Populism in Canada has been part of the country's political culture through its history and across the political spectrum. Populist parties and movements have included the Canadian social credit movement which achieved electoral strengths in Western Canada and to some extent in Quebec in the early to mid 20th century, and the Reform Party of Canada which became the largest conservative party in Parliament from a base in Western Canada in the 1990s.

According to Laycock, Quebecois populism is largely intertwined in Quebec nationalism and thus has to be examined with its own ideological and linguistic dynamics taken into consideration.

In his 1981 Studies in Political Economy journal article, "Populism: A qualified defence", John Richards, a public policy professor at Simon Fraser University, said that there were elements of populism in the Liberal Party under Mackenzie (leader from 1873 to 1880) and Laurier (leader from 1887 to 1919); Pattulo's British Columbia Liberal Party during the 1930s; Liberal Party of Ontario under Mitchell Hepburn (leader from 1930 to 1942); the many socialist and labour parties leading up to the 1932 founding of the CCF; the Manitoba Liberal-Progressive Party; the Union Nationale in Quebec under Maurice Duplessis (leader from 1935 to 1959); the early Diefenbaker Tory party; the federal NDP under Tommy Douglas (leader from 1961 to 1971); and, to some extent, the Liberal Party of P. E. Trudeau (leader from 1968 to 1984). Richards identified four "types of populist experience"—agrarian protest populist movements in the United States and Canada; the 19th century traditional, communal values, peasant populism admired by Russian intellectuals; authoritarian populism of regimes such Peronism in Argentina; and contemporary populism adopted by political leaders and parties to appeal to the "shared interests of the people" in contrast to those of the "powerfully organized 'vested interests' and traditional 'old-line' politicians." Richards traced a shift in the populist movement to the mid-1980s. He said that left-wing activists in North America shifted away from New Left politics in the 1970s. In Canada, some became active in unions, the New Democrat Party, and the Parti Québécois. The 1986 book Citizen Action said that in the 1960s and 1970s in the United States, American conservatism became "imbued with right-wing populism".

Populism in Canada has always had a very regional character to it. Populist politics in Western Canada has been fueled by perceived mistreatment by the federal government. For instance, Lawson cites divergent opinions on economic and cultural policy as the historical source of alienation and anti-establishment tendencies among Western Canadian politicians and activists. For most of the 20th Century, the federal government of Canada was controlled by the Liberal Party of Canada which historically found its support primarily within Ontario and Quebec. The Liberal Party's base of support in central Canada has led it to pursue economic polices the diverged from the goals of western provinces. Examples of federal economic policies that did not algin with Western goals include high tariffs in the early 20th century, National Energy Program of 1980, the Equalization Program, and the pipeline politics of the 21st century.

Anti-establishment populist politics became an important political force in 19th century Ontario amongst rural and working class political activists who were influenced by American populist radicals. Populism also became an important political force in Western Canada by the 1880s and 1890s. Populism was particularly strong in the form of farmer-labour coalition politics in the late 19th century.

Multiple important populist political movements were formed throughout Canada in the 20th century. Western Canada and the Canadian Prairies in particular were the birthplace of a number of Canada's populist movements in the 20th century. Quebec would also see its fair share of populists movements especially at a provincial level.

In 1921, both Liberals and Conservatives lost to the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) in the 1921 provincial election. The United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) and United Farmers of Saskatchewan (UFS) were formed by Prairie farmers that rejected party-dominated parliamentary representation advocated a quasi-syndicalist system of functional representation in a delegate democracy. This movement was motivated by federally imposed tariffs and freight rates which put pressure on farmers in the prairies. The UFA governed the province of Alberta from 1921 to 1935.

Union Nationale was founded in the aftermath of the 1935 Quebec general election, when the newly founded Action libérale nationale under former Quebec liberal Paul Gouin and Conservative Party of Quebec under Maurice Duplessis failed to diminish the majority government of the Liberal Party of Quebec under Louis-Alexandre Taschereau. Gouin and Duplessis formally merged their parties on 20 June 1936 to form Union Nationale (national union) with Duplessis as their leader. Duplessis built Union Nationale as a nationalist, right-wing populist party with stanch opposition to communism and strict adherence to Clerico-nationalism, economic liberalism and Quebec nationalism.