Following Edward Blake’s resignation, Oliver Mowat is sworn in as Ontario Premier. Along with his reputation as a lawyer and as a Father of Confederation, his many reforms would shape the province with programs such as worker’s compensation and children’s aid.

The first session of the Ontario Legislature opened on December 27, 1867 and continued until February, 1871.  Meetings are held in the Front Street Legislative Building, originally completed in 1832.

John Sandfield Macdonald was appointed the first Premier of Ontario by Canada’s first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald – they were not related.

The legislature acquires the King’s College building in the area of present-day Queen’s Park in 1854 as a potential site for a Canadian federal parliament building.