Rimouski (Province of Canada electoral district)

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This article is about the pre-Confederation electoral district. For the successor federal electoral district, see Rimouski (federal electoral district). For the successor provincial electoral district, see Rimouski (provincial electoral district).
Rimouski
Province of Canada electoral district
Defunct pre-Confederation electoral district
LegislatureLegislative Assembly of the Province of Canada
District created1841
District abolished1867
First contested1841
Last contested1863

Rimouski was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada East (now Quebec), in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region. 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[edit]

The electoral district of Rimouski was on the south shore of the River Saint Lawrence at the beginning of the Gaspé peninsula (now in the Bas-Saint-Laurent administrative region).

1841 to 1854[edit]

The Union Act, 1840, passed by the British Parliament, merged the two provinces of Lower Canada and Upper 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 Rimouski 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 Rimouski shall be bounded on the eastward by the Inferior District of Gaspé, on the southward by the south west boundary line of the Seigniory of Rivière du Loup prolonged to the southern bounds of the Province, and on the north west by the River Saint Lawrence, including all the Islands in the said River Saint Lawrence, in front of the said County, in whole or in part nearest the same, which said County so bounded, comprises the Seigniories of Rivière de Loup, Isle Verte, d'Artiguy, Trois Pistoles, Rioux des Trois Pistoles, Bic, Rimouski, Barnabé, Lepage, Thivierge, Mitis and Matane, and all other Seigniories and lands comprised within the said limits.[3]

1854 to 1867[edit]

In 1853, the Parliament of the Province of Canada passed a new electoral map. The boundaries of Rimouski were altered to some extent by the new map, which came into force in the general elections of 1854:

The County of Rimouski shall be bounded on the east by the County of Gaspé, on the west by the south-western line of the parish of Saint Simon, prolonged to the limits of the Province, on the south-east by the County of Bonaventure and the southern limits of the Province, and on the north-west by the River Saint Lawrence, including all the Islands in the said River lying nearest to the said County of Rimouski and wholly or partly opposite thereto ; the said County so bounded, comprising the Parishes and Settlements of Matane, Metis, Saint Joseph, Sainte Flavie, Sainte Luce, Saint Germain, Bic, Saint Fabien, Saint Simon, the Seigniories of Lake Metis and of Matapédia, and the Townships of MacNider, Matane, Saint Denis and the augmentation thereof, Cabot, Neigette, Macpés and Duquesne.[4]

Members of the Legislative Assembly (1841–1867)[edit]

Rimouski was a single-member constituency in the Legislative Assembly.[2][5]

The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly for Rimouski. 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 		Michel Borne[a] 1841–1842 Anti-unionist; French-Canadian Group
Robert Baldwin[b] 1843–1844
(by-election) 		Ultra Reformer
2nd Parliament
1844–1847 		Louis Bertrand 1844–1847 French-Canadian Group
3rd Parliament
1848–1851 		Joseph-Charles Taché 1848–1854 French-Canadian Group
4th Parliament
1851–1854 		Ministerialist
5th Parliament
1854–1857 		Joseph-Charles Taché[c] 1854–1857 Bleu
Michel Guillaume Baby[d] 1857
(by-election) 		Bleu
6th Parliament
1858–1861 		Michel Guillaume Baby 1858–1861 Bleu
7th Parliament
1861–1863 		George Sylvain 1861–1867 Moderate
8th Parliament
1863–1867 		Confederation; Bleu

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Resigned seat on December 15, 1842 to allow Robert Baldwin to stand for election: Côté, Appointments and Elections, p. 59, note (36).
  2. ^ Elected in by-election, January 30, 1843: Côté, Appointments and Elections, p. 59, note (37).
  3. ^ Resigned seat on January 10, 1857: Côté, Appointments and Elections, p. 63, note (190).
  4. ^ Elected in by-election on February 17, 1857: Côté, Appointments and Elections, p. 63, note (191).

Significant elections[edit]

Monument to Lafontaine and Baldwin on Parliament Hill, Ottawa

In 1842, Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine and Robert Baldwin formed the first joint ministry in the Province of Canada, and were appointed to the Executive Council by the Governor General. At that time, the law required that if members of the Legislative Assembly took a position under the Crown, the members' seats were vacated and they had to stand for re-election. Lafontaine was easily re-elected in his riding, but Baldwin was defeated in his riding of Hastings in Canada West.[9]

To ensure his colleague could re-enter the Legislative Assembly, Lafontaine arranged for Michel Borne, the member for Rimouski, to resign his seat so Baldwin could stand for election there. (Borne was in his sixties and had infrequent attendance at Parliament.) Baldwin, an anglophone from Canada West, was elected by acclamation by the heavily francophone, but pro-reform, voters of Rimouski.[9][10][11][12]

The by-election was important for the success of the Lafontaine-Baldwin alliance, and also as an early step in building political parties within the Province of Canada based on common political views, rather than purely ethnic affiliations.[13]

Abolition[edit]

The district was abolished on July 1, 1867, when the British North America Act, 1867 came into force, creating Canada and splitting the Province of Canada into Quebec and Ontario.[14] It was succeeded by electoral districts of the same name and boundaries in the House of Commons of Canada[15] and the Legislative Assembly of Quebec.[16]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Union Act, 1840, 3 & 4 Vict. (UK), c. 35, s. 2.
  2. ^ a b Union Act, 1840, s. 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. 3.
  4. ^ An Act to enlarge the Representation of the People of this Province in Parliament, SProvC 1853, c. 152, s. 1(3).
  5. ^ An Act to enlarge the Representation of the People of this Province in Parliament, s. 3.
  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. ^ a b J.M.S. Careless, The Union of the Canadas — The Growth of Canadian Institutions, 1841–1857 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1967), p. 75.
  10. ^ "Biography of Michel Borne". Dictionnaire des parlementaires du Québec de 1792 à nos jours (in French). National Assembly of Quebec.
  11. ^ Cornell, Alignment of Political Groups in Canada, 1841–67, pp. 93, 94.
  12. ^ Roy, Pierre Georges (1946). Toutes petites choses du régime anglais (in French). p. 55.
  13. ^ James H. Marsh, "Editorial: Baldwin, LaFontaine, and Responsible Government", Canadian Encyclopedia, October 15, 2019.
  14. ^ British North America Act, 1867 (now the Constitution Act, 1867), s. 6.
  15. ^ Constitution Act, 1867, s. 40, para. 2.
  16. ^ Constitution Act, 1867, s. 80.

Public Domain 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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