1879 in Canada

{{wikisource|Category:Canada:Acts of Parliament, 1879|Acts of Parliament, 1879}}

Events from the year 1879 in Canada.

Incumbents

Monarch – Victoria{{cite web |title=Queen Victoria {{!}} The Canadian Encyclopedia |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/victoria# |website=www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca |access-date=5 December 2022}}

==== Premiers ====

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.
June 27 - Murder of Mary Gallagher in Griffintown, Montreal
(date unknown) – 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 – Swift Runner is hanged in Fort Saskatchewan, NWT, 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.

January 15 – Mazo de la Roche, author (d.1961)
January 17 – Richard Gavin Reid, politician and 7th Premier of Alberta (d.1980)
January 25 – Humphrey T. Walwyn, naval officer and Governor of Newfoundland (d.1957)
March 20 – Maud Menten, medical scientist (d.1960)
May 25 – Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, business tycoon, politician and writer (d.1964)
June 12 – Charles Dow Richards, judge, politician and 18th Premier of New Brunswick (d.1956)

August 1 – Eva Tanguay, singer and entertainer (d.1947)
August 16 – Samuel Lawrence, politician and trade unionist (d.1959)
October 6 – James Langstaff Bowman, politician and Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada (d.1951)
October 9 – William Warren, lawyer, politician, judge and Prime Minister of Newfoundland (d.1927)
November 3 – Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Arctic explorer and ethnologist (d.1962)
November 11 – Violet McNaughton, feminist (d. 1953)
November 25 – Joseph-Arsène Bonnier, politician (d.1962)
December 10 – P. L. Robertson, inventor (d. 1951)
December 24 – Émile Nelligan, poet (d.1941){{cite web |title=Émile Nelligan {{!}} Canadian poet |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Emile-Nelligan |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |access-date=17 April 2019 |language=en}}

January 4 – Pierre-Alexis Tremblay, politician (b.1827)
January 16 – Octave Crémazie, poet (b.1827)
April 4 – Jean-Baptiste Thibault, missionary and a Father of Confederation (b.1810)
October 7 – William Henry Pope, lawyer, politician, judge and a Father of Confederation (b.1825)

The federal government proposes to provide 100 million acres of Dominion land for the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway for settlement.{{cite web |author=John A. Macdonald, Minister of the Interior |url=https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/home/record?app=ordincou&IdNumber=15726&q=100,000,000 |title=...100,000,000 Acres of Land Required |date=June 25, 1879 |accessdate=February 27, 2023}}

Report claims only self-reliance and industry can relieve distress of Indigenous people and anxiety of Metis (Note: racial stereotypes)Nicholas Flood Davin, [https://archive.org/details/cihm_03651/page/n21/mode/1up "Report on Industrial Schools for Indians and Half-Breeds"] (March 14, 1879), pg. 9. Accessed 23 June 2021

Ottawa memo outlines the "utter destitution" of some Indigenous people in the Northwest TerritoriesJ.S. Dennis, [http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/pam_archives/index.php?fuseaction=genitem.displayEcopies&lang=eng&rec_nbr=2058700&ecopy=e007682874 "152 N.W.T.; Memorandum"] Northwest Territories - Correspondence, Memoranda, Reports, Minutes and Requisitions Regarding the Distress of Indians in the Territories Due to Lack of Food, pgs. 20-1. Accessed 19 September 2018

Federal commissioner reports on the dependency of Indigenous people at Fort Walsh[http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/aboriginal-heritage/first-nations/indian-affairs-annual-reports/Pages/item.aspx?IdNumber=1418 "No. 46"] Report of the Deputy Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs, 1879, pgs. 76-7. Accessed 19 September 2018

Visitor fears the Metis on the Assiniboine River will not hold on to their lands much longer[http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/bibliography/889/12.html "Letter IV"] Chronicles by the Way: A Series of Letters Addressed to the Montreal "Gazette" Descriptive of a Trip through Manitoba and the North-West (Montreal: Gazette Printing Co, 1879), pg. 10. Accessed 18 September 2018

Description of Mennonite cooperative farming near WinnipegDavid Currie, [http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/bibliography/894/74.html The Letters of Rusticus: Investigations in Manitoba and the North-West, for the Benefit of Intending Emigrants] (Montreal: John Dougall & Son, 1880), pgs. 67-8. Accessed 18 September 2018

All aboard the steamer Waubuno are lost in a gale on Georgian Bay[http://images.maritimehistoryofthegreatlakes.ca/details.asp?ID=7072 "Wreck of the Waubuno; All the Passengers and Crew Lost"] Enterprise, Collingwood, Ont. (November 28, 1879). Accessed 18 September 2018

Anti-Irish-Catholic opinion is published in the Irish Canadian[https://www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/donnellys/archives/newspaperormagazinearticle/1511en.html "Are Irish Catholics A Menace"] Irish Canadian (December 17, 1879). Accessed 18 September 2018