L'Islet (Province of Canada electoral district)

This article is about the pre-Confederation electoral district. For the successor federal electoral district, see L'Islet (federal electoral district). For the successor provincial electoral district, see L'Islet (provincial electoral district).

L'Islet

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

L'Islet was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada East, on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River, north-east of Quebec City. It was created in 1841 and was based on the previous electoral district of the same name for the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada. It was represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly.

The electoral district 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 L'Islet 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 l'Islet shall be bounded on the north east by the said County of Kamouraska, on the south west by a line parallel thereto running front the westerly angle of a Tract of land commonly called the Seigniory of the River du Sud, prolonged to the southern boundary of the Province, on the north west by the River Saint Lawrence, together with all the islands in the said River Saint Lawrence nearest to the said County, and in the whole or in part fronting the same, and on the south east by the southern boundary of the Province; which County so bounded, comprises the Seigniories of Saint Roch des Aulnets, Reaume, Saint Jean Port Joli, Islet, Lessard, Bonsecours, Vincelot, and its augmentation, Cap Saint Ignace, Gagnier, Sainte Claire, Rivière du Sud and Lepinay. ^[3]

L'Islet electoral district was located on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence, to the north-east of Quebec City (now in L'Islet Regional County Municipality). The elections were held in the town of L'Islet. ^[4]

Members of the Legislative Assembly (1841–1867)

L'Islet was a single-member constituency. ^[5]

The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly from L'Islet. 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	Member		Years in Office	Party
1st Parliament 1841–1844	Étienne-Paschal Taché		1841–1846	Anti-unionist; French-Canadian Group
2nd Parliament 1844–1847	Étienne-Paschal Taché [lower-alpha 1]			French-Canadian Group
	Charles-François Fournier [lower-alpha 2]		1847	French-Canadian Group
3rd Parliament 1848–1851	Charles-François Fournier		1847–1863	French-Canadian Group, then Ministerialist
4th Parliament 1851–1854				Ministerialist
5th Parliament 1854–1857				Ministerialist, then Bleu
6th Parliament 1858–1861				Bleu
7th Parliament 1861–1863				Bleu
8th Parliament 1863–1867	Louis-Bonaventure Caron		1863–1867	Anti-Confederation; Rouge

Notes

1. Resigned seat on appointment as Deputy Adjutant General of Militia, July 1, 1846: Côté, Political Appointments and Elections, p. 60, note (71).
2. Elected in by-election, May 6, 1847: Côté, Political Appointments and Elections, p. 60, note (72).

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. 5.
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, SLC 1829, c. 73, 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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