| Verchères Canada East | |
| Province: | Province of Canada |
| Prov-Status: | defunct |
| Prov-Created: | 1841 |
| Prov-Abolished: | 1867 |
| Prov-Election-First: | 1841 |
| Prov-Election-Last: | 1863 |
Verchères was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada East, primarily south of Montreal. It was created in 1841, based on the previous electoral district of the same name for the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada.
In 1853, the provincial Parliament redrew the electoral map. The boundaries for Verchères were altered to some extent in the new map, which came into force for the 1854 general elections.
Verchères was represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly. It was abolished in 1867, upon the creation of Canada and the province of Quebec.
Verchères electoral district was located primarily south of Montreal, on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River and bordered by the Richelieu River (now in the Montérégie administrative district).
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 Verchères 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:
In 1853, the Parliament of the Province of Canada passed a new electoral map. The boundaries of Verchères were altered to some extent by the new map, which came into force in the general elections of 1854:
Verchères was a single-member constituency.[2] [3]
The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly for Verchères. 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.[4] [5] [6]
| Parliament | Members | Years in Office | Party | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Parliament 1841–1844 | Henri Desrivières | Anti-unionist; French-Canadian Group | ||||||
| James Leslie | French-Canadian Group | |||||||
| 2nd Parliament 1844–1847 | James Leslie | "English" Liberals | ||||||
| 3rd Parliament 1848–1851 | James Leslie | "English" Liberals | ||||||
| George-Étienne Cartier | French-Canadian Group | |||||||
| 4th Parliament 1851–1854 | George-Étienne Cartier | Ministerialist | ||||||
| 5th Parliament 1854–1857 | Parti bleu | |||||||
| 6th Parliament 1858–1861 | ||||||||
| 7th Parliament 1861–1863 | Alexandre-Édouard Kierzkowski | Liberal | ||||||
| Charles-François Painchaud | Liberal-Conservative | |||||||
| 8th Parliament 1863–1867 | Félix Geoffrion | Anti-Confederation; Rouge | ||||||
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 Quebec.[9]