1871 in Canada
Events from the year 1871 in Canada.Incumbents
Crown
Lieutenant governors
Lieutenant governors
January to June
- March 15 – Beginning of the first session of the 1st Manitoba Legislature
- April 2 – The first Canadian census finds the population to be 3,689,257
- May 8 – The Treaty of Washington reaches agreements on fishing rights and Great Lakes trade between Canada and the United States
- May 17 – New Brunswick abandons separate schools.
July to December
- July 15 – Phoebe Campbell murders her husband with an axe. She is hanged the next year.
- July 20 – British Columbia joins Confederation.
- July 25 – Treaty 1, the first of a number of treaties with western Canada's First Nations, is signed
- August 17 – Treaty 2 is signed
- November 11 – The last of the British Army leaves Canada
- November 13 – John McCreight becomes the first premier of British Columbia
- December 14 – Marc-Amable Girard becomes the first Franco-Manitoban of premier of Manitoba, replacing Alfred Boyd
- December 20 – Edward Blake becomes premier of Ontario, replacing J. S. Macdonald.
Full date unknown
- Meteorological Service of Canada is formed
- Parliament legalizes the use of the metric system
- Goldwin Smith immigrates to Canada
- Ontario Schools Act is passed in Ontario, requiring all students aged 7 to 12 to attend school.
- The 1871 Quebec election : Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau's Conservatives win a second consecutive majority
Births
- January 30 – Wilfred Lucas, actor, film director and screenwriter
- May 14 – Walter Stanley Monroe, businessman, politician and Prime Minister of Newfoundland
- July 16 – George Stewart Henry, politician and 10th Premier of Ontario
- July 25 – Richard Ernest William Turner, soldier and recipient of the Victoria Cross
- August 4 – Robert Hamilton Butts, politician
- September 8 – Samuel McLaughlin, businessman and philanthropist
- September 9 – Hugh Robson, politician and judge
- October 31 – Alexander Stirling MacMillan, businessman, politician and Premier of Nova Scotia
- December 2 – Stanislas Blanchard, politician
- December 13 – Emily Carr, artist and writer
Deaths
- January 29 – Philippe-Joseph Aubert de Gaspé, lawyer, writer, fifth and last seigneur of Saint-Jean-Port-Joli
- January 31 – John Ross, lawyer, politician, and businessman.
- February 20 – Paul Kane, artist
- March 11 – John Heckman, political figure
- July 28 – Modeste Demers, missionary
- September 23 – Louis-Joseph Papineau, lawyer, politician and reformist
- November 18 – Enos Collins, seaman, merchant, financier, and legislator
Historical Documents
Editorial says Confederation is British Columbia's chance to remake itself
Canada should refuse to permanently share its inshore fishery with the U.S.A.
Manitoba Lieutenant Governor Archibald agrees to release four Indigenous prisoners before negotiating Treaty 1
Fenian raid on Manitoba stopped at the border
Manitoba Lieutenant Governor thanks residents for rising to resist the Fenian invasion
