1923 in Canada

Events from the year 1923 in Canada.

← 1922 1921 1920 1923 in Canada → 1924 1925 1926
Decades:	1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
See also:	History of Canada Timeline of Canadian history List of years in Canada

Incumbents

Crown

• Monarch – George V

Federal government

• Governor General – Julian Byng
• Prime Minister – William Lyon Mackenzie King
• Chief Justice – Louis Henry Davies (Prince Edward Island)
• 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 (until February 28) 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 (until October 31) 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 (until February 28) then Peter Veniot
• Premier of Nova Scotia – George Henry Murray (until January 24) then Ernest Howard Armstrong
• Premier of Ontario – Ernest Drury (until July 16) then George Howard Ferguson
• Premier of Prince Edward Island – John Howatt Bell (until September 5) 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 Henry 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 Charles 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 Charles Drury
• August 18 – The Home Bank of Canada fails
• September 5 – James D. Stewart becomes premier of Prince Edward Island, replacing John Howatt 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

Full date unknown

• The Duplex, a Canadian 4-cylinder automobile is built in Montreal.
• Fleetwood-Knight, a Canadian automobile is built in Kingston, Ontario.

Arts and literature

Music

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

New books

• Rilla of Ingleside Lucy Maud Montgomery (1921)

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 at 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 spy (d. 1944)
• January 7 – Hugh Kenner, literary scholar, critic and professor (d. 2003)
• January 21 – Judith Merril, science fiction writer, editor and political activist (d. 1997)
• January 27 – Marcelle Corneille, administrator and educator (d. 2019)
• February 4 – Conrad Bain, actor (Maude, Diff'rent Strokes) (d. 2013)
• March 1 – Uno Helava, inventor
• March 2 – Ghitta Caiserman-Roth, painter (d. 2005)
• March 4 – Stanley Haidasz, politician (d. 2009)
• March 10 – Richard Doyle, journalist, editor and Senator (d. 2003)
• March 15 – Laurent Desjardins, politician (d. 2012)
• March 19 – Henry Morgentaler, physician and pro choice advocate (d. 2013)
• March 23 - James Barber, cookbook author and television chef (d. 2007)
• March 30 – Milton Acorn, poet, writer and playwright (d. 1986)

April to June

• April 7 – Aba Bayefsky, artist and teacher (d. 2001)
• April 25 – Melissa Hayden, ballerina (d. 2006)
• May 5 – John Black Aird, lawyer, politician and 23rd Lieutenant Governor of Ontario (d. 1995)
• May 9 – Reuben Baetz, politician (d. 1996)
• May 18 – Jean-Louis Roux, entertainer and playwright
• May 20 – Frank Morris, Canadian football player (d. 2009)
• June 3 – Phil Nimmons, jazz musician (d. 2024)
• June 5 – Roger Lebel, actor (d. 1994)
• June 6 – Bruce Campbell, Edmonton alderman (d. 2011)

July to September

• July 21 – Rudolph A. Marcus, chemist and 1992 Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate
• July 25 – Bill Fitsell, sports journalist and historian (d. 2020)
• July 31 – Victor Goldbloom, pediatrician, lecturer and politician (d. 2016)
• August 3 – Robert Campeau, financier and real estate developer
• August 6 – Paul Hellyer, politician and commentator
• September 1 – Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet, businessman and art collector (d. 2006)
• September 2 – David Lam, businessman and 25th Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia (d. 2010)
• September 7 – Byron Seaman, businessman and part owner of the Calgary Flames (d. 2021)
• September 18 – Bertha Wilson, jurist and first female Puisne Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada (d. 2007)
• September 21 – Robert Uffen, research geophysicist, professor, and university administrator (d. 2009)

October to December

• October 7 – Jean-Paul Riopelle, painter and sculptor (d. 2002)
• October 10 - Kildare Dobbs, short story and travel writer (d. 2013)
• October 22 – Rodrigue Bourdages, politician (d. 1997)
• October 22 – Norman Levine, short-story writer, novelist and poet (d. 2005)
• October 23 – Réjane L. Colas, jurist
• November 1 – Gordon R. Dickson, science fiction author (d. 2001)
• November 2 – Harold Horwood, novelist and non-fiction writer (d. 2006)
• November 11 – Donald Tolmie, politician (d. 2009)
• November 22 – Arthur Hiller, film director
• December 27 – Bruno Bobak, artist (d. 2012)

Deaths

January to June

• February 20 – Thomas George Roddick, surgeon, medical administrator and politician (b. 1846)
• March 2 – Joseph Martin, lawyer, politician and 13th Premier of British Columbia (b. 1852)
• April 25 – Louis-Olivier Taillon, Premier of Quebec (b. 1840)
• June 7 – John Best, politician (b. 1861)

July to December

• July 17 – John Strathearn Hendrie, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario (b. 1857)
• October 2 – John Wilson Bengough, political cartoonist (b. 1851)
• December 5 – William Mackenzie, railway contractor and entrepreneur (b. 1849)
• December 9 – John Herbert Turner, Premier of British Columbia (b. 1834)

See also

• List of Canadian films

Historical documents

"Surely our nation is not to be wiped out" - Cree storyteller Chief Thunderchild (Piyesiw-Awasis) seeks way on "a long and difficult journey"

Senate resolves to join House in accepting France's gift of 250 acres on Vimy Ridge for monument to "exploits of Canadian soldiers in the Great War"

Former cabinet minister on Canada's interest in and best approach to problems in Europe

PM King defends Chinese Immigration Act provisions to abolish head tax and admit merchants and students (Note: anti-Asian comments)

Fuel advisor says reduce homeowners' need for U.S. coal by promoting other fuels (peat, coke, lignite) and furnace efficiency

Film: several examples of electricity on Ontario farms for household use and farming

Saskatchewan premier wants solution to grain marketing issue that's free of politics and divisiveness

Saskatchewan employers seek cuts in pink collar workers' wages

Minister of Health's Narcotic Drugs Act amendment makes "a new drug" (cannabis) illegal

Local Simcoe, Ont. manufacturer donates land for future county hospital

Map: Vancouver and suburbs electric railway network

"The people of (B.C.) have not, as a whole, concerned themselves much with its past" - British Columbia Historical Association to change that

Profile of Beautiful Joe author Margaret Marshall Saunders' menagerie

Photo: Two people in automobile head earthward after leaving ramp as few dozen people watch