Dundas (Province of Canada electoral district)

Dundas was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada West, on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River east of Lake Ontario. It was created in 1841, upon the establishment of the Province of Canada by the union of Upper Canada and Lower Canada.

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

Dundas was represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly. It was abolished in 1867, upon the creation of Canada and the province of Ontario.

Boundaries

Dundas electoral district was located in Canada West (now the province of Ontario on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River, east of Lake Ontario. It was midway between Kingston and Montreal, and close to the boundary with Canada East (now the province of Quebec). It was based on the boundaries of Dundas County.

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.[1] The Union Act provided that the pre-existing electoral boundaries of Upper Canada would continue to be used in the new Parliament, unless altered by the Union Act itself.[2]

The Upper Canada electoral district of Dundas was not altered by the Act. It was therefore continued with the same boundaries in the new Parliament. Those boundaries had initially been set by a proclamation of the first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe, in 1792:

That the third of the said counties be hereafter called by the name of the county of Dundas; which county is to be bounded on the east by the westernmost boundary line of the county of Stormont, on the south by the river St. Lawrence, and on the west by the easternmost boundary line of the late township of Edwardsburgh, running north twenty-four degrees west until it intersects the Ottawa or Grand river, thence descending the said river until it meets the northwesternmost boundary of the county of Stormont. The said county of Dundas is to comprehend all the islands in the said river St. Lawrence nearest to the said county, in the whole or greater part fronting the same.[3]

The county was subsequently defined by a statute of Upper Canada in 1798:

That the townships of Williamsburg, Matilda, Mountain, and Winchester, with such of the islands in the river Saint Lawrence as are wholly or in greater part opposite thereto, do together constitute and form the county of Dundas.[4]

Since the Union Act did not change the boundaries of Dundas, the new electoral district continued to use those boundaries.

Members of the Legislative Assembly

Dundas was represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly.[2] The following were the members for Dundas.

Parliament Years Member[5] Party[6]
1st Parliament
1841–1844		 1841–1844 John Cook Unionist; Reformer

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.[7] It was succeeded by electoral districts of the same name in the House of Commons of Canada[8] and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.[9]

References
  1. Union Act, 1840, 3 & 4 Vict., c. 35, s. 2.
  2. Union Act, 1840, s. 16.
  3. Proclamation, Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, July 16, 1792; reprinted in Statutes of the Province of Upper Canada; Together with Such British Statutes, Ordinances of Quebec, and Proclamations, as Relate to the Said Province (Kingston: F. M. Hill., 1831) p. 24.
  4. An act for the Better Division of this Province, SUC 1798, c. 5, s. 3. Reprinted in The Statutes of Upper Canada to the Time of Union, Revised and Published by Authority, Vol. I - Public Acts (Toronto: Robert Stanton, Queen's Printer, 1843).
  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 Paul G. Cornell, Alignment of Political Groups in Canada, 1841-67 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962; reprinted in paperback 2015), pp. 93-111.
  7. British North America Act, 1867 (now the Constitution Act, 1867), s. 6.
  8. Constitution Act, 1867, s. 40, para. 2
  9. Constitution Act, 1867, s. 70.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Proclamation, Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, July 16, 1792
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: The Statutes of Upper Canada to the Time of Union, Revised and Published by Authority, Vol. I - Public Acts (Toronto: Robert Stanton, Queen's Printer, 1843).

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