The Portrait Gallery of Canada is a program of Library and Archives Canada which has gathered the largest group of national portraits in the country: more than 20,000 paintings, drawings and prints, 4 million photographs, several thousand caricatures, and ten thousand medals and philatelic items. The collection contains works by well-known professional artists as well as images made by ordinary people, and includes portraits by both Canadian and international artists.

Some of the collection's most significant portraits record the earliest European contact with Aboriginal peoples. One unique treasure is a small painting of a Beothuk woman, Desmasduit, the only portrait made from life of a now-extinct people. Other highlights are 19th-century Canadian portraits and 20th-century photographs such as Yousuf Karsh. Caricature, that marvellous counterpart to honorific portraiture, also forms an important part of the collection.

The collection has grown through the generous donations of private individuals and judicious purchases made in Canada and abroad. Long a resource for researchers, the collection shows its public face through exhibitions.