L'Islet (Province of Canada electoral district)

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.

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

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

L'Islet was represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly.[5]

The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly from L'Islet.[6]

Parliament	Years	Member		Party[7]
1st Parliament 1841–1844	1841–1844	Étienne-Paschal Taché		Groupe canadien-français

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.[8] It was succeeded by electoral districts of the same name in the House of Commons of Canada[9] and the Legislative Assembly of Quebec.[10]

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. For party affiliations, see biographies of individual members: Québec Dictionary of Parliamentary Biography, from 1764 to the present.
8. British North America Act, 1867 [now the Constitution Act, 1867, s. 6.
9. Constitution Act, 1867, s. 40, para. 2
10. Constitution Act, 1867, s. 80.

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