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Huntingdon (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 Huntingdon (federal electoral district). For the successor provincial electoral district, see Huntingdon (provincial electoral district).
Huntingdon
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

Huntingdon was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada East, south of Montreal. It was created in 1841 and was based on the previous electoral districts of L'Acadie and Laprairie in 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 had 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] Huntingdon was one of those new electoral districts. The Union Act merged the previous electoral districts of the County of L'Acadie and the County of Laprairie, to create a new district, called Huntingdon.[3]

The former districts of Laprairie and L'Acadie had been defined by the 1829 boundaries as follows:

The County of Laprairie shall be bounded on the north west by the River Saint Lawrence, on the south east by the Township of Sherrington, and part of the Barony of Longueuil, on the north east by the County of Chambly, and on the south west by the seigniory of Beauharnois; and shall comprehend the Seigniories of Laprarie de la Magdeleine, Sault Saint Louis, La Salle and Chateauguay, and the Isles in the River Saint Lawrence, nearest to the said County, and either wholly or in part opposite the same.

The County of Acadie shall be bounded on the north west by the County of Laprairie, on the south by the Province line, on the east by the River Chambly or Richelieu, on the north east by the County of Chambly, and on the south west by the north east line of the township of Hemmingford, and part of the Seigniory of Beauharnois; and shall comprehend the Seigniories of Lacolle and DeLery, and the Township of Sherrington, also the Islands in the said River Chambly or Richelieu, nearest to the said County, and which are wholly or in part opposite the same.[4]

The effect of the Union Act provision was to merge those two districts into one. The new district was located directly south of Montreal (now part of the Montérégie administrative region), extending from the Saint Lawrence south to the border with the United States.

Members of the Legislative Assembly

Huntingdon was a single-member constituency in the Legislative Assembly.[3]

The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly from Huntingdon. "Party" was a fluid concept, especially during the early years of the Province of Canada. 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.[5][6][7]

Parliament Member Years in Office Party
1st Parliament
1841–1844 		Austin Cuvillier 1841–1844 Anti-unionist; French-Canadian Group

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. ^ a b 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. 23, 24.
  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. ^ 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.

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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