See also: 1871 in Canada, 1873 in Canada and the list of 'years in Canada'.

Events

• March 14 - Henry Clarke becomes premier of Manitoba, replacing Marc-Amable Girard
• March 31 - The first issue of the Toronto Mail, which would later be merged into the Globe and Mail, is published
• May 15 - In the first nationwide labour protest, marchers across the land press for the nine-hour workday.
• June 22 - A Grand Trunk Railway express passenger train from Toronto to Montreal derails near Shannonville, Ontario, killing 34.
• June 25 - Frederick Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Earl of Dufferin becomes Governor General of Canada
• July 20 - October 12 - In the 1872 Canadian election Sir John A. Macdonald's Conservatives are re-elected.
• October 15 - The Canadian Pacific Railway Company is formed
• October 31 - Oliver Mowat becomes Premier of Ontario replaces the retiring Edward Blake
• December 23 - Amor De Cosmos becomes premier of British Columbia, replacing John McCreight
• The Dominion Lands Act provides land to settlers for only a small fee
• The Manitoba Free Press is first published
• Simpson's founded
• A British Columbia law bans all Asian and First Nations peoples from voting.
• George King becomes premier of New Brunswick for the second time, replacing George Hatheway
• Elijah McCoy, born in Colchester, Ontario, invents the first of his many devices to oil engines used on trains and in factories.
• The new Patent Act encourages import or licensing of technology and foreign patents by allowing legal use (theft) of patent in Canada if not registered in Canada within two years.
• An award of arbitration sets the final boundary between Canada and the United States in the Gulf of Georgia and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, ending the San Juan boundary dispute.

Births

• August 25 - John Campbell Elliott, politician
• October 17 - Samuel Wickett, economist
• November 10 -Frederick C. Alderdice, Prime Minister of November
• November 30 - John McCrae, poet

Deaths