Paul Ferreira is a Canadian politician and one of the first openly gay politicians elected to provincial office in Canada. He also has the distinction of being the very first Azorean-Canadian MPP. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as a member of the Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP) in the February 8, 2007 York South–Weston by-election, but was narrowly defeated in the 2007 general election. He subsequently served as chief of staff to party leader Howard Hampton until Hampton's retirement from that position in 2009. He later worked as a special assistant to leader Andrea Horwath. On Feb. 8, 2011, Ferreira was acclaimed as the Ontario NDP's candidate in York South-Weston in the 2011 provincial election.

The Ontario New Democratic Party is a social-democratic political party in Ontario, Canada. The party currently forms the Official Opposition in Ontario following the 2018 general election. It is a provincial section of the federal New Democratic Party. It was formed in October 1961 from the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL).