← → Events from the year 1872 in Canada.

Federal agriculture minister points to "millions of unsettled acres of prairie" for wheat and "homes of many millions of men from the old world"[3] Privy Council committee recommends terms to encourage Mennonites to immigrate[4] Government fails to establish some agreed-to First Nations reserves, while settlers steal the timber[5] Sandford Fleming reports on difficulties surveying the route of the Canadian Pacific Railway[6] Indigenous paddlers race each other on the CPR survey expedition[7]