1889 in Canada
overview of Canada-related events during the year of 1889

Events from the year 1889 in Canada.
Incumbents
Crown
Monarch – Victoria
Federal government
Governor General – Frederick Stanley
Prime Minister – John A. Macdonald
Chief Justice – William Johnstone Ritchie (New Brunswick)
Parliament – 6th
Provincial governments
Lieutenant governors
Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia – Hugh Nelson
Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba – John Christian Schultz
Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick – Samuel Leonard Tilley
Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia – Archibald McLelan
Lieutenant Governor of Ontario – Alexander Campbell
Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island – A.A. Macdonald (until September 2) then Jedediah Slason Carvell
Lieutenant Governor of Quebec – Auguste-Réal Angers
Premiers
Premier of British Columbia – Alexander Edmund Batson Davie (until August 1) then John Robson (from August 2)
Premier of Manitoba – Thomas Greenway
Premier of New Brunswick – Andrew George Blair
Premier of Nova Scotia – William Stevens Fielding
Premier of Ontario – Oliver Mowat
Premier of Prince Edward Island – William Wilfred Sullivan (until November 1) then Neil McLeod
Premier of Quebec – Honoré Mercier
Territorial governments
Lieutenant governors
Lieutenant Governor of Keewatin – John Christian Schultz
Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories – Joseph Royal
Premiers
Chairman of the Lieutenant-Governor's Advisory Council of the North-West Territories – Robert Brett
Events
August 1 – Alexander Davie, Premier of British Columbia, dies in office.
August 2 – John Robson becomes premier of British Columbia.
August 12 – The Canada (Ontario Boundary) Act, 1889 of the British Parliament expands Ontario's boundaries west to the Lake of the Woods and north to the Albany River.
September 19 – A rockslide in Quebec City kills 45
November – Neil McLeod becomes premier of Prince Edward Island, replacing Sir William Wilfred Sullivan.
November 6 – Newfoundland election: William Whiteway's Liberals win a majority, defeating Robert Thorburn's Reforms
Full date unknown
The Dominion Women Enfranchisement Association is created to campaign for women's right to vote
Births
February 27 – Samuel Bronfman, businessman (d.1971)
May 16 – Morris Gray, politician (d.1966)
August 13 – Camillien Houde, politician and four-time mayor of Montreal (d.1958)
October 13 – Douglass Dumbrille, actor (d.1974)
November 20 – John B. McNair, lawyer, politician, judge and 22nd Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick (d.1968)
December 4 – Leslie Gordon Bell, politician and lawyer (d.1963)
Deaths
April 9 – Andrew Charles Elliott, jurist, politician and 4th Premier of British Columbia (b.
“1889 in Canada” enters the record as overview of Canada-related events during the year of 1889. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Canada, overview and Canada-related can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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