Leinster (Province of Canada electoral district)

Leinster

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	1851

Leinster was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada East, west of Montreal. It was created in 1841, and was based on the previous electoral districts of l'Assomption and La Chesnaye (or Lachenaie) in the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada. It was represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly.

The electoral district was abolished in 1854, as part of the expansion and redistribution of electoral districts that came into force that year.

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 while many of the pre-existing electoral boundaries of Lower Canada and Upper Canada would continue to be used in the new Parliament, some electoral districts would be defined directly by the Union Act itself. ^[2] Leinster was one of those new electoral districts. The Union Act merged the previous electoral districts of the County of Lachenaie and the County of L’Assomption, to create a new district, called Leinster. ^[3]

The former districts of Lachenaie and l'Assomption had been defined by the 1829 boundaries as follows:

The County of Lachenaie shall comprehend the Parishes of Lachenaie, Saint Henry de Mascouche and Saint Roch, and the Townships of Kilkenny and Wexford.

The County of l'Assomption shall comprehend the Parishes of Saint Sulpice, comprising Isle Bouchard, Repentigny, l'Assomption and Saint Jacques and the Townships of Rawdon and Chertsey. ^[4]

With the merger of those counties, the new district stretched from south-west of Montreal (now Les Moulins Regional County Municipality), north across the Saint Lawrence River to the north-west of Montreal (now the L'Assomption Regional County Municipality).

Members of the Legislative Assembly (1841–1854)

Leinster was a single-member constituency. ^[3]

The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly for Leinster. 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. ^{[5] [6] [7]}

Parliament	Members		Years in Office	Party
1st Parliament 1841–1844	Jean-Moïse Raymond [lower-alpha 1]		1841–1842	Anti-unionist; French-Canadian Group
	Jacob De Witt [lower-alpha 2]		1842–1844 (By-election)	French-Canadian Group
2nd Parliament 1844–1847	Jacob De Witt		1844–1847	French-Canadian Group
3rd Parliament 1848–1851	Norbert Dumas		1848–1851	Ministerialist
4th Parliament 1851–1854	Louis-Michel Viger		1851–1854	Ministerialist

Notes

1. Vacated seat on January 1, 1842, on appointment as District Registrar of Leinster: Côté, Appointments and Elections, p. 59, note (16).
2. Elected in by-election, August 8, 1842: Côté, Appointments and Elections, p. 59, note (17).

Abolition

The Leinster electoral district was abolished in 1854, when the 1853 redistribution of electoral districts came into force. ^[8]

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. Union Act, 1840, s. 19.
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. 1, paras. 30 and 31.
5. J.O. Côté, Political Appointments and Elections in the Province of Canada, 1841 to 1860 (Quebec: St. Michel and Darveau, 1860), pp. 43–58.
6. Québec Dictionary of Parliamentary Biography, from 1764 to the present.
7. Paul G. Cornell, Alignment of Political Groups in Canada, 1841–67 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962; reprinted in paperback 2015), pp. 93–111.
8. An Act to enlarge the Representation of the People of this Province in Parliament , SProvC 1853, c. 152, s. 1, para. 29.

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