Berthier (Province of Canada electoral district)

Berthier was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada East, on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River. It was created in 1841, based on the previous electoral district of the same name for the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada.

This article is about the pre-Confederation electoral district. For the successor federal electoral district, see Berthier (federal electoral district). For the successor provincial electoral district, see Berthier (provincial electoral district).
Berthier
Canada East
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

Berthier 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

Berthier electoral district was located on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River, between Montreal and Trois-Rivières, in the area now known as D'Autray Regional County Municipality. The town of Berthier was the main town in the electoral district.

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 Berthier 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 Berthier shall be bounded on the north east by the County of Saint Maurice hereunder described, on the south west by the said County of Lachenaie, on the north west by the northern boundary of the Province, and on the south east by the said River Saint Lawrence, and shall include all the Islands on the said River Saint Lawrence, nearest to the said County, and in the whole or in part, fronting the same; which County so bounded, comprises the Seigniories of Berthier and its augmentation, Du Sablé or York, and part of Masquinongé, Fief Chicot and the Seigniories of Lanoraye, Dautray and their augmentations, the Seigniories of Lavaltrie and its augmentation, and the Seigniories of Daillebout and De Ramsay, and the Township of Brandon, and part of the Seigniory of Lanaudière, and the Township of Kildare, and the Islands of Saint Ignace and du Pads.[3]


Berthier was a single-member constituency.[4]

Members of the Legislative Assembly

The following were the members for Berthier.

Parliament Years Member[5] Party[6]
1st Parliament
1841–1844		 1841–1844 David Morrison Armstrong Groupe canadien-français, later Reformer

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.[7] It was succeeded by electoral districts of the same name in the House of Commons of Canada[8] and the Legislative Assembly of Quebec.[9]

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. 33.
  4. Union Act, 1840, s. 18.
  5. J.O. Côté, Political Appointments and Elections in the Province of Canada, 1841 to 1860, (Quebec: St. Michel and Darveau, 1860), pp. 43-58.
  6. For party affiliations, see the biographies of individual members: Québec Dictionary of Parliamentary Biography, from 1764 to the present, and also Paul G. Cornell, Alignment of Political Groups in Canada, 1841-67 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962; reprinted in paperback 2015), pp. 93-111.
  7. British North America Act, 1867 (now the Constitution Act, 1867), s. 6.
  8. Constitution Act, 1867, s. 40, para. 2
  9. 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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