Constitutional History of Canada - Act of Union (1840)

Act of Union (1840)

Following the publication of the Report on the Affairs of British North America, the British Parliament adopted, in June 1840, the Act of Union. The new Act, which effected the legislative union of Upper Canada and Lower Canada to form a single province named the Province of Canada, implemented the principal recommendation of John George Lambton's report, but did not grant a "responsible government" to the new political entity. Entering into force as of February 1841, the 62 articles of the Act of Union brought about the following changes:

• The provinces of Upper Canada and Lower Canada were unified to form the Province of Canada;
• The parliamentary institutions of the former provinces were abolished and replaced by a single Parliament of Canada;
• Each of the two sections of the province corresponding to the old provinces were allotted an equal number of elected representatives;
• The old electoral districts were redrawn in order to overrepresent the population of former Upper Canada and underrepresent the population of former Lower Canada;
• The candidates to the legislative elections had to prove from then on that they were the owners of a land worth at least 500 pounds sterling;
• The mandates, proclamations, laws, procedures and journals had from then on to be published and archived in the English language only;

As a result, Lower Canada and Upper Canada, with its enormous debt, were united in 1840, and French was banned in the legislature for about eight years. Eight years later, an elected and responsible government was granted. By this time, the French-speaking majority of Lower Canada had become a political minority in a unified Canada. This, as Lord Durham had recommended in his report, resulted in English political control over the French-speaking part of Canada, and ensured the colony's loyalty to the British crown. On the other hand, continual legislative deadlock between English and French led to a movement to replace unitary government with a federal one. This movement culminated in Canadian Confederation.