Nicolet (Province of Canada electoral district)

Nicolet was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada East, centred on the town of Nicolet. 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.

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

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

Boundaries

The electoral district of Nicolet was on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River, centred on the town of Nicolet (now in the Nicolet-Yamaska Regional County Municipality, Centre-du-Québec region).

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.[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 Nicolet 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 Nicolet shall be bounded on the east by the County of Lotbinière, on the west by the seigniorial line between the seigniory of Nicolet and the seigniories La Baie du Febvre and Courval, towards the north by the river St. Lawrence, and on the south by the river Becancour, being the boundary of the township of Blandford and Maddington, by the rear line of the seigniory of Becancour, on the west of the said river by the division lines between the township of Aston and the augmentation thereof, and the seigniory of Godefroy, Roquetaillade and the augmentation of Nicolet, and lastly by the rear line of the augmentation of Nicolet; and shall comprehend the whole tract of country included within the said limits.[3]

Nicolet was a single-member constituency in the Legislative Assembly.[4]

Members of the Legislative Assembly

 
The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly from Nicolet.
Parliament Years Members[5] Party[6]
1st Parliament
1841–1844		 1841–1842 Augustin-Norbert Morin[lower-alpha 1] Anti-unionist; Groupe canadien-français
1842–1844 Louis-Michel Viger[lower-alpha 2] Groupe canadien-français

Notes
  1. Resigned seat to take appointment to the district court of Rimouski, January 7, 1842.[7]
  2. Elected in by-election, February 15, 1842.[8]

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

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. 11.
  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 biographies of individual members: Québec Dictionary of Parliamentary Biography, from 1764 to the present.
  7. Côté, Appointments and Elections, p. 59, note (26).
  8. Côté, Appointments and Elections, p. 59, note (27).
  9. British North America Act, 1867 [now the Constitution Act, 1867, s. 6.
  10. Constitution Act, 1867, s. 40, para. 2
  11. Constitution Act, 1867, s. 80.

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