Gaspé (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 Gaspé (electoral district). For the successor provincial electoral district, see Gaspé (provincial electoral district).
Gaspé
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

Gaspé was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada East. Located on the Gaspé Peninsula, it was created in 1841, 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 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 Gaspé 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 Gaspé shall be bounded on the south west by a line, commencing at Point Maquereaux, on the north side, and at the entrance of Chaleurs Bay, running from thence north west, a distance of forty-seven miles, thence south, sixty-nine degrees west, until it intersects a line running from Cape Chat on the River Saint Lawrence, due south east, on the west by the said last mentioned line, and on the north and east by the River and Gulf of Saint Lawrence, including in the said County, the Island of Bonaventure, and all the Islands in front thereof, in whole or in part, nearest the same, as well as the Magdalen Islands in the said Gulf of Saint Lawrence, which said County so bounded, comprises the Fiefs of Saint Anne, Magdalene, Grand Vallée des Monts and Anse de l'Etang, the Bay of Gaspé, and settlements therein, Point Saint Peter, Malbay, Percé, Quebec, Anse à Beaufils, Cape Despair, Grand River, Little River and Pabos, and New-Port.[3]

The electoral district was at the eastern end of the Gaspé Peninsula (now part of the Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine administrative region). The elections took place in Point Saint Peters.[4]

Members of the Legislative Assembly[edit]

Gaspé was a single-member consistutency.[5]

The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly from Gaspé. "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.[6][7][8]

Parliament Member Years in Office Party
1st Parliament
1841–1844 		Robert Christie 1841–1854 Anti-unionist; Independent
2nd Parliament
1844–1847 		Independent
3rd Parliament
1848–1851 		Conservative Independent
4th Parliament
1851–1854 		Independent

Abolition[edit]

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

References[edit]

  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. 1.
  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. ^ 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.

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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