Lotbinière (Province of Canada electoral district)

Lotbinière was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada East, near 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. It was represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly.

Lotbinière

Province of Canada electoral district
Defunct pre-Confederation electoral district
Legislature	Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada
District created	1841
District abolished	1867
First contested	1841
Last contested	1863

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

Boundaries

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 Lotbinière 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 Lotbinière shall be bounded on the north east by the south western boundary line of the Seigniories of Lauzon, Saint Etienne, and Sainte Marie, to the south angle of the said Seigniory of Sainte Marie, on the south west by the south west boundary of the Seigniory of Saint Jean d'Eschaillons, and the augmentation thereof, on the south east by the rear lines of the Seigniories of Saint Giles, Sainte Croix, and the augmentation of the Seigniories of Lotbinière and Saint Jean d'Eschaillons, and on the north west by the River Saint Lawrence; which County so bounded comprises the Seigniories of Tilly or Saint Antoine, Gaspé, Saint Giles des Pleines, Bonsecours, Sainte Croix, Lotbinière and Saint Jean d'Eschaillons, and their augmentations.[3]

The electoral district was on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence, near Quebec City (now in the Lotbinière Regional County Municipality). Elections were held at Sainte-Croix. [4]

Members of the Legislative Assembly

Lotbinière was represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly.[5]

The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly from Lotbinière.[6]

Parliament	Member	Party[7]
1st Parliament 1841-1844	Jean-Baptiste-Isaïe Noël	Anti-unionist and Group Canadien-français

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. 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. 10.
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. For party affiliations, see biographies of individual members: Québec Dictionary of Parliamentary Biography, from 1764 to the present.
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.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Statutes of Lower Canada, 13th Provincial Parliament, 2nd Session (1829), c. 74