1879 in Canada

Events from the year 1879 in Canada.

Incumbents

February 4 – Prince Edward Island election: William Wilfred Sullivan's Conservatives win a third consecutive majority.
March 12 – Sir John A. Macdonald introduces protective tariffs on manufactured goods being imported into Canada, a transcontinental railway, and immigration to the west in his National Policy.
April 25 – Sir William Wilfred Sullivan becomes premier of Prince Edward Island, replacing Sir Louis Davies.
June 5 – Ontario election: Sir Oliver Mowat's Liberals win a third consecutive majority.
June 27 - Murder of Mary Gallagher in Griffintown, Montreal
– The Toronto Industrial Exhibition opens for the first time, precursor to the Canadian National Exhibition.
October 31 – Sir Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau becomes premier of Quebec, replacing Henri-Gustave de Lotbinière.
December 16 – Manitoba election.
December 19 – Swift Runner is hanged in Fort Saskatchewan, NWT, for murdering and then eating eight members of his own family over the previous winter. He believed he was possessed by Wendigo, a terrifying mythological creature with a ravenous appetite for human flesh.

January 15 – Mazo de la Roche, author
January 17 – Richard Gavin Reid, politician and 7th Premier of Alberta
January 25 – Humphrey T. Walwyn, naval officer and Governor of Newfoundland
March 20 – Maud Menten, medical scientist
May 25 – Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, business tycoon, politician and writer
June 12 – Charles Dow Richards, judge, politician and 18th Premier of New Brunswick

August 1 – Eva Tanguay, singer and entertainer
August 16 – Samuel Lawrence, politician and trade unionist
October 6 – James Langstaff Bowman, politician and Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada
October 9 – William Warren, lawyer, politician, judge and Prime Minister of Newfoundland
November 3 – Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Arctic explorer and ethnologist
November 11 – Violet McNaughton, feminist
November 25 – Joseph-Arsène Bonnier, politician
December 10 – P. L. Robertson, inventor
December 24 – Émile Nelligan, poet

January 4 – Pierre-Alexis Tremblay, politician
January 16 – Octave Crémazie, poet
April 4 – Jean-Baptiste Thibault, missionary and a Father of Confederation
October 7 – William Henry Pope, lawyer, politician, judge and a Father of Confederation

The federal government proposes to provide 100 million acres of Dominion land for the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway for settlement.
Report claims only self-reliance and industry can relieve distress of Indigenous people and anxiety of Metis
Ottawa memo outlines the "utter destitution" of some Indigenous people in the Northwest Territories
Federal commissioner reports on the dependency of Indigenous people at Fort Walsh
Visitor fears the Metis on the Assiniboine River will not hold on to their lands much longer
Description of Mennonite cooperative farming near Winnipeg
All aboard the steamer Waubuno are lost in a gale on Georgian Bay
Anti-Irish-Catholic opinion is published in the Irish Canadian
"Alouette" first sung as a Canadian folk song.