Ottawa County (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 Ottawa (County of) (electoral district). For the successor provincial electoral district, see Ottawa (Quebec provincial electoral district).

Ottawa County
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

Ottawa County was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada. It was located in Canada East (now Quebec), in the Outaouais region, on the north bank of the Ottawa River. 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.

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

The electoral district was abolished in 1867, upon the creation of Canada and the province of Quebec.

Boundaries[edit]

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 Ottawa County electoral district was located in the Outaouais region in the western part of Canada East (now Quebec). The Ottawa River formed the southern boundary of the electoral district, and also the boundary with Canada West.

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 Ottawa County 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 Ottawa shall be bounded on the south east by the south easterly boundary line of the Seigniory of La Petite Nation, running northward along the said boundary line, from the Ottawa River, to the depth of the said Seigniory, and thence the same course continued to the northern boundary of the Province, on the west by the northerly and westerly bounds and limits of the Province, and on the south west by the Grand or Ottawa River, in its whole extent to the Lake Temiscaming, and from the head of the said Lake, by a line due north to the boundary line of the Hudson Bay Territory, and shall include all the Islands in the said Grand or Ottawa River, and in the Lake Temiscaming, nearest to the said County, and in the whole or in part fronting the same; which County so bounded, comprises the seigniory of La Petite Nation, and the following Townships, situate on the Grand or Ottawa River, that is to say, Lochaber, and its augmentation, Buckingham, Templeton, Hull, Eardly, Onslow and all the Townships in the said limits, on the north of the said Grand or Ottawa River.[3]

1854 to 1867[edit]

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

The County of Ottawa shall be bounded on the east by the County of Argenteuil, on the north-east by the northern portion of the County of Montcalm, on the south-east by the Grand or Ottawa River comprising all Islands in the same opposite to the County and belonging to Lower Canada, on the south-west by the south-western limits of the Township of Eardly prolonged to the County of Montcalm ; the said County so bounded comprising the Seigniory of La Petite Nation, the Townships of Lochaber and its augmentation, Buckingham, Hull, Eardley, Masham, Wakefield, Portland, Derry, Rippon, Denholm, Low, Aylwin, Hincks, Bowman, Villeneuve, Lathbury, Hartwell, Suffolk, Ponsonby, Amherst, Addington, Preston, Bidwell, Wells, Bigelow, Wright, Northfield, Blake, McGill, Killaly, Dudley, Chabot, Bouchette, Cameron, Maniwaky, Kensington, Egan, Aumond, Bouthillier, Kiamica, Merritt and Campbell.[4]

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

Ottawa County was a single-member constituency in the Legislative Assembly.[5][6]

The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly from Ottawa County. 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.[7][8][9]

Parliament Members Years in Office Party
1st Parliament
1841–1844 		Charles Dewey Day[a] 1841–1842 Unionist and Government Tory
Denis-Benjamin Papineau[b] 1842–1844
(by-election) 		French-Canadian Group
2nd Parliament
1844–1847 		Denis-Benjamin Papineau 1844–1847 "British" Tory
3rd Parliament
1848–1851 		John Egan 1848–1854 "English" Liberal (1848)
Moderate independent (1849–1851)
4th Parliament
1851–1854 		"English" moderate
5th Parliament
1854–1857 		Alanson Cooke 1854–1857 Rouge
6th Parliament
1858–1861 		Denis-Émery Papineau 1858–1861 Rouge
7th Parliament
1861–1863 		William McDonell Dawson 1861–1863 Conservative
8th Parliament
1863––1867 		Alonzo Wright 1863–1867 Confederation; Conservative

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Seat vacated on appointment to the Bench, June 21, 1842: Côté, Appointments and Elections, p. 59, note (29).
  2. ^ Elected in by-election, August 17, 1842. Seat vacated on being appointed Commissioner of Crown lands, an office of profit under the Crown, September 3, 1844: Côté, Appointments and Elections, p. 59, note (30).

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.[10] It was succeeded by electoral districts of the same name in the House of Commons of Canada[11] and the Legislative Assembly of Quebec.[12]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Union Act, 1840, 3 & 4 Vict. (UK), 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. 27.
  4. ^ An Act to enlarge the Representation of the People of this Province in Parliament, SProvC 1853, c. 152, s. 1(34).
  5. ^ Union Act, 1840, s. 18.
  6. ^ An Act to enlarge the Representation of the People of this Province in Parliament, s. 3.
  7. ^ J.O. Côté, Political Appointments and Elections in the Province of Canada, 1841 to 1860 (Quebec: St. Michel and Darveau, 1860), pp. 43–58.
  8. ^ Québec Dictionary of Parliamentary Biography, from 1764 to the present.
  9. ^ Paul G. Cornell, Alignment of Political Groups in Canada, 1841–67, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962; reprinted in paperback 2015) pp. 93–111.
  10. ^ British North America Act, 1867 (now the Constitution Act, 1867), s. 6.
  11. ^ Constitution Act, 1867, s. 40, para. 2.
  12. ^ 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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