Act of Union (1841)

The Act of Union was by and large based on the ideas about assimilation put forward by Durham, who saw in the conflict a confrontation of two races and, in Francophone society, an atrophied cultural group that hobbled Canada’s expansion.

The Act of Union was passed by the Parliament in London on July 23, 1840, and came into force on February 10, 1841. It introduced numerous reforms. The two Canadas were to become one United Canada, with one government. This United Canada was to keep the institutions established by the Constitutional Act of 1791: a governor who was answerable to the British Parliament, an executive council appointed by the Crown, a legislative council of 24 members, appointed for life, and a house of assembly of 84 members, half to be elected by Canada East and the other half by Canada West . Officially, Canada East and Canada West simply replaced the names Lower Canada and Upper Canada. In practice, however, the former names did not die quickly.

The implementation of political union, which unified the economy as well, greatly pleased the Canadian business class. However, it only made the French Canadians angry, for several clauses of the constitution humiliated them. For example, Canada East, which had a larger population than Canada West, was allotted the same number of elected representatives — a breach of the principle of democracy. The civil list was raised to 75,000 pounds per year, and elected members no longer had any control over it. Also, section 41 of the Act of Union decreed that English was to be the only official language of the country. This was the first time that England had prohibited French in a constitutional text.

The objective pursued by England in the Act of Union was clear: hammer together a British-style parliamentary system with an artificial majority, while waiting for immigration to run its course and give the British a real majority. Such a system would in all likelihood adopt policies favourable to British colonization. So it was that French Canadians began their existence as a minority.

The measures of 1841 created deep wounds. In the Québec City region, petitions called for the abolition of the Act. Some people suggested withdrawal from political life. The reaction was so intense that, in 1848, London had to recognize and accept the use of French.

At that time, the great French-Canadian champion was Sir Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine. During the rebellion, he had developed his political philosophy around the notion that political parties must be based on “opinions” instead of “origins.” He felt that social peace and prosperity would happen of their own accord once racial distinctions were rooted out of public administration and institutions were given freedom.

As a pragmatic politician who strongly denounced the discriminatory elements of the Union regime, he invited fellow French Canadians to get involved in political life. Without being aware of it, therefore, Sir Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine was urging his compatriots to take the road that was to lead to Confederation.

Law is our Passion

This entry about Act of Union has been published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 (CC BY 3.0) licence, which permits unrestricted use and reproduction, provided the author or authors of the Act of Union entry and the Encyclopedia of Law are in each case credited as the source of the Act of Union entry. Please note this CC BY licence applies to some textual content of Act of Union, and that some images and other textual or non-textual elements may be covered by special copyright arrangements. For guidance on citing Act of Union (giving attribution as required by the CC BY licence), please see below our recommendation of "Cite this Entry".

• APA
• MLA
• MLA 7
• CHICAGO
• OSCOLA

Usage Metrics

36 Views

Google Scholar: Search for Act of Union Related Content

 

Schema Summary

This entry was last updated: February 15, 2017