1909 in Canada

← 1908 1907 1906 1909 in Canada → 1910 1911 1912
Decades:	1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s
See also:	History of Canada Timeline of Canadian history List of years in Canada

The following lists events that happened during 1909 in Canada.

Incumbents

Crown

• Monarch – Edward VII ^[1]

Federal government

• Governor General – Albert Grey, 4th Earl Grey
• Prime Minister – Wilfrid Laurier
• Chief Justice – Charles Fitzpatrick (Quebec)
• Parliament – 11th (from 20 January)

Provincial governments

Lieutenant governors

• Lieutenant Governor of Alberta – George Hedley Vicars Bulyea
• Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia – James Dunsmuir (until December 3) then Thomas Wilson Paterson
• Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba – Daniel Hunter McMillan
• Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick – Lemuel John Tweedie
• Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia – Duncan Cameron Fraser
• Lieutenant Governor of Ontario – John Morison Gibson
• Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island – Donald Alexander MacKinnon
• Lieutenant Governor of Quebec – Charles Alphonse Pantaléon Pelletier
• Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan – Amédée Forget

Premiers

• Premier of Alberta – Alexander Cameron Rutherford
• Premier of British Columbia – Richard McBride
• Premier of Manitoba – Rodmond Roblin
• Premier of New Brunswick – John Douglas Hazen
• Premier of Nova Scotia – George Henry Murray
• Premier of Ontario – James Whitney
• Premier of Prince Edward Island – Francis Haszard
• Premier of Quebec – Lomer Gouin
• Premier of Saskatchewan – Thomas Walter Scott

Territorial governments

Commissioners

• Commissioner of Yukon – Alexander Henderson
• Gold Commissioner of Yukon – F.X. Gosselin
• Commissioner of Northwest Territories – Frederick D. White

Events

• January 11 – The Boundary Waters Treaty signed.
• February 23 – The first powered flight in Canada is made by John McCurdy in the AEA Silver Dart, flying 2,640 feet (805 m) from the ice of Bras d'Or Lake at Baddeck on Cape Breton Island.
• March 22 – 1909 Alberta election: Alexander Rutherford's Liberals win a second consecutive majority.
• April 6 – Robert Peary claims to have reached the North Pole.
• July 13 – Gold is discovered near Cochrane, Ontario.
• August – The Canadian Pacific Railway's Spiral Tunnels are opened in British Columbia's Kicking Horse Pass.
• September 2 – Jeanne Mance Monument unveiled in Montreal.
• September 6 – Field Day Sports athletic competition Toronto.
• October 13 – The Ontario Provincial Police is established. ^[2]

Full date unknown

• University of Toronto Schools opens as an all-boys school.
• Leon's furniture store opens.
• The Criminal Code is amended to criminalize the abduction of women. Before this, the abduction of any woman over 16 was legal, except if she was an heiress. ^[3]

Arts and literature

• March 22 – Gabrielle Roy, French Canadian author (died 1983)
• October 24 – Sheila Watson (Sheila Doherty), Canadian novelist and critic (died 1998)

Sport

• December 4 – University of Toronto defeats the Toronto Parkdale Canoe Club 26–6 to win the 1st Grey Cup at Rosedale Field. Montreal Canadiens are established on the same day.

Births

January to June

• February 4 – Jack Shadbolt, painter (d.1998)
• February 14 – A. M. Klein, poet, journalist, novelist, short story writer and lawyer (d.1972)
• March 2 – Art Alexandre, ice hockey player (d.1976)
• March 19 – John Fauquier, war hero
• March 20 – Jack Bush, painter (d.1977)
• March 22 – Gabrielle Roy, author (d.1983)
• April 6 – George Isaac Smith, lawyer, politician and Premier of Nova Scotia (d.1982)
• May 8 – Samuel Boulanger, politician (d.1989)
• May 29 – Red Horner, ice hockey player (d.2005)
• May 31 – Aurore Gagnon, murder victim (d.1920)
• June 23 – David Lewis, lawyer and politician (d.1981)

