Bellechasse (Province of Canada electoral district)

This article is about the pre-Confederation electoral district. For the successor federal electoral district, see Bellechasse (federal electoral district). For the successor provincial electoral district, see Bellechasse (provincial electoral district). For the predecessor electoral district of Lower Canada, see Bellechasse (Lower Canada).

Bellechasse
Canada East

Province of Canada electoral district
Defunct pre-Confederation electoral district
Legislature	Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada
District created	1841
District abolished	1867
First contested	1841
Last contested	1863

Bellechasse was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada East. It was created by the Union Act, 1840 in 1841, based on the previous electoral district of the same name for the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada. It was located in the current Chaudière-Appalaches area.

Bellechasse was represented by one Member at the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada. It was abolished in 1867, upon the creation of Canada and the province of Quebec.

Boundaries

The Union Act, 1840 merged the two provinces of Upper Canada and Lower Canada into the Province of Canada, with a single Parliament. The separate parliaments of Lower Canada and Upper Canada were abolished. ^[1]

The Union Act provided that the pre-existing electoral boundaries of Lower Canada and Upper Canada would continue to be used in the new Parliament, unless altered by the Union Act itself. ^[2] The Bellechasse electoral district of Lower Canada was not altered by the Act, and therefore continued with the same boundaries which had been set by a statute of Lower Canada in 1829:

The County of Bellechasse shall be bounded on the north east by the said County of L'Islet, on the south-west by the north-east boundary-lines of the Seigniories of Lauzon and Jolliet, and of the Townships of Frampton, Cranbourne and Watford, and thence by a line prolonged south east to the southern boundary of the Province, on the north west by the River Saint Lawrence, and include all the islands in the said River, nearest to the said County, and in the whole or part fronting the same, and in the south east by the southern boundary of the Province; which county so bounded comprises the Seigniories of Berthier, Saint Vallier, Saint Michel, Beaumont, and its augmentation, La Durantaye and its augmentation La Martiniere, Montapeine, Vincennes, Saint Gervais and Livandiere, and the Townships of Buckland and Standon. ^[3]

The electoral district of Bellechasse thus included the County of Bellechasse (now part of the Bellechasse Regional County Municipality), and some adjacent areas. The elections were held at Saint Vallier and Saint Gervais. ^[4]

Members of the Legislative Assembly (1841–1867)

Bellechasse was a single-member constituency. ^[5]

The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly for Bellechasse. The party affiliations are based on the biographies of individual members given by the National Assembly of Quebec, as well as votes in the Legislative Assembly. "Party" was a fluid concept, especially during the early years of the Province of Canada. ^{[6] [7] [8]}

Parliament	Members		Years in Office	Party
1st Parliament 1841-1844	Augustin-Guillaume Ruel [lower-alpha 1]		1841–1842	Anti-unionist; French-Canadian Group
	Abraham Turgeon [lower-alpha 2]		1842–1844 (by-election)	French-Canadian Group
2nd Parliament 1844–1847	Augustin-Norbert Morin		1844–1851	French-Canadian Group
3rd Parliament 1848–1851
4th Parliament 1851–1854	Jean Chabot		1851–1854	Ministerialist
5th Parliament 1854–1857	Octave-Cyrille Fortier [lower-alpha 3]		1854–1861	Ministerialist
6th Parliament 1858–1861				Bleu
7th Parliament 1861–1863	Édouard Rémillard		1861–1867	Rouge
8th Parliament 1861–1863				Confederation; Liberal

Notes

1. Vacated his seat on being appointed Registrar of Rimouski district: Côté, Appointments and Elections, p. 59, note (3).
2. Elected in by-election, June 6, 1842: Côté, Appointments and Elections, p. 59, note (4).
3. Jean Chabot was elected in the general election, but chose not to sit in Bellechasse; Fortier elected in by-election on October 17, 1854: Côté, Appointments and Elections, p. 62, note (160).

Abolition

The district was abolished on July 1, 1867, when the British North America Act, 1867 came into force, splitting the Province of Canada into Quebec and Ontario. ^[9] It was succeeded by electoral districts of the same name in the House of Commons of Canada ^[10] and the Legislative Assembly of Quebec. ^[11]

See also

• List of elections in the Province of Canada

References

1. Union Act, 1840, 3 & 4 Vict., c. 35, s. 2.
2. Union Act, 1840, ss. 16, 18.
3. An Act to make a new and more convenient subdivision of the Province into Counties, for the purpose of effecting a more equal Representation thereof in the Assembly than heretofore, SLC 1829, c. 73, s. 1, para. 6.
4. An Act to make a new and more convenient subdivision of the Province into Counties, for the purpose of effecting a more equal Representation thereof in the Assembly than heretofore, s. 3.
5. Union Act, 1840, s. 18.
6. J.O. Côté, Political Appointments and Elections in the Province of Canada, 1841 to 1860 (Quebec: St. Michel and Darveau, 1860), pp. 43–58.
7. Québec Dictionary of Parliamentary Biography, from 1764 to the present.
8. Paul G. Cornell, Alignment of Political Groups in Canada, 1841–67 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962; reprinted in paperback 2015), pp. 93–111.
9. British North America Act, 1867 (now the Constitution Act, 1867), s. 6.
10. Constitution Act, 1867, s. 40, para. 2.
11. Constitution Act, 1867, s. 80.

This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain :Statutes of Lower Canada, 13th Provincial Parliament, 2nd Session (1829), c. 74

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