Beauharnois () was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada East, in a rural area south of Montreal. It was created for the first Parliament 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
The electoral district of Beauharnois was south of Montreal (now in the Beauharnois-Salaberry Regional County Municipality), extending south to the boundary with the United States. The town of Beauharnois was the major centre.
The Union Act, 1840, 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.Union Act, 1840, 3 & 4 Vict. (UK), c. 35, s. 2. 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.Union Act, 1840, ss. 16, 18.
The Beauharnois 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:
Members of the Legislative Assembly (1841–1867)
Beauharnois was a single-member constituency, represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly.Union Act, 1840, s. 18.
The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly for Beauharnois. 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.J.O. Côté, Political Appointments and Elections in the Province of Canada, 1841 to 1860 (Quebec: St. Michel and Darveau, 1860), pp. 43–58.Québec Dictionary of Parliamentary Biography, from 1764 to the present.Paul G. Cornell, Alignment of Political Groups in Canada, 1841–67 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962; reprinted in paperback 2015), pp. 93–111.
Parliament Members Years in Office Party 1st Parliament1841–1844John William Dunscomb 1841–1842 Unionist; Government supporter Edward Gibbon Wakefield 1842–1844 (by-election) French-Canadian Group; later "British" Group 2nd Parliament 1844–1847 Eden Colvile 1844–1847 "British" Tory 3rd Parliament 1848–1851 Jacob De Witt 1848–1851 "English" Liberal 4th Parliament 1851–1854 Ovide Le Blanc 1851–1854 Ministerialist, then temporarily in opposition 5th Parliament 1854–1857 Charles Daoust 1854–1857 "Rouge" 6th Parliament 1858–1861 Gédéon Ouimet 1858–1861 Bleu 7th Parliament 1861–1863 Paul Denis 1861–1867 Bleu 8th Parliament 1863–1867 Confederation; Bleu
Notes
Abolition
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.British North America Act, 1867 (now the Constitution Act, 1867), s. 6. It was succeeded by electoral districts of the same name and boundaries in the House of Commons of CanadaConstitution Act, 1867, s. 40, para. 2. and the Legislative Assembly of Quebec.Constitution Act, 1867, s. 80.
See also List of elections in the Province of Canada
References