Constitutional Act 1791
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Act of Parliament | |
Repealed by |
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Status: Repealed | |
Text of statute as originally enacted |
The Constitutional Act 1791 (
History
The act reformed the government of the
The legislative
The Constitutional Act attempted to create an
The act is often seen[by whom?] as a watershed in the development of French Canadian nationalism as it provided for a province (Lower Canada) which the French considered to be their own, separate from English-speaking Upper Canada. The disjuncture between this French-Canadian ideal of Lower Canada as a distinct, national homeland and the reality of continued Anglo-Canadian political and economic dominance of the province after 1791 led to discontent and a desire for reform among intellectual segments of the French and English of Lower Canada. The frustration of French and English Patriots over the nature of Lower Canadian political and economic life in the province fuelled the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837–38.[citation needed]
Subsequent legislative history and repeal
Most of the Constitutional Act, 1791 was repealed by the Union Act, 1840, which merged Lower Canada and Upper Canada into the new Province of Canada. The provisions which were not repealed at that time mainly related to the clergy reserves. The remaining provisions were amended from time to time, and the act was finally repealed for the purposes of British law in 1966.[1]
The act did not originally have a short title, but by custom, it became known as the Constitutional Act, 1791 in Canada. The British Parliament gave it a short title in 1896: Clergy Endowments (Canada) Act 1791. This title was based on the fact that the provisions relating to clergy endowments were the only part of the act still in force at that time. The short title is not the common name of the act in Canada. The federal government, the Supreme Court of Canada and academics continue to refer to it as the Constitutional Act, 1791.[2][3][4][5]
See also
References
- ^ Statute Law Revision Act 1966 (UK), c. 5.
- ^ Short Titles Act 1896, 59 & 60 Vict. (UK), c. 14, s. 1 and Schedule 1.
- ^ Constitutional Act, 1791, Revised Statutes of Canada 1985, App. II, No. 3.
- ^ References re Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, 2021 SCC 11.
- ^ Kennedy, W.P.M. (1918). Documents of the Canadian Constitution: 1759-1915. Toronto: Oxford University Press. p. 207.
External links
- Constitutional Act of the Province of Lower Canada. Montreal: R. Armour. 1828.
- A bill to repeal certain parts of an act, passed in the fourteenth year of His Majesty's reign, intituled "An Act for Making More Effectual Provision for the Government of the Province of Quebec, in North America", and to make further provision for the government of the said province. London. 7 March 1791.
- Anno regni Georgii III, regis Magnæ Britanniæ, Franciæ, & Hiberniæ, tricesimo primo : at the Parliament begun and holden at Westminster, the twenty-fifth day of November anno domini 1790, in the thirty-first year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord George the Third, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. : being the First Session of the Seventeenth Parliament of Great Britain. London: Charles Eyre and Andrew Strahan 1791. 1791. p. 1271.
- Statute 31 Geo 3. c. 31 (1791). The Constitutional act of the province of Lower Canada: anno regni Georgii III, regis Magnæ Britanniæ et Hiberniæ tricessimo primo : at the Parliament begun and holden at Westminster, the twenty-fifth day of November, anno Domini reign of our late sovereign Lord George the Third, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain and Ireland king, defender of the faith, &c. being the first session of the seventeenth Parliament of Great Britain. Montreal: R. Armour 1828.
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