Hello Northern Neighbors! I am trying to follow along with Canadian politics and i’ve gotten a general lay of the land with the major parties – do you have any advice on which politicians to keep an eye on (for good AND bad reasons)? For example i know Doug Jones of Alberta is a real piece of work and last i heard Jagmeet Singh of the NDP was a decent rep but i’d love to know more about major players in the Canadian political scene. (i may be a bit out of date, my apologies).

The most important federal politicians are the leaders of the political parties, outside of that, the rest of the politicians are just local representatives.
Mark Carney: Liberal Leader and Prime Minister. Neoliberal Centrist, but most people probably know about him.
Pierre Poilievre: Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. Has the 2nd most seats. Is extremely unlikeable and parrots a lot of Republican talking points.
Avi Lewis: New leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP), Canada’s most major left of centre party. He identifies as an ecosocialist and was inspired by Mamdani’s campaign in the USA. The party only has 6 seats so will need to rebuild if they want a chance to govern. He takes over from Jagmeet Singh.
Elizabeth May: Leader of the Green Party of Canada: Only has 1 seat federally. Focus is on Environment, but other than that their policies are a mixed bag. Some progressive, and some not.
Yves-François Blanchet: Leader of the Bloc Quebecois, a sovereignist Quebec political party that wants Quebec to separate from Canada. Beyond this they advocate on behalf of Quebec’s interests nationally.

Other than that, there are Premiers in each province which are the closest equivalent of Governors in the USA and have a lot of power locally. See more info here

List of current first ministers of Canada – Wikipedia

You might be thinking of Doug Ford, who is the Premier of Ontario, and is a total asshole.

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