1903 in Canada

← 1902 1901 1900 1903 in Canada → 1904 1905 1906
Decades:	1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s
See also:	History of Canada Timeline of Canadian history List of years in Canada

Events from the year 1903 in Canada.

Incumbents

Crown

• Monarch – Edward VII ^[1]

Federal government

• Governor General – Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 4th Earl of Minto
• Prime Minister – Wilfrid Laurier
• Chief Justice – Henri Elzéar Taschereau (Quebec)
• Parliament – 9th

Provincial governments

Lieutenant governors

• Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia – Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière
• Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba – Daniel Hunter McMillan
• Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick – Jabez Bunting Snowball
• Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia – Alfred Gilpin Jones
• Lieutenant Governor of Ontario – Oliver Mowat (until April 19) then William Mortimer Clark (from April 21)
• Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island – Peter Adolphus McIntyre
• Lieutenant Governor of Quebec – Louis-Amable Jetté

Premiers

• Premier of British Columbia – Edward Gawler Prior (until June 1) then Richard McBride
• Premier of Manitoba – Rodmond Roblin
• Premier of New Brunswick – Lemuel John Tweedie
• Premier of Nova Scotia – George Henry Murray
• Premier of Ontario – George William Ross
• Premier of Prince Edward Island – Arthur Peters
• Premier of Quebec – Simon-Napoléon Parent

Territorial governments

Commissioners

• Commissioner of Yukon – Zachary Taylor Wood (acting) (until March 4) then Frederick Tennyson Congdon

Lieutenant governors

• Lieutenant Governor of Keewatin – Daniel Hunter McMillan
• Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories – Amédée E. Forget

Premiers

• Premier of North-West Territories – Frederick Haultain

Events

April 29: The Frank Slide occurs

• March 22 – Because of a drought, the U.S. side of Niagara Falls runs short of water
• March 1 – Henri Bourassa's Ligue nationaliste is founded
• March 25 – The Alaska Boundary Dispute is settled in the United States' favour
• April 29 – The Frank Slide, The most destructive landslide in Canadian history, kills 70 in Frank, District of Alberta, North-West Territories
• June 1 – Richard McBride becomes Premier of British Columbia, replacing Edward Prior
• June 19 – Regina, District of Assiniboia, North-West Territories, is incorporated as a city
• June 24 – Ignace Bourget Monument unveiled
• July 1 – Ray Knight builds the Raymond Stampede rodeo arena and rodeo grandstands in Raymond, District of Alberta, North-West Territories, which are the first ever built in the world.

See also

• List of Canadian films

Births

January to June

• January 3 – Charles Foulkes, General, first Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff, negotiated the WWII Nazi surrender in the Netherlands (d.1969)
• February 15 – Sarto Fournier, politician and mayor of Montreal (d.1980)
• February 16 – Georges-Henri Lévesque, Dominican priest and sociologist (d.2000)
• February 22 – Morley Callaghan, novelist, short story writer, playwright, and television and radio personality (d.1990)
• February 25 – King Clancy, ice hockey player (d.1986)
• May 23 – Elsie Gibbons, politician, first women to be elected mayor of a municipality in Quebec (d.2003) ^[2]
• June 10 – Alexander Wallace Matheson, politician and Premier of Prince Edward Island (d.1976)
• June 23 – Paul Martin Sr., politician (d.1992)
• June 30 – Donald Ferguson Brown, politician, barrister and lawyer

July to December

• July 16 – Carmen Lombardo, singer and composer (d.1971)
• July 30
  • Harold Ballard, owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs (d.1990)
  • Alan Macnaughton, politician (d.1999)
• August 31 – Helen Battle, zoologist
• December 8 – Louis-Marie Régis, philosopher, theologian, scholar and member of the Dominican Order (d.1988)

Deaths

Donald Farquharson

Oliver Mowat

• January 7 – Robert Atkinson Davis, businessman, politician and 4th Premier of Manitoba (b. 1841)
• July 2 – Oliver Mowat, politician, 3rd Premier of Ontario and 8th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario (b. 1820)
• April 30 – Emily Stowe, first female doctor to practice in Canada and women's rights and suffrage activist (b. 1831)
• May 6 – Samuel Bridgeland, politician (b. 1847)
• May 8 – David Mills, politician, author, poet and jurist (b. 1831)
• June 26 – Donald Farquharson, politician and Premier of Prince Edward Island (b. 1834)
• November 12 – William Doran, mayor of Hamilton, Ontario (b. 1834)
• November 14 – John Andrew Davidson, politician (b. 1852)

Historical documents

Alberta farmer's examples of being "most unmercifully fleeced by those iniquitous tariffs" include taxes on blankets, clothing, tools, kitchenware etc. ^[3]

Disastrous landslide at Frank, Alberta described ^[4]

Photo: "The recent mild climate has wasted the glaciers back to their very sources" - text of stereograph of Mount Sir Donald, B.C. ^[5]

Saint John Globe correspondent covers canoe trip down Saint John River above Fredericton, N.B. ^[6]

Halifax Morning Chronicle correspondent provides humorous profile of New Westminster, B.C. ^[7]

Gold, fraud and foxes in news from New Bay, Notre Dame Bay, Newfoundland ^[8]

Despite late planting and her husband working off-farm, newly immigrated woman and sons bring in successful harvest in Saskatchewan ^[9]

Explorer's last words as he starves to death on Labrador expedition that his wife later completes ^[10]

References

1. Tidridge, Nathan (15 November 2011). Canada's Constitutional Monarchy. Dundurn. p. 235. ISBN   978-1-55488-980-8.
2. Lambert, Maude-Emmanuelle (December 5, 2014). "Elsie Gibbons". The Canadian Encyclopedia . Retrieved October 13, 2021.
3. Letter of James Murray (December 3, 1903) reprinted in Liberal Publication Department, "Protection at Work; Two Voices from Canada" General Election, 1906: Set of Leaflets (London, U.K., 1906), pgs. 139-40. Accessed 12 September 2022
4. Department of the Interior, Dominion of Canada, "Description of the Slide" Report of the Great Landslide at Frank, Alta.; 1903 (1904), pgs. 6-8. Accessed 23 January 2020
5. stereograph (1903) of Mount Sir Donald, University of British Columbia Library. Accessed 17 August 2025
6. "Canoeing on the River; Excitements and Pleasures of a Trip Down the Upper St. John" Saint John Globe (August 1, 1903). Accessed 23 January 2020
7. Peter McLaren MacDonald, "Royal City of the West" Letters from the Canadian West (1903), pgs. 33-5. Accessed 23 January 2020
8. "New Bay," St. John's Free Press (October 20, 1903). Accessed 23 January 2020 http://www.rootsweb.com/~cannf/nd_freepress1903.htm (scroll down to "foxes")
9. Canadian Pacific Railway, Women's Work in Western Canada (1906), pgs. 20-1. Accessed 23 January 2020
10. Mina Benson Hubbard, A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador (1908). Accessed 23 January 2020 http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4266/pg4266.html (scroll down to "Sunday, October 18th")