1886 in Canada

Incumbents

Crown

• Monarch – Victoria

  Federal government

• Governor general – Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice
• Prime minister – John A. Macdonald
• Chief Justice – William Johnstone Ritchie
• Parliament – 5th

  Provincial governments

Lieutenant governors

• Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia – Clement Francis Cornwall
• Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba – James Cox Aikins
• Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick – Samuel Leonard Tilley
• Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia – Matthew Henry Richey
• Lieutenant Governor of Ontario – John Beverley Robinson
• Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island – Andrew Archibald Macdonald
• Lieutenant Governor of Quebec – Louis-Rodrigue Masson

  Premiers

• Premier of British Columbia – William Smithe
• Premier of Manitoba – John Norquay
• Premier of New Brunswick – Andrew George Blair
• Premier of Nova Scotia – William Stevens Fielding
• Premier of Ontario – Oliver Mowat
• Premier of Prince Edward Island – William Wilfred Sullivan
• Premier of Quebec – John Jones Ross

  Territorial governments

Lieutenant governors

• Lieutenant Governor of Keewatin – James Cox Aikins
• Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories – Edgar Dewdney

  Events

• March 25 – Workman's Compensation Act passed in Ontario
• April 6 – Vancouver incorporated as a city
• April 26 – 1886 New Brunswick general election
• June 7 – Elzéar-Alexandre Taschereau becomes the first Canadian cardinal
• June 8 to 15 – 1886 Nova Scotia general election: William Stevens Fielding's Liberals win a third consecutive majority.
• June 13 – Great Vancouver Fire
• June 30 – 1886 Prince Edward Island general election: William Wilfred Sullivan Conservatives win a fifth consecutive majority.
• July 20 – 1886 British Columbia general election
• October 14 – 1886 Quebec general election: Honoré Mercier's Liberals win a majority
• December 9 – 1886 Manitoba general election
• December 14 – Yoho National Park established
• December 28 – 1886 Ontario general election: Sir Oliver Mowat's Liberals win a fifth consecutive majority.

  Full date unknown

• Mohawk men of the Caughnawaga Reserve in Quebec are trained to help build a bridge across the St. Lawrence River, beginning a tradition of high steel construction work among the Iroquois.
• Construction begins on the Banff Springs Hotel

  Births

• January 15 – C. D. Howe, politician and Minister
• January 21 – George Kingston, meteorologist
• May 13 – William John Patterson, politician and 6th Premier of Saskatchewan
• August 4 – Pierre-François Casgrain, politician and Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada
• August 30 – Ray Lawson, 17th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario
• October 16 – Joseph-Arthur Bradette, politician

  Deaths

• March 30 – Joseph-Alfred Mousseau, politician and 6th Premier of Quebec
• March 31 – Amos Wright, farmer and politician
• June 25
• * Auguste Achintre, journalist and essayist
• * Jean-Louis Beaudry, entrepreneur, politician and 11th Mayor of Montreal
• July 4 – Pitikwahanapiwiyin, Cree chief
• November 23 – William Jack, astronomer

  Historical Documents