Quebec County () was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada East, surrounding Quebec City. It was created in 1841 and was based on the previous electoral district of the same name for the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada.
Quebec County 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
Quebec County surrounded the municipality of Quebec, but also included some portions of the municipality. The Governor General, Lord Sydenham, drew the boundaries of the Quebec City electoral district to exclude francophone Canadiens, strengthening the influence of voters of British extraction, an example of a linguistic and ethnic gerrymander.Irving Martin Abella, "The 'Sydenham Election' of 1841" (1966), 47 Canadian Historical Review 326, at p. 327-328 [subscription needed]. He did so to win as much support as possible for the recent union of the two former provinces into the Province of Canada, and for his government. The excluded areas became part of Quebec County.
The Union Act, 1840 had 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., 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 Union Act did not directly amend the boundaries of the Quebec County electoral district, so the boundaries of the former Quebec County district continued to be the basis for the new electoral district. Those boundaries had been set by a statute of Lower Canada in 1829:
While the boundaries of Quebec County were not directly affected by the Union Act, that Act gave the Governor General the power to draw the boundaries for the Quebec City electoral district. Lord Sydenham did so by a proclamation issued just before the first general election, which started in March, 1841.Proclamation, March 4, 1841. Reproduced in the Journal of the Legislative Council of the Province of Canada, 1841, pp. xiii. His overall goal in drawing the boundaries was to ensure that supporters of the creation of the new Province of Canada and of his government would be elected. The boundaries did not follow the normal municipal boundaries, rather being drawn along certain streets and geographic features. This new electoral district was designed to exclude as many francophone Canadien voters as possible, and to include as many voters of British background as possible, since they generally supported the union and Lord Sydenham's government. It was an example of an ethnic and linguistic gerrymander.Abella, "The 'Sydenham Election' of 1841", at p. 334. The areas of the municipality of Quebec which were not included in the new electoral district of Quebec City instead were included in Quebec County.Union Act, 1840, s. 21. The result was the effective disenfranchisement of Quebec francophone voters in the 1841 election.
Members of the Legislative Assembly
Quebec County was a single-member constituency.Union Act, 1840, s. 18.
The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly for Quebec County. "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.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.
ParliamentMembers Years in Office Party 1st Parliament1841-1844 John Neilson 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, 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 in the House of Commons of CanadaConstitution Act, 1867, s. 40, para. 2 and the Legislative Assembly of Quebec.Constitution Act, 1867, s. 80.
References