Chambly (Province of Canada electoral district)

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

Chambly was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada East. It was created in 1841, based on the previous electoral district of the same name for the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada, for an area south of Montreal. It was represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly.

Chambly

Province of Canada electoral district
Defunct pre-Confederation electoral district
Legislature	Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada
District created	1841
District abolished	1867
First contested	1841
Last contested	1863

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

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.^[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 Chambly 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 Chambly shall be bounded on the north west by the River Saint Lawrence, on the south east by the River Richelieu or Chambly, together with all the Islands in the River Saint Lawrence, and in the River Richelieu or Chambly, nearest to the said County, and in whole or in part fronting the same, on the south west by the north east boundaries of the Seigniories of Laprairie and De Lery, and on the north east by the County of Verchères comprehending the Seigniories of Boucherville, Montarville, Longueuil, Fief Trembly, Chambly West, and the Barony of Longueuil, within the said limits.^[3]

The electoral district was located south of Montreal, in the Montérégie region. The elections were held at Longueuil.^[4]

Members of the Legislative Assembly (1841–1867)

Chambly was a single-member constituency.^[5]

The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly for Chambly. 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.^[6][7][8]

Parliament	Members		Years in Office	Party
1st Parliament 1841–1844	John Yule^[a]		1841–1843	Unionist and Government supporter
	Louis Lacoste^[b]		1843–1844 (By-election)	French-Canadian Group
2nd Parliament 1844–1847	Louis Lacoste		1844–1847	French-Canadian Group
3rd Parliament 1848–1851	Pierre Beaubien^[c]		1848–1849	French-Canadian Group
	Louis Lacoste^[d]		1849–1851 (by-election)	Ministerialist
4th Parliament 1851–1853	Louis Lacoste		1851–1853	Ministerialist
5th Parliament 1854–1857	Noël Darche		1854–1857	Rouge
6th Parliament 1858–1861	Louis Lacoste		1858–1861	Bleu
7th Parliament 1861–1863	Charles Boucher de Boucherville		1861–1867	Independent
8th Parliament 1863–1867				Confederation; Bleu

Notes

1. Resigned his seat September 22, 1843: Côté, Appointments and Elections, p. 59, note (5).
2. Elected in by-election, October 23, 1843: Côté, , Appointments and Elections, p. 59, note (6).
3. Seat vacated on appointment as Gaol Physician, July 31, 1849: Côté, Appointments and Elections, p. 60, note (90).
4. Elected in by-election, September 25, 1849: Côté, Appointments and Elections, p. 59, note (6).

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.^[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. 22.
4. 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.
5. Union Act, 1840, s. 18.
6. J.O. Côté, Political Appointments and Elections in the Province of Canada, 1841 to 1860 (Quebec: St. Michel and Darveau, 1860), pp. 43–58.
7. Québec Dictionary of Parliamentary Biography, from 1764 to the present.
8. Paul G. Cornell, Alignment of Political Groups in Canada, 1841–67 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962; reprinted in paperback 2015), pp. 93–111.
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.

  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