Constitutional Act
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Constitutional Act, (1791), in Canadian history, the act of the British Parliament that repealed certain portions of the Quebec Act of 1774, under which the province of Quebec had previously been governed, and provided a new constitution for the two colonies to be called Lower Canada (the future Quebec) and Upper Canada (the future Ontario), into which the territory was divided.
After the American Revolution (1776–83), loyalist settlers entered Quebec, bringing with them a desire for representative institutions and for English common law; the British merchants in the cities of Quebec and Montreal were also clamouring for some kind of legislative assembly. Change was certainly necessary, and the act was passed by the British Parliament on June 10, 1791, and was to take effect on December 26, 1791. The new legislatures, the first in this part of what would become Canada, met in each province in 1792.
The act aimed to reproduce the general principles of the British constitution. There was to be a governor or lieutenant governor in each province representing the crown, advised by an executive council; a legislative council appointed for life by the governor; and an elected legislative assembly. The legislative authority of governor, council, and assembly was defined generously as a power to make laws “for the peace, welfare and good government” of the provinces provided that these laws were not repugnant to the act. However, bills might be disallowed by the crown in England. To the Parliament of Great Britain was reserved the right to control navigation and to regulate the external commerce of the provinces.
Two special provisions of the act showed the fear of egalitarian principles. One provided for the appropriation of crown lands (one-eighth of all future grants) “for the support and maintenance of a Protestant clergy.” This portion of the act went into effect, with unhappy consequences to Canadian politics. The other provision sought to establish a landed aristocracy with the hereditary right of being summoned to the legislative council of each province. This feudal idea remained a dead letter, being wholly unsuitable to local conditions.