Rimouski was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

of the

Province of Canada The Province of Canada (or the United Province of Canada or the United Canadas) was a British colony in North America from 1841 to 1867. Its formation reflected recommendations made by John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, in the Report on th ...

, in Canada East, in the Lower-Saint Lawrence region. It was created in 1841 and was based on the previous electoral district of the same name for the

Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada The Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada was the lower house of the bicameral structure of provincial government in Lower Canada until 1838. The legislative assembly was created by the Constitutional Act of 1791. The lower house consisted of el ...

. It was represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly. The electoral district was abolished in 1867, upon the creation of

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and the province of

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

Boundaries

The '' Union Act, 1840'' merged the two provinces of

Lower Canada The Province of Lower Canada (french: province du Bas-Canada) was a British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence (1791–1841). It covered the southern portion of the current Province of Quebec an ...

and

Upper Canada The Province of Upper Canada (french: link=no, province du Haut-Canada) was a part of British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North America, formerly part of th ...

into the

, with a single

. 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 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.
/ref> The Rimouski 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 electoral district of Rimouski was thus on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence at the beginning of the Gaspé peninsula (now in the

Bas-Saint-Laurent The Bas-Saint-Laurent (Lower Saint-Lawrence), is an administrative region of Quebec located along the south shore of the lower Saint Lawrence River in Quebec. The river widens at this place, later becoming a bay that discharges into the Atlanti ...

administrative region).

Members of the Legislative Assembly

Rimouski was represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly. The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly from Rimouski.

Notes

Significant elections

In 1842,

Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine Sir Louis-Hippolyte Ménard '' dit'' La Fontaine, 1st Baronet, KCMG (October 4, 1807 – February 26, 1864) was a Canadian politician who served as the first Premier of the United Province of Canada and the first head of a responsible governmen ...

and Robert Baldwin formed the first joint ministry in the Province of Canada, and were appointed to the Executive Council by the

Governor General Governor-general (plural ''governors-general''), or governor general (plural ''governors general''), is the title of an office-holder. In the context of governors-general and former British colonies, governors-general are appointed as viceroy ...

. At that time, the law required that if members of the Legislative Assembly took a position under the Crown, the members' seats were vacated and they had to stand for re-election. Lafontaine was easily re-elected in his riding, but Baldwin was defeated in his riding of Hastings in

Canada West The Province of Canada (or the United Province of Canada or the United Canadas) was a British colony in North America from 1841 to 1867. Its formation reflected recommendations made by John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, in the Report on the ...

. To ensure his colleague could re-enter the Legislative Assembly, Lafontaine arranged for Michel Borne, the member for Rimouski, to resign his seat so Baldwin could stand for election there. (Borne was in his sixties and had infrequent attendance at Parliament.) Baldwin, an anglophone from

, was elected by the heavily francophone, but pro-reform, voters of Rimouski. The by-election was important for the success of the Lafontaine-Baldwin alliance, and also as an early step in building political parties within the Province of Canada based on common political views, rather than purely ethnic affiliations.

Abolition

The district was abolished on July 1, 1867, when the ''

British North America Act, 1867 The ''Constitution Act, 1867'' (french: Loi constitutionnelle de 1867),''The Constitution Act, 1867'', 30 & 31 Victoria (U.K.), c. 3, http://canlii.ca/t/ldsw retrieved on 2019-03-14. originally enacted as the ''British North America Act, 186 ...

'' came into force, creating

and splitting the Province of Canada into Quebec and

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

. It was succeeded by electoral districts of the same name in the House of Commons of Canada and the Legislative Assembly of Quebec.''Constitution Act, 1867'', s. 80.
/ref>

References

{{coord missing, Quebec Electoral districts of Canada East