1871 in Canada

Crown

• Monarch – Victoria^[1]

Federal government

• Governor General – John Young, 1st Baron Lisgar
• Prime Minister – John A. Macdonald
• Parliament – 1st

Provincial governments

Territorial governments

January to June

• March 15 – Beginning of the first session of the 1st Manitoba Legislature
• April 2 – The first Canadian census finds the population to be 3,689,257
• May 8 – The Treaty of Washington reaches agreements on fishing rights and Great Lakes trade between Canada and the United States
• May 17 – New Brunswick abandons separate schools.

July to December

• July 15 – Phoebe Campbell murders her husband with an axe. She is hanged the next year.
• July 20 – British Columbia joins Confederation.
• July 25 – Treaty 1, the first of a number of treaties with western Canada's First Nations, is signed
• August 17 – Treaty 2 is signed
• November 11 – The last of the British Army leaves Canada
• November 13 – John McCreight becomes the first premier of British Columbia
• December 14 – Marc-Amable Girard becomes the first Franco-Manitoban of premier of Manitoba, replacing Alfred Boyd
• December 20 – Edward Blake becomes premier of Ontario, replacing J. S. Macdonald.

Full date unknown

• Meteorological Service of Canada is formed
• Parliament legalizes the use of the metric system
• Goldwin Smith immigrates to Canada
• Ontario Schools Act is passed in Ontario, requiring all students aged 7 to 12 to attend school.
• The 1871 Quebec election : Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau's Conservatives win a second consecutive majority