1868 in Canada

← 1867 1866 1865 1868 in Canada → 1869 1870 1871
Decades:	1840s 1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s
See also:	History of Canada Timeline of Canadian history List of years in Canada

Events from the year 1868 in Canada.

Incumbents

Crown

• Monarch – Victoria ^[1]

Federal government

• Governor General – Charles Monck, 4th Viscount Monck
• Prime Minister – John A. Macdonald
• Parliament – 1st

Provincial governments

Lieutenant governors

• Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick – Francis Pym Harding (until July 23) then Lemuel Allan Wilmot
• Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia – Charles Hastings Doyle
• Lieutenant Governor of Ontario – Henry William Stisted (until July 15) then William Pearce Howland
• Lieutenant Governor of Quebec – Narcisse-Fortunat Belleau

Premiers

• Premier of New Brunswick – Andrew Rainsford Wetmore
• Premier of Nova Scotia – William Annand
• Premier of Ontario – John Sandfield Macdonald
• Premier of Quebec – Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau

Colonies

• Secretary of State for the Colonies – The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos then The Earl Granville

Governors

• Colonial Governor of Newfoundland – Anthony Musgrave
• Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island – George Dundas (until October 22) then Robert Hodgson
• Governor of the United Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia – Frederick Seymour

Premiers

• Colonial Prime Minister of Newfoundland – Frederick Carter
• Premier of Colony of Prince Edward Island – George Coles

Events

• March 4 — Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario established
• April 7 — Father of Confederation Thomas D'Arcy McGee is assassinated in Ottawa by Irish Fenians.
• May 26 - The Canadian flag is unofficially introduced.

Full date unknown

Louis Riel returns to the Red River area

• The Hudson's Bay Company agrees to turn Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory over to Canada
• The first Federal Militia Act is passed, creating a Canadian army
• George-Étienne Cartier created a Baronet

Births

January to June

• January 16 — Octavia Ritchie, first woman to receive a medical degree in Quebec
• January 22 — Adjutor Rivard, lawyer, writer, judge and linguist (died 1945)
• February 16 — John Babington Macaulay Baxter, lawyer, jurist and 18th Premier of New Brunswick (died 1946)
• March 14 — Emily Murphy, women's rights activist, jurist and author, first woman magistrate in Canada and in the British Empire (died 1933)
• April 27 — James Kidd Flemming, businessman, politician and 13th Premier of New Brunswick (died 1927)
• May 31 — Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire, politician and 11th Governor General of Canada (died 1938)

July to December

• July 8 — Henry Cockshutt, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario (died 1944)
• July 9 — William Alves Boys, politician and barrister (died 1938)
• August 25 — Arthur Puttee, politician (died 1957)
• August 26 — Charles Stewart, politician and 3rd Premier of Alberta (died 1946)
• September 1 — Henri Bourassa, politician and publisher (died 1952)
• September 22 — Louise McKinney, first woman sworn into the Legislative Assembly of Alberta and first woman elected to a legislature in Canada and in the British Empire (died 1931)
• September 28 — Herbert Alexander Bruce, surgeon and 15th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario (died 1963)
• November 9 — Marie Dressler, actress (died 1934)
• December 11 — William Parks, geologist and paleontologist (died 1936)

Deaths

• January 19 — Frederic, Roman Catholic priest, missionary, and bishop (born 1797)
• January 25 — Alexander Roberts Dunn, first Canadian awarded the Victoria Cross (born 18)
• January 28 — Edmund Walker Head, Governor (born 1805)
• February 19 — Dominick Daly, politician (born 1798)
• April 7 — D'Arcy McGee, journalist, politician and Father of Confederation, assassinated (born 1825)
• August 7 — William Agar Adamson, Church of England clergyman and author (born 1800)
• September 12 — Charles Dickson Archibald, lawyer, businessman and politician (born 1802)
• October 17 — Laura Secord, heroine of the War of 1812 (born 1775)

Historical documents

Political cartoon satirizes Nova Scotians' mixed feelings about Confederation ^[2]

Indigenous people assert claim to their reserve at Lake of Two Mountains (Oka), Quebec ^[3]

"The moment was fraught with danger" - British spy addresses large rally of Fenians ^[4]

Report by a visitor to newly opened settler lands in Muskoka, Ontario ^[5]

In his last Commons speech, D'Arcy McGee lauds anyone "prepared[...]to sacrifice himself [for] principles[...]adopted as those of truth" ^[6]

Federal deputy minister of agriculture says connoisseur in France finds Canadian wine to be vin d'ordinaire second only to their own ^[7]

References

1. "Queen Victoria | The Canadian Encyclopedia". www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
2. John Henry Walker, "Cross Roads. Shall We Go to Washington First, or How(e)?" (first published in Diogenes, November 20, 1868). Accessed 9 September 2018
3. Indian Branch, Department of the Secretary of State for the Provinces, "List of Copies of Documents...." Return[...]of all Correspondence between the Government and the Iroquois Indians of Two Mountains[....] (1870), pgs. 2-3 (PDF pgs. 57-8), Algonquin and Nipissing Indians of Oka Collection, McGill (University) Library. Accessed 15 January 2020
4. Henri Le Caron, Twenty-Five Years in the Secret Service; The Recollections of a Spy (1892), pgs. 53-7. Accessed 9 September 2018
5. "Visit to the Free Grant Lands of Canada" The (Tokomairiro, N.Z.) Bruce Herald, Vol. V, No. 238 (November 18, 1868), pg. 7. Accessed 9 September 2018
6. "Mr. McGee's Last Speech" (April 6, 1868), House of Commons Debates; First Session - First Parliament, pg. 468. Accessed 18 April 2021
7. "Report of the Select Committee on the Cultivation of the Vine in Canada; Minutes of Evidence" Appendix (No. 6), House of Commons Journals, 1st Parliament, 1st Session: Vol. 1 (1868), pgs. A6-1–A6-2. Accessed 12 July 2020