-Trembles as a member of the Coalition Avenir Québec.
Although same-sex sexual activity was illegal in Canada up to 1969, gay and lesbian themes appear in Canadian literature throughout the 20th century. Canada is now regarded as one of the most advanced countries in legal recognition of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) rights.
ProudPolitics is a Canadian cross-partisan organization dedicated to increasing the number of openly LGBT public officials in Canadian politics. The group was inspired by the LGBTQ Victory Fund in the United States, which offers grassroots leadership training, networking and mentoring programs for aspiring politicians who are part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender communities. Unlike the Victory Fund, however, ProudPolitics does not offer direct fundraising for candidates due to Canada's differing laws around election finance.
Catherine McKenney is a Canadian politician who served on Ottawa City Council from 2014 to 2022, representing Somerset Ward. McKenney did not seek re-election as councillor in the 2022 Ottawa election, instead running for Mayor of Ottawa and finishing second. Before running for office, they worked as an advisor and political staffer.
Michael Robert Davies Connolly is a Canadian politician who was an elected member to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta representing the electoral district of Calgary-Hawkwood. Upon election he became the second youngest elected MLA at the age of 21 and one of the first three openly LGBT people elected to the Alberta legislature, alongside caucus colleagues Ricardo Miranda and Estefania Cortes-Vargas.
Randy Paul Andrew Boissonnault is a Canadian politician who is the member of Parliament (MP) for Edmonton Centre. A member of the Liberal Party, he was initially elected to the House of Commons in the 2015 federal election and served until his defeat in 2019. He later went on to win back his seat in 2021. Boissonnault held several ministerial roles, including Minister of Tourism and Associate Minister of Finance from 2021 to 2023 and Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages from 2023 to 2024, when he resigned from Cabinet. Notably, he was one of five openly gay MPs elected in 2015 and the first openly gay MP elected from Alberta.
Valérie Plante is a Canadian politician serving as the 45th and current mayor of Montreal since 2017. First elected to Montreal City Council in the 2013 election, she has served as leader of the Projet Montréal party since December 2016.
Catherine Fournier is a Canadian politician, who was elected as mayor of Longueuil on November 7, 2021. She is the third female mayor in the city's history.
