Two Mountains (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 Two Mountains (electoral district). For the successor provincial electoral district, see Deux-Montagnes (provincial electoral district).
Two Mountains
Canada East
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

Two Mountains (French name: Lac des Deux Montagnes) was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada, Canada East, in a rural area north-west of Montreal. It was created in 1841, based on the previous electoral district of the same name for the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada.

In 1853, the provincial Parliament redrew the electoral map. The boundaries for Two Mountains were altered to some extent in the new map, which came into force for the 1854 general elections.

Two Mountains was represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly. It was abolished in 1867, upon the creation of Canada and the province of Quebec.

Boundaries[edit]

Two Mountains electoral district was located in a rural area, north-west of Montreal, (now in the area known as the Deux-Montagnes Regional County Municipality). It was bordered to the south and south-west by the Ottawa River, which was the boundary between Canada East and Canada West.

1841 to 1854[edit]

The Union Act, 1840, passed by the British Parliament, 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 Two Mountains 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 the Two Mountains shall be bounded on the east and north east, by the south west boundary of the Seigniory of Blainville, and the augmentation to Mille Isles, by the rear line of the augmentation to the Seigniory of the Lake of the Two Mountains, by the rear line of Argenteuil, the eastern outline of the Township of Wentworth continued to the south west bounds of the Township of Howard, thence along the said bounds, and continuing on the same course, north westward to the northern boundary of the Province, on the west by the said County of Ottawa, on the south and south west by the Grand or Ottawa River, and shall include the Isle Bizarre and all the Islands in the Grand or Ottawa River nearest to the said County, in the whole or in part fronting or intersecting the same, and on the north and north west, by the northern boundary of the Province; which County so bounded comprises the Seigniories of Mille Isles or Rivière du Chêne, Lake of the Two Mountains and the augmentation thereto, and Argenteuil, and the Townships of Chatham, Grenville and Wentworth, Harrington, Arundel and Howard, and the Parishes of Saint Eustache, Saint Benôit, Saint Scholastique, Lake of the Two Mountains, and Isle Bizarre, and all the Parishes, Townships and lands in the whole or in part comprised within the above limits.[3]

1854 to 1867[edit]

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

The County of Two-Mountains shall be bounded on the east by the County of Terrebonne as above described, on the south by the River Ottawa and the Lake of the Two-Mountains, including all Islands nearest to the said county and wholly or in part opposite thereto, on the west by the western limits of the Parishes of Saint Benoit, Sainte Scholastique and Saint Columban and the northern limits of the Township of Gore, thence by the eastern limits of the Townships of Wentworth and Howard, to the County of Terrebonne as above described; the said County so bounded comprising the Parishes of Saint Eustache, Saint Augustin, Saint Benoit, Sainte Scholastique, Saint Columban, the Mission of the Lake of Two-Mountains, that part of the Parish of Saint Jérôme which is in the Seigniory of Two-Mountains, that part of the same Parish of Saint Jérôme which comprises the Côte Saint Joseph, Saint Eustache, Sainte Marguerite, Sainte Angelique, and part of the Township of Morin.[4]

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

Two Mountains was a single-member constituency.[2][5]

The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly for Two Mountains. 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 		Colin Robertson[a] 1841–1842 Unionist and Tory
Charles John Forbes[b] 1842–1844
(by-election) 		"British" Tory
2nd Parliament
1844–1847 		William Henry Scott 1844–1851 "British" Tory (1844–1846); "English" Liberal (1847)
3rd Parliament
1848–1851 		"English" Liberal (1848); French-Canadian Group (1849); Moderate (1850–1851)
4th Parliament
1851–1854 		William Henry Scott[c] 1851 Died before Parliament sat
Louis-Joseph Papineau[d] 1852–1854 Rouge
5th Parliament
1854–1857 		Jean-Baptiste Daoust 1854–1867 Ministerialist
6th Parliament
1858–1861 		Bleu
7th Parliament
1861–1863
8th Parliament
1863–1867 		Confederation; Bleu

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Died in office after being thrown from his sleigh, February 3, 1842: Côté, Political Appointments and Elections, p. 59, note (48).
  2. ^ Elected in by-election, April 18, 1842: Côté, Political Appointments and Elections, p. 60, note (49).
  3. ^ Died in office, December 18, 1851: Côté, Political Appointments and Elections, p. 62, note (152).
  4. ^ Elected in by-election, July 9, 1852: Côté, Political Appointments and Elections, p. 62, note (153).

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.[9] It was succeeded by electoral districts of the same name nd boundaries in the House of Commons of Canada[10] and the Legislative Assembly of Quebec.[11]

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. 28.
  4. ^ An Act to enlarge the Representation of the People of this Province in Parliament, SProvC 1853, c. 152, s. 1(32).
  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. ^ 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.
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