The Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada was created by the Constitutional Act of 1791. It was the elected part of the legislature for the province of Upper Canada, functioning as the lower house in the Parliament of Upper Canada. Its legislative power was subject to veto by the appointed Lieutenant Governor, Executive Council, and Legislative Council.
The first elections in Upper Canada, in which only land-owning males were permitted to vote, were held in August 1792. The first session of the Assembly's sixteen members occurred in Newark, Upper Canada on 17 September 1792. Shortly before the capital of Upper Canada was moved to York in 1796 the Assembly was dissolved and reconvended for twelve more sessions between 1797 to 1840 in modest buildings in the new capital. Members continued to be elected by land-owning males to represent counties and the larger towns.
During the War of 1812, American troops set fire to the buildings of the Assembly (the future Parliament of Canada moved to its current location at Parliament Hill in Ottawa in 1866).
Read more about Legislative Assembly Of Upper Canada: Politcial Divisions, List of Parliaments, Speakers, Changing Loyalties, Buildings Housing The Legislative Assembly
Famous quotes containing the words legislative, assembly, upper and/or canada:
“Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power vested in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, when the rule prescribes not, and not to be subject to the inconstant, unknown, arbitrary will of another man.”
—John Locke (16321704)
“There is a sacred horror about everything grand. It is easy to admire mediocrity and hills; but whatever is too lofty, a genius as well as a mountain, an assembly as well as a masterpiece, seen too near, is appalling.”
—Victor Hugo (18021885)
“I am not afraid of the priests in the long-run. Scientific method is the white ant which will slowly but surely destroy their fortifications. And the importance of scientific method in modern practical lifealways growing and increasingis the guarantee for the gradual emancipation of the ignorant upper and lower classes, the former of whom especially are the strength of the priests.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (182595)
“Canadians look down on the United States and consider it Hell. They are right to do so. Canada is to the United States what, in Dantes scheme, Limbo is to Hell.”
—Irving Layton (b. 1912)