« | Home | »

Canadian Politicians on Twitter

By Mack D. Male | September 8, 2008 at 7:53 pm

twitter Canadians will be heading to the polls on October 14th to elect the 40th Canadian Parliament. That means it is officially election season here in Canada! For those of us fascinated with the American election however, it has been election season for months already. It kind of feels like Canada is playing catch-up to the US.

Similarly, our political leaders are playing catch-up to their counterparts south of the border – at least on Twitter. Barack Obama has amassed 75,000 followers on Twitter, and Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden also have accounts. John McCain doesn’t use a computer of course, so he doesn’t have an official Twitter account, though his followers have set this one up. There are dozens of members of Congress on Twitter.

Here in Canada, we now have two well-known politicians using Twitter:

No sign of Stéphane Dion, Gilles Duceppe, or Elizabeth May just yet (I’ll update the post if I find they have created accounts).

The Globe and Mail on Friday wrote about the Prime Minister getting his microblog on:

Like rats scurrying up the ropes before an ocean liner departs, politicians have sharp noses for knowing when to hop aboard a trend. It’s not just Harper. Barack Obama Twitters. All told, the Twitter population has passed the two-million mark.

So far @pmharper has 333 followers, while @jacklayton has 286. Though both probably have staff members updating for them, the style of posts on Jack Layton’s account make it seem as though it could be him.

Have you come across any other Canadian politicians on Twitter?

UPDATE: Track Canadian political conversations on Twitter using govtweets.
UPDATE2: Also check out electopinion.ca which tracks Twitter.
UPDATE (12/2/2008) The Liberals have launched a new account, @LiberalHQ.
UPDATE (12/12/2008) I should mention @M_Ignatieff, the new Liberal Party Leader.




Tags: , , , , , , ,
Categories: Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

Related Posts:

6 Responses to “Canadian Politicians on Twitter”

  1. » Election 2008: Twitter Usage Review Says:
    October 31st, 2008 at 2:18 pm

    [...] twitter friend MasterMaq did a great write up of the Canadian Polititians on twitter (the above list is from his post). [...]

  2. (#4) The Many Uses of Twitter « Gr8k8e’s Blog Says:
    November 20th, 2008 at 9:27 am

    [...] a tweet was sent out announcing that they had made history. Politicians use Twitter in Canada to elect Parliament as well. In class we discussed how Twitter can be used for good; to save lives and to make a point- [...]

  3. Following the current Canadian political drama on Twitter at MasterMaq’s Blog Says:
    December 2nd, 2008 at 5:05 pm

    [...] in September, I wrote about Canadian Politicians on Twitter. My guess is that our political leaders created accounts in reaction to what was happening south of [...]

  4. Budget Day 2009 in Canada – track it online at MasterMaq’s Blog Says:
    January 27th, 2009 at 11:00 am

    [...] Twitter accounts to follow (in addition to the ones I mentioned here): @cbcnews, @cbcradio, @NPpolitics, [...]

  5. Which Canadian MPs are on Twitter? Says:
    March 30th, 2009 at 5:52 pm

    [...] searched for a list, and mostly came up empty (Mack has a starter list of party leaders). So, I’m starting one. If you’ve got any additions, you can either submit via this [...]

  6. Trevor Says:
    September 9th, 2009 at 1:50 am

    For a complete up-to-date list of Canadian politicians on twitter see http://politwitter.ca/page/canadian-politicians-on-twitter

Comments