1874 in Canada

Events

January 22 – Federal election: Alexander Mackenzie's Liberals win a majority, defeating J. A. Macdonald's Liberal-Conservatives
February 11 – George Walkem becomes premier of British Columbia, replacing Amor De Cosmos
April 16 – Louis Riel is barred from taking his seat in the House of Commons.
May 29 – The Liberals introduce electoral reform that introduces the secret ballot and abolishes property qualifications
June–July - New Brunswick election
July 8 - Marc-Amable Girard becomes premier of Manitoba for the second time, replacing Henry Joseph Clarke. Manitoba institutes responsible government, adopting the convention that the lieutenant governor acts on the advice of the premier and no longer takes an active role in directing the government.
July 26 - Alexander Graham Bell discloses the invention of the telephone to his father at the family home on the outskirts of Brantford, Ontario.
September 22 – Sir Charles-Eugène de Boucherville becomes premier of Quebec, replacing Gédéon Ouimet
October 1 – The North-West Mounted Police base at Fort Macleod is founded
December 3 – Robert Davis becomes premier of Manitoba, replacing Marc-Amable Girard.
December 17 – Nova Scotia election: Philip Carteret Hill's Liberals win a second consecutive majority
December 30 – Manitoba election

Anabaptists (Russian Mennonites) start to arrive in Manitoba from various Russian colonies arriving in Canada in August.
The federal Liberal government grants provisional boundaries to Ontario that extend the province to the north and west. These provisional boundaries will not be recognized by the federal Conservatives when they return to power.
Newfoundland election

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Births

January 15 – James David Stewart, educator, lawyer, politician and Premier of Prince Edward Island (d.1933)
January 16 – Robert W. Service, poet and writer (d.1958)
January 29 – Frank Boyes, politician (d.1961)
February 10 – Walter Lea, politician and Premier of Prince Edward Island (d.1936)
April 14 – Alexander Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone, 16th Governor General of Canada (d.1957)
June 16 – Arthur Meighen, politician and 9th Prime Minister of Canada (d.1960)

July 13 – Norman Dawes, businessman
July 29 – J. S. Woodsworth, politician (d.1942)
October 1 – Arthur Sauvé, politician (d.1944)
October 10 – Roland Fairbairn McWilliams, politician and Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba (d.1957)
October 12 – Albert Charles Saunders, jurist, politician and Premier of Prince Edward Island (d.1943)

October 25 – Philémon Cousineau, politician (d.1959)
November 30 – Lucy Maud Montgomery, author (d.1942)^[2]
December 17 – William Lyon Mackenzie King, lawyer, economist, university professor, civil servant, journalist, politician and 10th Prime Minister of Canada (d.1950)

Deaths

February 8 – Joseph-Bruno Guigues, first bishop of the diocese of Bytown (Ottawa) (b.1805)
March 9 – Joseph Casavant, manufacturer of pipe organs (b.1807)
June 18 – Edwin Atwater, businessperson and municipal politician (b.1808)
August 3 – Charles Laberge, lawyer, journalist and politician (b.1827)
December 17 – Hiram Blanchard, Premier of Nova Scotia (b.1820)
December 22 – Étienne Parent, journalist (b.1802)

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Incumbents