# 1923 in Canada

Events from the year 1923 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
* July 26- Warren G Harding visits Vancouver the first sitting American president to visit Canada post confederation
* 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)