1923 in Canada

Incumbents

Crown

• Monarch – George V

  Federal government

• Governor general – Julian Byng
• Prime minister – William Lyon Mackenzie King
• Chief Justice – Louis Henry Davies
• Parliament – 14th

  Provincial governments

Lieutenant governors

• Lieutenant Governor of Alberta – Robert Brett
• Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia – Walter Cameron Nichol
• Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba – James Albert Manning Aikins
• Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick – William Pugsley then William Frederick Todd
• Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia – MacCallum Grant
• Lieutenant Governor of Ontario – Henry Cockshutt
• Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island – Murdock MacKinnon
• Lieutenant Governor of Quebec – Charles Fitzpatrick then Louis-Philippe Brodeur
• Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan – Henry William Newlands

  Premiers

• Premier of Alberta – Herbert Greenfield
• Premier of British Columbia – John Oliver
• Premier of Manitoba – John Bracken
• Premier of New Brunswick – Walter Foster then Peter Veniot
• Premier of Nova Scotia – George Henry Murray then Ernest Howard Armstrong
• Premier of Ontario – Ernest Drury then George Howard Ferguson
• Premier of Prince Edward Island – John Howatt Bell then James D. Stewart
• Premier of Quebec – Louis-Alexandre Taschereau
• Premier of Saskatchewan – Charles Avery Dunning

  Territorial governments

Commissioners

• Gold Commissioner of Yukon – George P. MacKenzie
• Commissioner of Northwest Territories – William Wallace Cory

  Events

• January 1 – The Department of National Defence comes into being
• January 24 – Ernest Armstrong becomes premier of Nova Scotia, replacing George H. Murray, who had governed for 27 years
• February 28 – Peter Veniot becomes premier of New Brunswick, replacing Walter Foster
• April 23 – Marijuana is prohibited soon after the House of Commons passes a bill on this date that includes making marijuana illegal
• March 2 – The Halibut Treaty signed with the United States is Canada's first international treaty not signed under the auspices of the United Kingdom
• June 25 – Ontario election: Howard Ferguson's Conservatives win a majority, defeating Ernest Drury's United Farmers of Ontario
• July 1 – The Chinese Immigration Act, 1923 comes into effect, banning all Chinese from entering Canada except for businessmen, diplomats, foreign students, and "special circumstances"
• July 16 – Howard Ferguson becomes premier of Ontario, replacing Ernest Drury
• August 18 – The Home Bank of Canada fails
• September 5 – James D. Stewart becomes premier of Prince Edward Island, replacing J.H. Bell
• October 8 – A stevedore's strike begins in Vancouver
• October 10 – Canadian National Railway is formed by merger of Canadian Government Railways, Canadian Northern Railway, Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, and Grand Trunk Railway
• October 25 – Frederick Banting and Charles Best win the Nobel Prize for Medicine for the discovery of insulin
• October 31 – Louis-Philippe Brodeur becomes Quebec's 13th Lieutenant Governor

  Arts and literature

Music

• April 23 – The Toronto Symphony Orchestra gives its first concert.

  New books

• Rilla of Ingleside Lucy Maud Montgomery

  Sport

• March 14 – World's first complete play-by-play radio broadcast of a professional ice hockey game is done by Pete Parker in Regina.
• March 22 – Foster Hewitt announces his first ice hockey game.
• March 22 & 26 – The Manitoba Junior Hockey League's University of Manitoba win their only Memorial Cup by defeating the Ontario Hockey Association's Kitchener Colts 14 to 6 in a two-game aggregate played Arena Gardens in Toronto
• March 31 – Ottawa Senators win their 10th Stanley Cup by defeating the Western Canada Hockey League's Edmonton Eskimos 2 games to 0. The deciding game was played at Vancouver's Denman Arena
• December 1 – Queen's University win their second Grey Cup by defeating the Regina Rugby Club 54–0 in the 11th Grey Cup played at Varsity Stadium in Toronto

  Births

January to March

• January 1 – Roméo Sabourin, World War II hero
• January 7 – Hugh Kenner, literary scholar, critic and professor
• January 21 – Judith Merril, science fiction writer, editor and political activist
• February 4 – Conrad Bain, actor
• March 1 – Uno Helava, inventor
• March 2 – Ghitta Caiserman-Roth, painter
• March 4 – Stanley Haidasz, politician
• March 10 – Richard Doyle, journalist, editor and Senator
• March 15 – Laurent Desjardins, politician
• March 19 – Henry Morgentaler, physician and pro choice advocate
• March 30 – Milton Acorn, poet, writer and playwright

  April to June

• April 7 – Aba Bayefsky, artist and teacher
• April 16 – Samuel Nathan Cohen, critic
• April 25 – Melissa Hayden, ballerina
• May 5 – John Black Aird, lawyer, politician and 23rd Lieutenant Governor of Ontario
• May 9 – Reuben Baetz, politician
• May 18 – Jean-Louis Roux, entertainer and playwright
• May 20 – Frank Morris, Canadian football player
• June 6 – Bruce Campbell, Edmonton alderman

  July to September

• July 21 – Rudolph A. Marcus, chemist and 1992 Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate
• July 31 – Victor Goldbloom, pediatrician, lecturer and politician
• August 3 – Robert Campeau, financier and real estate developer
• August 6 – Paul Hellyer, politician and commentator
• August 21 – Robert William Stewart, scientist
• September 1 – Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet, businessman and art collector
• September 2 – David Lam, businessman and 25th Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia
• September 18 – Bertha Wilson, jurist and first female Puisne Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada
• September 21 – Robert Uffen, research geophysicist, professor, and university administrator

  October to December

• October 7 – Jean-Paul Riopelle, painter and sculptor
• October 22 – Rodrigue Bourdages, politician
• October 22 – Norman Levine, short-story writer, novelist and poet
• October 23 – Réjane L. Colas, jurist
• November 1 – Gordon R. Dickson, science fiction author
• November 2 – Harold Horwood, novelist and non-fiction writer
• November 11 – Donald Tolmie, politician
• November 22 – Arthur Hiller, film director
• December 27 – Bruno Bobak, artist

  Full date unknown

• James Barber, cookbook author and television chef
• Kildare Dobbs, short story and travel writer

  Deaths

January to June

• February 20 – Thomas George Roddick, surgeon, medical administrator and politician
• March 2 – Joseph Martin, lawyer, politician and 13th Premier of British Columbia
• April 25 – Louis-Olivier Taillon, politician and Premier of Quebec
• June 7 – John Best, politician

  July to December

• July 17 – John Strathearn Hendrie, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario
• October 2 – John Wilson Bengough, political cartoonist
• December 5 – William Mackenzie, railway contractor and entrepreneur
• December 9 – John Herbert Turner, politician and Premier of British Columbia

  Historical Documents