| Ottawa County | |
| Province: | Province of Canada |
| Prov-Status: | defunct |
| Prov-Created: | 1841 |
| Prov-Abolished: | 1867 |
| Prov-Election-First: | 1841 |
| Prov-Election-Last: | 1863 |
Ottawa County was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada. It was located in Canada East (now Quebec), in the Outaouais region, on the north bank of the Ottawa River. It was created in 1841 and was based on the previous electoral district of the same name for the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada. It was represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly.
In 1853, the provincial Parliament redrew the electoral map. The boundaries for Ottawa County were altered to some extent in the new map, which came into force for the 1854 general elections.
The electoral district was abolished in 1867, upon the creation of Canada and the province of Quebec.
The Union Act, 1840, passed by the British Parliament, merged the two provinces of Lower Canada and Upper Canada into the Province of Canada, with a single Parliament. The separate parliaments of Lower Canada and Upper Canada were abolished.[1]
The Ottawa County electoral district was located in the Outaouais region in the western part of Canada East (now Quebec). The Ottawa River formed the southern boundary of the electoral district, and also the boundary with Canada West.
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 Ottawa County 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:
In 1853, the Parliament of the Province of Canada passed a new electoral map. The boundaries of Ottawa County were altered to some extent by the new map, which came into force in the general elections of 1854:
Ottawa County was a single-member constituency in the Legislative Assembly.[3] [4]
The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly from Ottawa County. 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.[5] [6] [7]
| Parliament | Members | Years in Office | Party | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Parliament 1841–1844 | Charles Dewey Day | 1841–1842 | Unionist and Government Tory | |||||
| Denis-Benjamin Papineau | 1842–1844 (by-election) | French-Canadian Group | ||||||
| 2nd Parliament 1844–1847 | Denis-Benjamin Papineau | 1844–1847 | "British" Tory | |||||
| 3rd Parliament 1848–1851 | John Egan | 1848–1854 | "English" Liberal (1848) Moderate independent (1849–1851) | |||||
| 4th Parliament 1851–1854 | "English" moderate | |||||||
| 5th Parliament 1854–1857 | Alanson Cooke | 1854–1857 | Rouge | |||||
| 6th Parliament 1858–1861 | Denis-Émery Papineau | 1858–1861 | Rouge | |||||
| 7th Parliament 1861–1863 | William McDonell Dawson | 1861–1863 | Conservative | |||||
| 8th Parliament 1863––1867 | Alonzo Wright | 1863–1867 | Confederation; Conservative | |||||
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.[8] It was succeeded by electoral districts of the same name in the House of Commons of Canada[9] and the Legislative Assembly of Quebec.[10]