July to December

• August 12 – Albert Bruce Matthews, commander of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division during the Second World War (d.1991)
• August 15 – Maurice Breton, politician and lawyer (d.2001)
• August 18 – Gérard Filion, businessman and journalist (d.2005)
• September 12 – Donald MacDonald, labour leader
• October 12 – Dorothy Livesay, poet (d.1996)
• October 19 – Robert Beatty, actor (d.1992)
• October 24 – Sheila Watson, novelist, critic and teacher (d.1998)
• November 3 – Russell Paulley, politician (d.1984)

Full date unknown

• Ronald Martland, Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada (d.1997)

Deaths

• May 5 – Daniel Lionel Hanington, politician and 5th Premier of New Brunswick (b.1835)
• May 7 – William Hallett Ray, politician (b. 1825)
• May 12 – Michel Auger, politician (b.1830)
• October 7 – William Thomas Pipes, politician and Premier of Nova Scotia (b.1850)
• October 27 – James William Bain, politician (b.1838)
• November 14 – Joshua Slocum, seaman, adventurer, writer, and first man to sail single-handedly around the world (b.1844)
• December 17 – George Cox, mayor of Ottawa (b.1834)

Historical documents

Government report on huge tar sand deposit in northern Alberta ^[4]

Origins of Canadian Red Cross Society outlined in Senate bill incorporating it ^[5]

Union leaders object after Archbishop of St. John's disapproves of Fishermen's Protective Union as secret society ^[6]

Report of Toronto lecture where British suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst explains rationale for extreme measures ^[7]

Scottish editorial asks whether Scotsmen should take up farming in Canada ^[8]

House of Commons agriculture committee learns about types, history and marketing of Lake Erie apples (District No. 1) ^[9]

Pilot John McCurdy's testimony on flights and development of Silver Dart airplane ^[10]

Magazine cover: "Canada's Yukon Poke Pours Gold for All the World; Output to Date $150,000,000.00" ^[11]

Political cartoon about Canadian wheat milled in Minnesota ^[12]

Postcard: Photo shows "Broadway Falls," created when water from overflowing creek poured into Broadway and Heather St. intersection, Vancouver ^[13]

References

1. Tidridge, Nathan (15 November 2011). Canada's Constitutional Monarchy. Dundurn. p. 235. ISBN   978-1-55488-980-8.
2. "The OPP Museum > Historical Highlights of the Ontario Provincial Police". Ontario Provincial Police. Retrieved 2012-06-19.
3. Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women. http://criaw-icref.ca/millenium Archived 2014-01-02 at the Wayback Machine
4. Canada Department of the Interior, New Northwest Exploration: Report of Exploration, by Frank J.P. Crean, C.E., in Saskatchewan and Alberta[....] (1910), pgs. 58-60. Accessed 18 February 2020
5. The Senate of Canada, "Preamble" Bill HH; An Act to incorporate The Canadian Red Cross Society (April 23, 1909), Senate Bills, 11th Parliament, 1st Session: A-GGG. Accessed 7 March 2020
6. "Letter to Archbishop M.F. Howley from Peter Trimlett and Others, Salmonier, March 23, 1909." Accessed 18 February 2020
7. "Mrs. Pankhurst in Toronto" (source of newspaper clipping not recorded; "ca. November 24, 1909"). Accessed 18 February 2020
8. "The Granary of the Empire" North British Agriculturalist (February 4, 1909), reprinted in Canada, As It Appeared to Scotch Agriculturalists[....] (1909), pgs. 12-14. Accessed 18 February 2020
9. "Fruit Districts of Ontario" (April 15, 1909), The Apple Trade of Canada, pgs. 148-50. Accessed 12 October 2020
10. "Deposition by J.A.D. McCurdy, April 9, 1920" Accessed 18 February 2020
11. Dawson Daily News magazine (July 21, 1909), pg. (1), University of British Columbia Library. Accessed 8 June 2025
12. Charles Lewis Bartholomew (Bart), "It Is Up to Congress to Say Which" Minneapolis Journal (May 6, 1909). Accessed 27 September 2021
13. "View of Broadway Falls at the corner of Broadway and Heather Street, Vancouver, B.C." (1909), University of British Columbia Library. Accessed 6 November 2022