Hastings (Province of Canada electoral district)

Hastings was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada West (now Ontario). Based on Hastings County, it fronted on the Bay of Quinte on Lake Ontario and extended north. It was created in 1841, upon the establishment of the Province of Canada by the union of Upper Canada and Lower Canada.

Hastings
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

Hastings electoral district 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

Hastings electoral district was located on the north shore of the Bay of Quinte on Lake Ontario and extended north. It was based on Hastings County. The town of Belleville was the major centre.

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

That the eleventh of the said counties be hereafter called by the name of the county of Hastings; which county is to be bounded on the east by the westernmost line of the county of Lenox, on the south by the Bay of Quinte, until it meets a boundary on the easternmost line of the river Trent, thence along the said river until it intersects the rear of the ninth concession, thence by a line running north sixteen degrees west until it intersects the river Ottawa or Grand river, thence descending the said river until it meets the northwesternmost boundary of the county of Addington; and the said county of Hastings to comprehend all the islands in the said bay of Quinte and river Trent nearest to the said county, in the whole or greater part fronting the same.[3]

The boundaries had been further defined by a statute of Upper Canada in 1798:

That the townships of Sydney, Thurlow, the tract of land occupied by the Mohawks, Hungerford, Huntingdon and Rawdon, do constitute and form the County of Hastings. [4]

In 1821, the townships of Elzever, Madoc and Marmora were added to Hastings County.[5]

Members of the Legislative Assembly

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

Parliament Years Member[6] Party[7]
1st Parliament
1841–1844		 1841–1842 Robert Baldwin[note 1] Anti-unionist; Ultra-Reformer
1842–1844
(by-election)		 Edmund Murney[note 2] Tory (moderate)

Notes
  1. Vacated seat September 16, 1842, on being appointed Attorney General for Canada West, an office of profit under the Crown. Defeated in the subsequent by-election, 1842.[8]
  2. Defeated Baldwin in by-election in the autumn of 1842. Second by-election for the seat held November 4, 1843, which Murney also won.[9]

Significant elections

Hastings was an important battleground during the first Parliament of the Province of Canada. Robert Baldwin, the leader of the Reform movement in Canada West, was elected in the general election of 1841, defeating Edmund Murney, who had represented Hastings in the last Parliament of Upper Canada.

The next year, Baldwin and his political partner from Canada East, Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine both became members of the Executive Council, which was a significant step in the development of responsible government. However, the law at that time required that if a member of the Legislative Assembly took an office of profit under the Crown, they were required to vacate their seats and again stand for election. Baldwin did so, triggering a by-election.

The by-election for Hastings was held in November, 1842 and became a significant battle between the Reform group and the Tories. Edmund Murney was again the candidate for the Tories, and he defeated Baldwin, which was a major loss for the Reformers.[9] Lafontaine was able to persuade the sitting member of Rimouski in Canada East to retire, opening up the Rimouski seat. Baldwin then ran in the by-election in Rimouski and was elected in January, 1843, enabling him to re-enter the house. A second by-election was held in Hastings in the fall of 1843, which Murney also won.[9]

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.[10] It was succeeded by electoral districts of the same name in the House of Commons of Canada[11] and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.[12]

References
  1. Union Act, 1840, 3 & 4 Vict. (UK), 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 (38 Geo. III), c. 5, s. 16. 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. An Act to repeal part of an Act passed in thirty-eighth year of His late Majesty's reign, intituled, "An Act for the better division of this Province," and to make further provision for the division of the same into Counties and Districts SUC 1821 (2 Geo. IV), c. 3, s. 5.
  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. 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.
  8. Côté, Political Appointments and Elections, p. 59 note (10).
  9. Côté, Political Appointments and Elections, p. 59 notes (10), (11).
  10. British North America Act, 1867 (now the Constitution Act, 1867), s. 6.
  11. Constitution Act, 1867, s. 40, para. 2
  12. 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: An act for the better division of this province, SUC 1798, c. 5, s. XX..

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