The following is a list of the first openly LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender) holders of elected or appointed political office in Canada.

LGBT people have served at all three main levels of political office in Canada: municipal, provincial and federal. As of 2022, every Canadian province and territory has been represented by at least one out LGBTQ officeholder.

In addition to the milestones noted below, Canada has also had a number of prominent politicians who were not out as LGBT during their careers in politics, either coming out after they retired or being officially outed only in posthumous biographical sources, as well as openly LGBT politicians whose election or appointment to office was not a historically significant first as other LGBT people had already held the same office before them. For a more thorough list of Canadian LGBTQ politicians regardless of whether they represented historic firsts or not, see also List of LGBT politicians in Canada.

• First openly gay political candidate, regardless of electoral status: Peter Maloney ran for a seat on the Toronto Board of Education in the 1972 Toronto municipal election as an openly gay candidate.^[1] (He had previously been an Ontario Liberal Party candidate in St. George in the 1971 Ontario provincial election, and some later biographical sources have stated that he ran as an openly gay candidate at that time as well,^[2] but no indication of his sexuality is seen in any media coverage of the 1971 election. The first known coverage of Maloney which makes any reference to his sexuality is of a party policy conference in early 1972, several months after the election was over.)^[3] Robert Douglas Cook, a Gay Alliance Toward Equality candidate for the electoral district of West Vancouver-Howe Sound in the 1979 British Columbia provincial election, has been credited with this distinction by some media outlets,^[4] but was in fact merely the first to run as a candidate of an explicitly gay-identified political organization rather than a traditional political party or for a non-partisan office.

• First transgender candidate, regardless of electoral status: Jamie Lee Hamilton ran for Vancouver's Park Board in 1996.^[5] Christin Milloy, an Ontario Libertarian Party candidate in the 2011 provincial election in Ontario, was the first transgender candidate in a provincial election.^[6] Jennifer McCreath, a Strength in Democracy candidate in Avalon in the 2015 federal election, was the first transgender candidate in a federal election.^[7] Trevor Kirczenow was Liberal candidate in Provencher in the 2019 federal election, becoming the first openly transgender candidate nominated by a major party in a federal election.^[8]

• First openly gay person elected to office: Raymond Blain (Montreal City Council, 1986) is commonly credited with this distinction, although Maurice Richard, who was elected to the National Assembly of Quebec in 1985 after coming out as gay sometime during his term as mayor of Bécancour, Quebec from 1976 to 1985, predated him and the story was simply not picked up by national media until later on.^[4] Out lesbian Sue Harris won election to the Vancouver Park Board in 1984.^[9] Jim Egan (Comox-Strathcona Regional District board, 1981) may also have predated all of them, although sources are unclear on whether he ran as an openly gay candidate at the time.

• First transgender person elected to office: Julie Lemieux was elected to the municipal council of Très-Saint-Rédempteur in the 2013 municipal election, and later ran for and won the mayoralty of the village in the subsequent 2017 municipal election. Although reported as a lesbian-identified woman at the time of their election to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in 2015, Estefan Cortes-Vargas came out as non-binary in an assembly debate later in the year.

To date, only New Brunswick has never had a person serve in its provincial legislature who was out as gay during their term in office, although Richard Hatfield was outed as gay after his death.

The provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia and Quebec and the territory of Yukon have had more than one LGBT member, and all except Nova Scotia have had both gay men and lesbian women serve in the legislatures; Nova Scotia to date has only elected LGBTQ women, with no out gay men yet serving in the legislature. The other provinces and territories which have had out LGBT legislators have had only one each to date. Alberta, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Yukon have had elected MLAs who identified as non-binary.

Some figures, including Ian Scott, Keith Norton, Phil Gillies and Dominic Agostino in Ontario, Claude Charron and Guy Joron in Quebec and Andrew Thomson in Saskatchewan, predated the firsts listed here but were not out to the general public during their time in politics.

To date, most LGBT people who have served in provincial or territorial legislatures have represented urban districts in larger cities, while very few have ever served in a purely rural district.^[4]

• Lieutenant Governor
  • Brenda Murphy (New Brunswick) – 2019^[26][27]
• Provincial Premier
  • Female: Kathleen Wynne (Ontario) – 2013 (First female premier of Ontario, first openly LGBT premier in Canada)
  • Male: Wade MacLauchlan (Prince Edward Island) – 2015^[28]
  • One provincial premier, Richard Hatfield in New Brunswick, predated Wynne but was not out as gay during his political career, instead being outed only after his death.
• Provincial Deputy Premier
  • Male: George Smitherman (Ontario) (Ontario Liberal Party) – 2006
• Provincial cabinet minister:
  • British Columbia – Tim Stevenson – 2000
  • Quebec – André Boisclair – 2002
  • Ontario – George Smitherman – 2003
  • Manitoba – Jim Rondeau – 2004
  • Nova Scotia – Joanne Bernard – 2013
  • Alberta – Ricardo Miranda – 2016^[29]
• Leader of a provincial party: Allison Brewer (New Brunswick New Democratic Party) – 2005
• Leader of a provincial party with seats in a legislature: André Boisclair (Parti Québécois) – 2005
• Provincial and territorial legislators:
  • British Columbia
    • Male: Mike Farnworth, 1991 (came out during leadership run in 2010); Ted Nebbeling and Tim Stevenson, 1996 (both out when elected)
    • Female: Jenn McGinn, 2008
  • Alberta
    • Male: Michael Connolly and Ricardo Miranda, 2015
    • Genderqueer: Estefan Cortes-Vargas, 2015^[30] Cortes-Vargas publicly identified as a lesbian woman at the time of their election to the legislature,^[31] and came out as non-binary during a debate in the legislature later in the year.
    • Female: Janis Irwin, 2019
    • Two-spirit: Brooks Arcand-Paul, 2023^[32]
  • Manitoba
    • Male: Jim Rondeau, 1999
    • Female: Jennifer Howard, 2007
    • Genderqueer: Uzoma Asagwara, 2019
  • Ontario
    • Male: George Smitherman, 1999
    • Female: Kathleen Wynne, 2003
    • Non-binary: Kristyn Wong-Tam, 2022
    • Bisexual: Suze Morrison, elected 2018, came out 2021
  • Quebec
    • Male: Maurice Richard and André Boulerice, 1985
    • Female: Agnès Maltais, 2003 (came out)
  • Newfoundland and Labrador: Gerry Rogers, 2011
  • Nova Scotia
    • Female: Joanne Bernard, 2013
    • Genderqueer: Lisa Lachance, 2021
  • Prince Edward Island: Wade MacLauchlan, 2015
  • Saskatchewan
    • Nathaniel Teed, 2022
  • Yukon
    • Male: Dale Eftoda, 2001
    • Female: Emily Tredger, 2021
  • Northwest Territories: Julie Green, 2015
  • Nunavut: Janet Brewster, elected 2021, came out 2022^[33]

• List of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender firsts by year
• List of the first LGBT holders of political offices
• List of the first LGBT holders of political offices in the United States
• List of the first LGBT holders of political offices in the United Kingdom