1907 in Canada explained

Events from the year 1907 in Canada.

Incumbents

Crown

• Monarch – Edward VII^[1]

Federal government

• • Governor General – Albert Grey, 4th Earl Grey Prime Minister – Wilfrid Laurier
• Chief Justice – Charles Fitzpatrick (Quebec)
• Parliament – 10th

Provincial governments

Lieutenant governors

• • • Lieutenant Governor of Alberta – George Hedley Vicars Bulyea Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia – James Dunsmuir Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba – Daniel Hunter McMillan
• Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick – Jabez Bunting Snowball (until February 24) then Lemuel John Tweedie (from March 6)
  • • • • Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia – Duncan Cameron Fraser Lieutenant Governor of Ontario – William Mortimer Clark Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island – Donald Alexander MacKinnon Lieutenant Governor of Quebec – Louis-Amable Jetté Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan – Amédée Forget

Premiers

• • • • • • • • • Premier of Alberta – Alexander Cameron Rutherford Premier of British Columbia – Richard McBride Premier of Manitoba – Rodmond Roblin Premier of New Brunswick – Lemuel John Tweedie (until March 6) then William Pugsley (March 6 to May 31) then Clifford William Robinson Premier of Nova Scotia – George Henry Murray Premier of Ontario – James Whitney Premier of Prince Edward Island – Arthur Peters Premier of Quebec – Lomer Gouin Premier of Saskatchewan – Thomas Walter Scott

Territorial governments

Commissioners

• • Commissioner of Yukon – John T. Lithgow (acting) (until June 17) then Alexander Henderson Gold Commissioner of Yukon – F.X. Gosselin (from June 17)
• Commissioner of Northwest Territories – Frederick D. White

Events

• March 6 – William Pugsley becomes premier of New Brunswick, replacing Lemuel John Tweedie
• May 24 – Boer War Memorial (Montreal) unveiled
• May 30 – King Edward VII grants the Coat of Arms of Alberta
• May 31 – Clifford Robinson becomes premier of New Brunswick, replacing William Pugsley
• August 24 – Part of the under-construction Quebec Bridge collapses in Quebec City killing 75 construction workers and injuring 11.
• September 7
  • An anti-Asian riot in Vancouver attacks Chinatown
  • Alexander Grant MacKay is elected leader of the Ontario Liberal Party
• September 14 – Jasper Forest Park later named Jasper National Park is established.^[2]

Full date unknown

• The National Council for Women demands "equal pay for equal work"
• The world's first rotary telephone came into use at Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia
• The first Sobeys opens in Stellarton, Nova Scotia

Births

January to June

• January 14 – Georges-Émile Lapalme, politician (d.1985)
• January 26 – Hans Selye, endocrinologist (d.1982)^[3]
• February 9 – Harold Scott MacDonald Coxeter, geometer (d.2003)
• March 20 – Hugh MacLennan, author and professor of English (d.1990)

• March 24 – Paul Sauvé, lawyer, soldier, politician and 17th Premier of Quebec (d.1960)
• April 16 – Joseph-Armand Bombardier, inventor, businessman and founder of Bombardier Inc. (d.1964)
• April 17 – Louis-Philippe-Antoine Bélanger, politician (d.1989)

July to December

• July 6 – George Stanley, historian, author, soldier, teacher, public servant and designer of the current Canadian flag (d.2002)
• August 5 – Herman Linder, rodeoist
• August 24 – Alfred Belzile, politician and farmer
• September 3 – Andrew Brewin, lawyer and politician (d.1983)

• September 15 – Fay Wray, actress (d.2004)
• October 20 – Carl Goldenberg, lawyer, arbitrator, mediator and Senator (d.1996)
• November 19 – Frederick Thomas Armstrong, politician (d.1990)
• November 21 – Christie Harris, children's author (d.2002)
• December 12 – Fleurette Beauchamp-Huppé, pianist, soprano and teacher (d.2007)^[4]

Unknown

• Edythe Shuttleworth, mezzo-soprano (d.1983)^[5]

Deaths

January to June

• January 1 – William Pearce Howland, politician (b.1811)
• January 25 – Andrew George Blair, politician and 6th Premier of New Brunswick (b.1844)
• January 31 – Timothy Eaton, businessman and founder of Eaton's (b.1834)
• March 3 – Oronhyatekha, Mohawk physician and scholar (b.1841)
• March 8 – Edward Cochrane, politician (b.1834)
• March 20 – Louis Adolphe Billy, politician and lawyer (b.1834)
• April 6 – William Henry Drummond, poet (b.1854)
• June 12 – John Waldie, politician (b.1833)

July to December

• August 10 – James Brien, politician and physician (b.1848)
• September 26 – Alexander Gunn, politician (b.1828)
• October 10 – Cassie Chadwick, fraudster (b.1857)^[6]
• October 13 – Harvey William Burk, politician and farmer (b.1822)

Historical documents

Report that staff "minimize the dangers of infection" in "the defective sanitary condition" of many residential schools in Prairie Provinces^[7]

Newspaper covers "not too favorable a report" issued by Dr. Peter Bryce, concluding "vigorous action cannot be long delayed"^[8]

