1879 in Canada
Events from the year 1879 in Canada.
Incumbents
Crown
- Monarch – Victoria
Federal government
- Governor general – John Campbell
- Prime minister – John A. Macdonald
- Chief Justice – William Buell Richards then William Johnstone Ritchie
- Parliament – 4th
Provincial governments
Lieutenant governors
- Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia – Albert Norton Richards
- Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba – Joseph Édouard Cauchon
- Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick – Edward Barron Chandler
- Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia – Adams George Archibald
- Lieutenant Governor of Ontario – Donald Alexander Macdonald
- Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island – Robert Hodgson then Thomas Heath Haviland
- Lieutenant Governor of Quebec – Luc Letellier de St-Just then Théodore Robitaille
Premiers
- Premier of British Columbia – George Anthony Walkem
- Premier of Manitoba – John Norquay
- Premier of New Brunswick – John James Fraser
- Premier of Nova Scotia – Simon Hugh Holmes
- Premier of Ontario – Oliver Mowat
- Premier of Prince Edward Island – Louis Henry Davies then William Wilfred Sullivan
- Premier of Quebec – Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière then Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau
Territorial governments
Lieutenant governors
- Lieutenant Governor of Keewatin – Joseph Édouard Cauchon
- Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories – David Laird
Events
- February 4 – Prince Edward Island election: William Wilfred Sullivan's Conservatives win a third consecutive majority
- March 12 – Sir John A. Macdonald introduces protective tariffs on manufactured goods being imported into Canada, a transcontinental railway, and immigration to the west in his National Policy.
- April 25 – Sir William Wilfred Sullivan becomes premier of Prince Edward Island, replacing Sir Louis Davies
- June 5 – Ontario election: Sir Oliver Mowat's Liberals win a third consecutive majority
- – The Toronto Industrial Exhibition opens for the first time, precursor to the Canadian National Exhibition
- October 31 – Sir Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau becomes premier of Quebec, replacing Henri-Gustave de Lotbinière
- December 16 – Manitoba election
- December 19 – The Alberta Canada Cannibal. Swift Runner was executed for murdering and then eating eight members of his own family over the previous winter. He believed he was possessed by Wendigo, a terrifying mythological creature with a ravenous appetite for human flesh.
All other deaths he can document were cases of "Wendigo executions," where others have killed the person believed to be possessed. They were acts of self-preservation, attempts to protect their community.
Births
January to June
- January 15 – Mazo de la Roche, author
- January 17 – Richard Gavin Reid, politician and 7th Premier of Alberta
- January 25 – Humphrey T. Walwyn, naval officer and Governor of Newfoundland
- February 14 – Eli Burton, physicist
- March 20 – Maud Menten, medical scientist
- May 25 – Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, business tycoon, politician and writer
- June 12 – Charles Dow Richards, judge, politician and 18th Premier of New Brunswick
July to December
- August 1 – Eva Tanguay, singer and entertainer
- August 16 – Samuel Lawrence, politician and trade unionist
- October 6 – James Langstaff Bowman, politician and Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada
- October 9 – William Warren, lawyer, politician, judge and Prime Minister of Newfoundland
- November 3 – Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Arctic explorer and ethnologist
- November 11 – Violet McNaughton, feminist
- November 25 – Joseph-Arsène Bonnier, politician
- December 24 – Émile Nelligan, poet
Deaths
- January 4 – Pierre-Alexis Tremblay, politician
- January 16 – Octave Crémazie, poet
- April 4 – Jean-Baptiste Thibault, missionary and a Father of Confederation
- October 7 – William Henry Pope, lawyer, politician, judge and a Father of Confederation
Historical Documents
Ottawa memo outlines the "utter destitution" of some Indigenous people in the N.W.T.
reports on the dependency of Indigenous people at Fort Walsh
Visitor fears the Metis on the Assiniboine River will not hold on to their lands much longer
Description of Mennonite cooperative farming near Winnipeg
All aboard the steamer Waubuno are lost in a gale on Georgian Bay
Anti-Irish-Catholic opinion is published in the Irish Canadian