Vaudreuil (Province of Canada electoral district)

Vaudreuil 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, based on the previous electoral district of the same name for the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada.

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

Vaudreuil
Canada East
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

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

Boundaries

Vaudreuil electoral district was located west of Montreal, between the Saint Lawrence River to the south and the Ottawa River to the north, bordering on Canada West (now in Vaudreuil-Soulanges Regional County Municipality).

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 Lower Canada electoral district of Vaudreuil was not altered by the Act. It was therefore continued with the same boundaries in the new Parliament. Those boundaries had been set by a statute of Lower Canada in 1829:

The County of Vaudreuil shall be bounded on the north and east by the River Ottawa, on the south and south east by the River Saint Lawrence, and on the south west and west by the boundary line separating that part of Lower-Canada, and Upper-Canada situate between the Saint Lawrence and the Ottawa, and shall include the Isle Perrot, and all the Islands in the said Grand or Ottawa River and in the River Saint Lawrence, nearest to the said County, and in the whole or in part fronting the same; which County so bounded, comprises the Seigniories of Vaudreuil, Rigaud, Soulanges and New Longueuil and the Township of Newton.[3]

The seigniories which composed Vaudreuil electoral district were as follows:

Members of the Legislative Assembly

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

Parliament Years Member[4] Party[5]
1st Parliament
1841–1844		 1841–1844 John Simpson Unionist; Tory

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

References
  1. Union Act, 1840, 3 & 4 Vict. (UK), c. 35, s. 2.
  2. Union Act, 1840, s. 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 (9 Geo. IV), c. 73, s. 1, para. 26.
  4. J.O. Côté, Political Appointments and Elections in the Province of Canada, 1841 to 1860, (Quebec: St. Michel and Darveau, 1860), pp. 43-58.
  5. See biographies of individual members for party affiliation: Québec Dictionary of Parliamentary Biography, from 1764 to the present.
  6. British North America Act, 1867 (now the Constitution Act, 1867), s. 6.
  7. Constitution Act, 1867, s. 40, para. 2
  8. Constitution Act, 1867, s. 80.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Statutes of Lower Canada, 13th Provincial Parliament, 2nd Session (1829), c. 74.

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