1887 in Canada

Events from the year 1887 in Canada.

← 1886 1885 1884 1887 in Canada → 1888 1889 1890
Decades:	1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s
See also:	History of Canada Timeline of Canadian history List of years in Canada

Incumbents

Crown

• Monarch – Victoria^[1]

Federal government

• Governor General – Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice
• Prime Minister – John A. Macdonald
• Chief Justice – William Johnstone Ritchie (New Brunswick)
• Parliament – 5th (until 15 January) then 6th (from 13 April)

Provincial governments

Lieutenant governors

• Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia – Clement Francis Cornwall (until February 8) then Hugh Nelson
• 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 (until June 1) then Alexander Campbell
• Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island – Andrew Archibald Macdonald
• Lieutenant Governor of Quebec – Louis-Rodrigue Masson (until October 4) then Auguste-Réal Angers

Premiers

• Premier of British Columbia – William Smithe (until March 28) then Alexander Edmund Batson Davie (from April 1)
• Premier of Manitoba – John Norquay (until December 26) then David Howard Harrison
• 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 (until January 25) then Louis-Olivier Taillon (January 25 to January 27) then Honoré Mercier

Territorial governments

Lieutenant governors

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

Events

• January 25 – Sir Louis-Olivier Taillon becomes premier of Quebec, replacing John Jones Ross.
• January 27 – Honoré Mercier becomes premier of Quebec, replacing Sir Louis-Olivier Taillon.
• February 22 – Federal election: Sir John A. Macdonald's Conservatives win a third consecutive majority.
• March 3 – The United States imposes the Fisheries Retaliation Act putting limits on Canadian fishermen and traders
• March 28 – William Smithe, Premier of British Columbia, dies in office.
• April 1 – Alexander Davie becomes premier of British Columbia.
• April 23 – McMaster University founded
• May 3 – 148 coal miners are killed in a mine explosion near Nanaimo, British Columbia
• June 7 – Wilfrid Laurier becomes leader of the Liberal Party of Canada
• June 20 – Golden Jubilee of Victoria's accession as Queen
• December 3 – Saturday Night founded
• December 26 – David H. Harrison becomes premier of Manitoba, replacing John Norquay.
• The first premiers' conference is held at Quebec City, Quebec

Births

January to June

• January 21 – Georges Vézina, ice hockey player (d.1926)
• February 20 – Vincent Massey, lawyer, diplomat and Governor General of Canada (d.1967)
• February 25 – Andrew McNaughton, army officer, politician and diplomat (d.1966)
• April 13 – Gordon S. Fahrni, medical doctor (d.1995)
• May 21 – James Gladstone, first Status Indian to be appointed to the Senate of Canada (d.1971)

July to December

• July 4 – Tom Longboat, long-distance runner (d.1949)
• July 5 – Joseph Charles-Émile Trudeau, entrepreneur and father of Pierre Trudeau, who would later become Prime Minister of Canada (d.1935)
• September 17 – Georges Poulin, hockey player (d. 1971)
• October 8 – Huntley Gordon, actor (d. 1956)
• October 14 – Frances Loring, sculptor (d.1968)
• December 20 – Walter Russell Shaw, politician and Premier of Prince Edward Island (d.1981)

Deaths

• February 25 – Augustin-Magloire Blanchet, missionary (b.1797)
• March 28 – William Smithe, politician and 6th Premier of British Columbia (b.1842)
• May 4 – William Murdoch, poet (b.1823)
• May 8 – Sir William Young, Premier of Nova Scotia (b.1799)
• June 25 – Matthew Crooks Cameron, lawyer, judge and politician (b.1822)
• August 18 – John Palliser, explorer and geographer (b.1817)
• October 11 – Louis-Adélard Senécal, businessman and politician (b.1829)
• October 12 – William Annand, 2nd Premier of Nova Scotia (b.1808)

Historical documents

Senate committee suggests seeding North-West with wild rice, developing bison hybrid, and preserving food using Indigenous ways^[2]

Senate debate on North-West Territories growth blames decades of delay on British ignorance (Note: "Indians" and "civilize" stereotypes)^[3]

Canadian Pacific Railway offers land seekers $25 return fare to Winnipeg, with option to go on westward (and fare refunded if 160 acres purchased)^[4]

Statistical snapshot of Ontario, with note on reciprocity with U.S.^[5]

Royal commission hears that labour and small business in Toronto are squeezed by increasing competition and rising rents^[6]

"A blot on our Statute Book" - Sen. William Johnston Almon against Chinese head tax law penalizing any immigrant with "yellow skin and an almond eye"^[7]

Opposition Leader Wilfrid Laurier comments on "cancer of emigration" to United States^[8]

References

1. "Queen Victoria | The Canadian Encyclopedia". www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
2. "Second Report of the Select Committee of the Senate on the Existing Natural Food Products of the North-West Territories[....]," pgs. 4-5. Accessed 5 October 2020
3. "The Natural Food Products of the North-West; Debate in the Senate[...]on the Report of the Committee[....]," pg. 2 Accessed 5 October 2020
4. "To Land Hunters!" (May 12, 1887), University of British Columbia Library. Accessed 10 July 2022
5. Archibald Blue, Resources and Progress of the Province of Ontario (1888). Accessed 10 October 2019
6. "Phillips Thompson, Journalist, of Toronto, called and sworn" (November 28, 1887), Report of the Royal Commission on the Relations of Labor and Capital in Canada; Evidence, Ontario (1889), pgs. 98-100 Accessed 21 May 2020
7. "Chinese Immigration Bill; Second Reading" (June 10, 1887), Senate Debates, 6th Parliament, 1st Session; Vol. 1, pgs. 297-8 (PDF pgs. 297-8). Accessed 8 January 2023
8. Ulric Barthe, Wilfrid Laurier on the Platform; Collection of the Principal Speeches[...] (1890), pg. 376 Accessed 19 October 2019