1872 in Canada

• March 14 – Henry Joseph Clarke becomes premier[1] of Manitoba, replacing Marc-Amable Girard
• March 25 – The beginning of the Toronto Printers' Strike for a nine-hour day.
• March 31 – The first issue of the Toronto Mail, which would later be merged into The Globe and Mail, is published
• April 15 – Ten thousand demonstrate at Queen's Park in support of the striking Toronto printers. The police, prompted by the Masters Printers' Association and its leader, George Brown of the Globe, arrest the entire 24-man strike committee
• April 18 – John A. Macdonald introduces a bill to legalize trade unions.
• April 25 – The first issue of the weekly Ontario Workman is published by the Toronto Trades Assembly. It is Canada's first labour newspaper.
• May 15 – In the first nationwide labour protest, marchers across the land press for the nine-hour workday.
• June 14 – The Trade Unions Act is passed in parliament, legalizing labour unions. The Criminal Law Amendment Act is also passed, making picketing illegal.
• 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 federal election Sir John A. Macdonald's Conservatives are re-elected.
• October 31 – Oliver Mowat becomes Premier of Ontario replaces the retiring Edward Blake
• November 21 – Victoria Memorial (Montreal) unveiled
• December 23 – Amor De Cosmos becomes premier of British Columbia, replacing John McCreight

John McCrae in uniform, circa 1914

• June 24 – Pierre-Ernest Boivin, politician and businessman (d.1938)
• August 25 – John Campbell Elliott, lawyer and politician (d.1941)
• October 17 – Samuel Wickett, businessman
• October 26 – Alfred Edmond Bourgeois, politician (d.1939)
• November 10 – Frederick C. Alderdice, businessman, politician and last Prime Minister of Newfoundland (d.1936)
• November 30 – John McCrae, poet, physician, author, artist and soldier (d.1918)
• December 23 – Charles Bélec, politician (d.1958)

John Sandfield Macdonald

• April 8 – Cornelius Krieghoff, artist (b.1815)
• June 1 – John Sandfield Macdonald, Premier of Ontario (b. 1812)
• June 20 – Phoebe Campbell (b. 1847)
• July 5 – George Luther Hathaway, 3rd Premier of New Brunswick (b.1813)
• July 14 – John Bolton, businessman and politician (b. 1824)
• August 22 – John Bethune, Anglican clergyman (b. 1791)
• September 1 – John Kent, Premier of Newfoundland (b.1805)

Privy Council committee recommends terms to encourage Mennonites to immigrate[2]

Government fails to establish some agreed-to First Nations reserves, while settlers steal the timber[3]

Sandford Fleming reports on difficulties surveying the route of the Canadian Pacific Railway[4]

Indigenous paddlers race each other on the CPR survey expedition[5]