Champlain () was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada East. It was on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River, with the town of Champlain being the main centre of the district.
The electoral district was established in 1841, when the Province of Canada was created by the merger of Lower Canada and Upper Canada by the Union Act, 1840. It was based on the previous electoral district of the same name for the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada.
Champlain was represented by one Member in the Legislative Assembly. The electoral district was abolished in 1867 upon the creation of Canada and the province of Quebec.
Boundaries
The electoral district of Champlain was located on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River, centred on the town of Champlain (in the current Mauricie area), and close to Trois-Rivières.
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.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 Champlain 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:
Elections were held at the "Ferry nearest the River Saint Lawrence on the north east of the River Batiscan."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.
Members of the Legislative Assembly (1841–1867)
Champlain was a single-member constituency.Union Act, 1840, s. 18.
The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly from Champlain. 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.
Parliament Members Years in Office Party 1st Parliament1841–1844 René-Joseph Kimber 1841–1843 Anti-unionist; French-Canadian Group Henry Judah 1843–1844 (by-election) French-Canadian Group 2nd Parliament1844–1847 Louis Guillet 1844–1851 French-Canadian Group 3rd Parliament1848–1851 4th Parliament1851–1854 Thomas Marchildon 1851–1857 Liberal 5th Parliament1854–1857 Rouge 6th Parliament1858–1861 Joseph-Édouard Turcotte 1858–1861 Bleu 7th Parliament1861–1863 John Jones Ross 1861–1867 Bleu 8th Parliament1863–1867 Confederation; Bleu
Notes
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.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