Saint Maurice 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, between Montreal and Quebec City. 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 lost some territory in the redistribution of 1853, when the district of Maskinongé was created, in part out of Saint Maurice. The district was abolished in 1867 upon the creation of Canada and the province of Quebec.

Boundaries

The electoral district of Saint Maurice roughly covered the current Mauricie region of Quebec, except for the city of Trois-Rivières. The original boundaries were partially reduced in the 1853 redistribution, which created the new electoral district of Maskinongé from part of the Saint Maurice district.

The Union Act, 1840 had 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.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, s. 18.

The Saint Maurice 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)

Saint Maurice was a single-member constituency.Union Act, 1840, s. 18.

The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly for Saint Maurice. 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.

ParliamentMembers Years in Office Party 1st Parliament1841–1844 Joseph-Édouard Turcotte 1841 Anti-unionist; French-Canadian Group 1842–1844(by-election) French-Canadian Group 2nd Parliament1844–1847 François Lesieur Desaulniers 1844–1847 French-Canadian Group 3rd Parliament1848–1851 Louis-Joseph Papineau 1848–1851 French-Canadian Group, then Liberal 4th Parliament1851–1854 Joseph-Édouard Turcotte 1851–1854 Ministerialist 5th Parliament1854–1857 Louis-Léon Lesieur Desaulniers 1854–1863 Bleu 6th Parliament1858–1861 7th Parliament1862–1863 8th Parliament1863–1867 Charles Gérin-Lajoie 1863–1867 Anti-Confederation; Rouge

Notes

Redistribution and abolition

The Saint Maurice electoral district lost some of its original territory in the redistribution of seats in 1853, when the new electoral district of Maskinongé was created.

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.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.

See also List of elections in the Province of Canada

References

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