Leinster was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada East, west of Montreal. It was created in 1841, and was based on the previous electoral districts of l'Assomption and La Chesnaye (or Lachenaie) in the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada. It was represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly.
The electoral district was abolished in 1854, as part of the expansion and redistribution of electoral districts that came into force that year.
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.Union Act, 1840, 3 & 4 Vict., c. 35, s. 2.
The Union Act provided that while many of the pre-existing electoral boundaries of Lower Canada and Upper Canada would continue to be used in the new Parliament, some electoral districts would be defined directly by the Union Act itself.Union Act, 1840, ss. 16, 18. Leinster was one of those new electoral districts. The Union Act merged the previous electoral districts of the County of Lachenaie and the County of L’Assomption, to create a new district, called Leinster.Union Act, 1840, s. 19.
The former districts of Lachenaie and l'Assomption had been defined by the 1829 boundaries as follows:
With the merger of those counties, the new district stretched from south-west of Montreal (now Les Moulins Regional County Municipality), north across the Saint Lawrence River to the north-west of Montreal (now the L'Assomption Regional County Municipality).
Members of the Legislative Assembly (1841–1854)
Leinster was a single-member constituency.
The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly for Leinster. 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.
Parliament MembersYears in Office Party 1st Parliament1841–1844 Jean-Moïse Raymond Anti-unionist; French-Canadian Group Jacob De Witt French-Canadian Group 2nd Parliament 1844–1847 Jacob De Witt French-Canadian Group 3rd Parliament 1848–1851 Norbert Dumas Ministerialist 4th Parliament 1851–1854 Louis-Michel Viger Ministerialist
Notes
Abolition The Leinster electoral district was abolished in 1854, when the 1853 redistribution of electoral districts came into force.
See also List of elections in the Province of Canada
References