1868 in Canada

Crown

• Monarch – Victoria^[1]

Federal government

• Governor General – Charles Monck, 4th Viscount Monck
• Prime Minister – John A. Macdonald
• Parliament – 1st

Provincial governments

Colonies

• Secretary of State for the Colonies – The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos then The Earl Granville

Full date unknown

Louis Riel returns to the Red River area

• The Hudson's Bay Company agrees to turn Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory over to Canada
• The first Federal Militia Act is passed, creating a Canadian army
• George-Étienne Cartier created a Baronet

January to June

• January 16 — Octavia Ritchie, first woman to receive a medical degree in Quebec
• January 22 — Adjutor Rivard, lawyer, writer, judge and linguist (died 1945)
• February 16 — John Babington Macaulay Baxter, lawyer, jurist and 18th Premier of New Brunswick (died 1946)
• March 14 — Emily Murphy, women's rights activist, jurist and author, first woman magistrate in Canada and in the British Empire (died 1933)
• April 27 — James Kidd Flemming, businessman, politician and 13th Premier of New Brunswick (died 1927)
• May 31 — Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire, politician and 11th Governor General of Canada (died 1938)

July to December

• July 8 — Henry Cockshutt, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario (died 1944)
• July 9 — William Alves Boys, politician and barrister (died 1938)
• August 25 — Arthur Puttee, politician (died 1957)
• August 26 — Charles Stewart, politician and 3rd Premier of Alberta (died 1946)
• September 1 — Henri Bourassa, politician and publisher (died 1952)
• September 22 — Louise McKinney, first woman sworn into the Legislative Assembly of Alberta and first woman elected to a legislature in Canada and in the British Empire (died 1931)
• September 28 — Herbert Alexander Bruce, surgeon and 15th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario (died 1963)
• November 9 — Marie Dressler, actress (died 1934)
• December 11 — William Parks, geologist and paleontologist (died 1936)