Missing residential school boys are forced to run back with arms tied, and church committee advises against that to avoid cruelty complaints^[9]

Fallout from September 7 riot against Asian Canadians in Vancouver^[10]

Opposition Leader Robert Borden's Vancouver speech on restricting East Asian immigration^[11]

Mackenzie King believes workers running cooperative will learn capitalists' risks and responsibilities, thus reducing labour strife^[12]

Rudyard Kipling speaks on spirit of development in Winnipeg^[13]

Photo and text: Winnipeg Beach, Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba^[14]

Speech on U.S. influence on Canadian thought, habits, literature and press^[15]

Local Saskatchewan debate on women's suffrage results in negative decision^[16]

Western boards of trade resolutions call for state-supported hospitals^[17]

Mayor of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan advocates transportation route to Hudson Bay^[18]

Stinkers, mortal terror, and common enemy: automobile issues in Nova Scotia^[19]

McGill University principal on place of classical studies in modern education^[20]

Article on inner workings of Marconi wireless telegraph station^[21]

Minister and three other rowers survive ice and huge waves in Notre Dame Bay, Newfoundland^[22]

Notes and References

1. Book: Tidridge . Nathan . Canada's Constitutional Monarchy . 15 November 2011 . Dundurn . 978-1-55488-980-8 . 235 . en.
2. Web site: Jasper National Park Is The Most Beautiful Place In Canada. All That's Interesting. 14 May 2018. 5 January 2015.
3. Web site: Dr Hans Selye. home.cc.umanitoba.ca. 14 May 2018.
4. Encyclopedia: Fleurette Beauchamp-Huppé. The Canadian Encyclopedia. April 25, 2012. December 6, 2020.
5. Encyclopedia: Edythe Shuttleworth. The Canadian Encyclopedia. October 25, 2009. May 12, 2021.
6. Web site: CHADWICK, CASSIE L.. case.edu. 11 May 2018 . 14 May 2018. en.
7. Peter H. Bryce, "The Health of the Pupils of the Industrial and Boarding Schools" Report on the Indian Schools of Manitoba and the North-West Territories (1907), pgs. 17-21 plus tables. Accessed 4 February 2020
8. https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist19071116uvic/mode/2up "Indian Schools Deal Out Death"
9. "Report of Committee appointed to enquire into the complaints made by the Indian Department against the Crowstand Indian School" (August 8, 1907), in Denise Hildebrand, Staff Perspectives of the Aboriginal Residential School Experience: A Study of Four Presbyterian Schools, 1888-1923 pg. 243. Accessed 10 June 2021
10. https://web.archive.org/web/20191129161229/http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/immigrants/021017-2422.01-e.html "Vancouver's Agitation for Exclusion of Asiatics"
11. http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/4313209?n=5&s=4 "Speech (in Part) Delivered by Mr. R.L. Borden at Vancouver, 24th September 1907"
12. https://parl.canadiana.ca/view/oop.com_HOC_1003_2_1/95?r=0&s=1 "Minutes of Evidence"
13. https://cdm22007.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p22007coll8/id/1055378 "Address by Rudyard Kipling to the Canadian Club; Winnipeg; 2nd October, 1907"
14. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_Day_with_the_Camera_at_Winnipeg_Beach_(HS85-10-18634-1).jpg "A Day with a Camera at Winnipeg Beach"
15. J. Castell Hopkins, "Continental Influences in Canadian Development" (February 28, 1907), The Empire Club of Canada Addresses, pgs. 228-43. Accessed 5 February 2020
16. https://library.usask.ca/sni/stories/beg13.html "No Votes For The Women; Such Was The Burden Of Argument In Nutana-Floral Debate"
17. Associated Boards of Trade of Western Canada, Memorandum of Resolutions to Be Presented at the Fourth Annual Convention[....] (1907), pgs. 26-7, 58-60. Accessed 5 February 2020 http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/bibliography/3018/30.htmlhttp://peel.library.ualberta.ca/bibliography/3018/62.html
18. Associated Boards of Trade of Western Canada, Memorandum of Resolutions to Be Presented at the Fourth Annual Convention.... (1907), pg. 7. Accessed 5 February 2020
19. Excerpts from New Glasgow Eastern Chronicle (various dates, 1907). Accessed 5 February 2020 http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/205/300/nova_scotias_electronic_attic/07-04-09/www.littletechshoppe.com/ns1625/automobiles.html (scroll down to 1907)
20. W. Peterson, "The Claims of Classical Studies in Modern Education" Canadian Essays and Addresses (1915), pgs. 287-303. Accessed 5 February 2020
21. "Interior Description of the Operator's Room at Marconi Wireless Station, Morien," Sydney (N.S.) Daily Post (October 16, 1907). Accessed 5 February 2020 Web site: Marconi Transatlantic Wireless Telegraph, 16 Oct 1907 . 2020-02-07 . 2019-12-29 . https://web.archive.org/web/20191229102439/http://marconi100.ca/clip/marconi-sydpost19071016.html . dead .
22. Diaries of Reverend Robert Samuel Smith (Part 2). Accessed 5 February 2020 http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cannf/nd_diary2.htm (scroll down to "JUNE 6")