List of Famous people born in Nova Scotia, Canada

Patrick Vincent Coleman was a train dispatcher for the Canadian Government Railways who was killed in the Halifax Explosion, but not before he sent a message to an incoming passenger train to stop outside the range of the explosion. Today he is remembered as one of the heroic figures from the disaster.

Sarah Ann McLachlan is a Canadian singer-songwriter known for her emotional ballads and mezzo-soprano vocal range. As of 2015 she had sold over 40 million albums worldwide. McLachlan's best-selling album to date is Surfacing, for which she won two Grammy Awards and four Juno Awards. In addition to her personal artistic efforts, she founded the Lilith Fair tour, which showcased female musicians on an unprecedented scale. The Lilith Fair concert tours took place from 1997 to 1999, and resumed in the summer of 2010.

Harold John Avery Russell was a Canadian-born American World War II veteran who became one of only two non-professional actors to win an Academy Award for acting. Russell also has the distinction of being the only performer to sell his Oscar award at auction.

Peter Gordon MacKay is a Canadian lawyer and politician. He was a Member of Parliament from 1997 to 2015 and has served as Minister of Justice and Attorney General (2013–2015), Minister of National Defence (2007–2013), and Minister of Foreign Affairs (2006–2007) in the Cabinet of Canada under Prime Minister Stephen Harper. MacKay was the final leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, and he agreed to merge the party with Stephen Harper's Canadian Alliance in 2003, forming the Conservative Party of Canada.

Joanna Shimkus Poitier is a Canadian retired actress. She is the wife of Bahamian-American actor and diplomat Sidney Poitier, and mother of actress Sydney Tamiia Poitier.

James Tupper is a Canadian actor known for his roles as Jack Slattery on the ABC television series Men in Trees, Dr. Chris Sands on the NBC medical drama series Mercy, and David Clarke on ABC's Revenge. He also starred in the post-apocalyptic thriller Aftermath, on Space in Canada and Syfy in the U.S., and in the HBO series Big Little Lies.

Arthur Bruce McDonald, P.Eng, is a Canadian astrophysicist. McDonald is the director of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Collaboration and held the Gordon and Patricia Gray Chair in Particle Astrophysics at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario from 2006 to 2013. He was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Japanese physicist Takaaki Kajita.

Michael Smith is a Canadian actor, screenwriter, comedian and musician born in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, and raised in Thorburn. He is best known for his portrayal of Bubbles and co-writer of the cult classic television program, films and stage production Trailer Park Boys. He was also the guitarist for the Canadian rock band Sandbox. Smith earned a degree in English from St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. For a short time in 2006, he was engaged to actress Nichole Hiltz.

Wendy Lee Walsh is a Canadian author, lecturer, radio host and television commentator.

Iain Thomas Rankin is a Canadian politician who served as the 29th premier of Nova Scotia from February 23, 2021, to August 31, 2021. He serves in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly for the Nova Scotia Liberal Party, representing the electoral district of Timberlea-Prospect. Rankin was first elected in the 2013 Nova Scotia general election and was re-elected in the 2017 general election. On February 6, 2021, Rankin was announced the Leader of the Nova Scotia Liberal Party.