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Events from the year 1917 in Canada.

Incumbents

Crown

  • Monarch – George V

Federal government

  • Governor General – Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire
  • Prime Minister – Robert Borden
  • Chief Justice – Charles Fitzpatrick (Quebec)
  • Parliament – 12th (until 6 October)

Provincial governments

Lieutenant governors

  • Lieutenant Governor of Alberta – Robert Brett
  • Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia – Francis Stillman Barnard
  • Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba – James Albert Manning Aikins
  • Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick – Josiah Wood (until June 29) then Gilbert Ganong (June 29 to October 31) then William Pugsley (from November 6)
  • Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia – MacCallum Grant
  • Lieutenant Governor of Ontario – John Strathearn Hendrie
  • Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island – Augustine Colin Macdonald
  • Lieutenant Governor of Quebec – Pierre-Évariste Leblanc
  • Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan – Richard Stuart Lake

Premiers

  • Premier of Alberta – Arthur Sifton (until October 30) then Charles Stewart
  • Premier of British Columbia – Harlan Brewster
  • Premier of Manitoba – Tobias Norris
  • Premier of New Brunswick – George Johnson Clarke (until February 1) then James A. Murray (February 1 to April 4) then Walter Foster
  • Premier of Nova Scotia – George Henry Murray
  • Premier of Ontario – William Hearst
  • Premier of Prince Edward Island – John Mathieson (until June 21) then Aubin Arsenault
  • Premier of Quebec – Lomer Gouin
  • Premier of Saskatchewan – William Melville Martin

Territorial governments

Commissioners

  • Commissioner of Yukon – George Norris Williams (acting)
  • Gold Commissioner of Yukon – George P. MacKenzie
  • Commissioner of Northwest Territories – Frederick D. White

Elections

Provincial

  • June 7 – Alberta election: Arthur Sifton's Liberals win a fourth consecutive majority. Louise McKinney and Roberta MacAdams are elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, the first two women elected to a legislature in the British Empire.
  • June 26 – Saskatchewan election: William Martin's Liberals win a fourth consecutive majority.

Federal

  • December 17: Robert Borden's Conservatives win a second consecutive majority in the Federal election

Events

January to June

  • February 1 – James Alexander Murray becomes premier of New Brunswick, replacing George Johnson Clarke
  • April 4 – Walter Foster becomes premier of New Brunswick, replacing Murray
  • April 9 – April 14 – Battle of Vimy Ridge.
  • April 17 – Leon Trotsky, en route from New York to Russia, is detained in Halifax. He will spend the next month in Amherst Internment Camp before being released.
  • June 21 – Aubin Arsenault becomes premier of Prince Edward Island, replacing John Mathieson

July to December

  • July 1: Canada celebrates its 50th Dominion Day.
  • August: The government introduces conscription triggering the Conscription Crisis of 1917
  • September 20: The Income War Tax Act receives royal assent, establishing a "temporary" tax, which remains in force to this day.
  • September 20: The Wartime Elections Act gives female relatives of servicemen the vote.
  • October 26 – November 10: Second Battle of Passchendaele.
  • October 30: Charles Stewart (1868–1946) becomes premier of Alberta, replacing Arthur Sifton
  • November 1 to 30: Swanson Bay, British Columbia, records of precipitation for the month, which remains the highest officially recorded for one calendar month in North America.
  • December 6: Halifax Explosion kills 1,900 people and injures 9,000. The largest ever man-made explosion pre-Hiroshima atomic bomb.

Arts and literature

  • Tom Thomson paints The Jack Pine, one of Canada's most widely recognized and reproduced artworks.

Sport

  • March 26 – The Pacific Coast Hockey Association's Seattle Metropolitans become the first American team to win the Stanley Cup by defeating the National Hockey Association's Montreal Canadiens 3 games to 1. The Metropolitans won their only Cup in front of their home crowd at Seattle Ice Arena
  • November 26 – The National Hockey League (NHL) is established in Montreal, with 4 teams from the National Hockey Association (Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, and Quebec Bulldogs) The owners would form a new team in Toronto due to a dispute Toronto Blueshirts owner Eddie Livingstone, the Toronto Hockey Club (Toronto Maple Leafs)
  • December 19 – Montreal Wanderers defeat the Toronto Arenas in the first NHL game.

Births

January to June

  • January 6 – Sydney Banks, broadcaster and producer (d.2006)
  • January 11 – John Robarts, lawyer, politician and 17th Premier of Ontario (d.1982)
  • April 11 – Danny Gallivan, radio and television broadcaster and sportscaster (d. 1993)
  • April 25 – George R. Gardiner, businessman, philanthropist and co-founder of the Gardiner Museum (d.1997)
  • May 12 – Frank Clair, Canadian Football League coach (d.2005)
  • May 19 – Robert Gordon Robertson, civil servant and 7th Commissioner of the Northwest Territories (d.2013)
  • May 21 – Raymond Burr, actor (d.1993)
  • May 22 – Lude Check, ice hockey player (d.2009)
  • May 24 – Ross Thatcher, politician and 9th Premier of Saskatchewan (d.1971)
  • June 17 – Dufferin Roblin, businessman, politician and 14th Premier of Manitoba (d.2010)
  • June 18 – Arthur Tremblay, politician and Senator (d.1996)
  • June 29 – Archie Green, folklorist and musicologist (d.2009)

July to December

  • July 17 – John Hayes, harness racing driver, trainer and owner (d. 1998)
  • September 12 – Pierre Sévigny, soldier, author, politician and academic (d. 2004)
  • September 15 – Alf Pike, ice hockey player and coach (d. 2009)
  • September 26 – Réal Caouette, politician (d. 1976)
  • November 2 – Ann Rutherford, actress (Gone with the Wind, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty). (d. 2012)
  • November 11 – Abram Hoffer, orthomolecular psychiatrist (d. 2009)
  • November 28 – Jacob Froese, politician (d. 2003)
  • December 6 – Irv Robbins, Canadian-American entrepreneur (d. 2008)

Full date unknown

  • Kent Rowley, labour activist and union organizer (d. 2013)
  • Jack Singer, businessman and philanthropist (d. 2013)

Deaths

January to June

  • January 8 – Ward Bowlby, lawyer and politician, reeve of Berlin, Ontario (born 1834)
  • January 14 – Alexander Cameron, physician and politician (b.1834)
  • February 17 – Ralph Smith, coal miner, labour leader and politician (b.1858)
  • February 26 – George Johnson Clarke, lawyer, journalist, politician and 14th Premier of New Brunswick (b.1857)
  • April 21 – George Thomas Baird, politician, Senator for Victoria, New Brunswick (b. 1847)
  • June 13 – Louis-Philippe Hébert, sculptor (b.1850)

July to December

  • July 5 – Percival Molson, athlete and soldier (b.1880)
  • July 8 – Tom Thomson, artist (b.1877)
  • July 15 – Lemuel John Tweedie, politician and 9th premier of New Brunswick (b.1849)
  • August 6 – Richard McBride, politician and Premier of British Columbia (b.1870)

thumb|right|100px|Mackenzie Bowell

  • August 29 – Albert Grey, 4th Earl Grey, 9th governor general of Canada (b.1851)
  • October 31 – Gilbert Ganong, businessman, politician and Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick (b.1851)
  • November 10 – Thomas Simpson Sproule, politician and Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada (b.1843)
  • October 30 – Talbot Papineau, lawyer and soldier (b.1883)
  • December 10 – Mackenzie Bowell, politician and 5th prime minister of Canada (b.1823)

References