Contents:
History of Nova Scotia in Canada
History: Cradle of Canadian Parliamentary Government
In 1713, under the Treaty of Utrecht, France ceded Nova Scotia to England but kept Île Royale (Cape Breton Island) and Île Saint-Jean (Prince Edward Island). The following year, a small British garrison was established at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, now renamed Annapolis Royal. The 2,000 Catholic, French-speaking Acadians living in the colony at the time agreed to swear an oath of allegiance containing a clause exempting them from bearing arms in the event of conflict with France. In the decades to come, despite every effort to attract them, very few colonists from New England settled in Nova Scotia, while the number of Acadians multiplied at a rapid rate. In the circumstances, the English authorities considered it imprudent to let the colony have a legislative assembly. Read more in the entry on the Nova Scotia.
Emigration
Following the War of the Austrian Succession (1744–1748), London finally decided to try to change the population makeup in Nova Scotia by encouraging emigration by non-English Protestants from Europe, mainly victims of religious wars there. Recruited mostly from Germany, but also from the Netherlands and Switzerland, about 2,600 such immigrants accompanied Colonel Edward Cornwallis, governor of Nova Scotia and founder of Halifax, when he sailed to Nova Scotia in 1749. That same year, Governor Cornwallis was given full authority to establish an elected assembly when he deemed it appropriate, but he delayed doing so indefinitely, as the colony was home to three to four times as many Acadians as Protestants.
In 1754, war broke out again between England and France. This time, the British demanded that the Acadians, who had previously remained neutral, take up arms. They refused. The British reaction was to deport them. In 1755, as their homes were burned down, about 7,000 Acadians were herded onto ships and dispersed among the Thirteen Colonies of New England and the West Indies; between 2,000 and 3,000 more met the same fate in the years that followed.
That same year, colonists from New England, particularly Massachusetts, began to settle on the land confiscated from the Acadians, while other immigrants arrived from the British Isles. Thus, on the eve of the American Revolution, Nova Scotia had about 20,000 inhabitants, nearly half of whom had come from New England, the rest being Acadians who had returned from exile or escaped deportation, or Irish, Scottish and English settlers.
The American Revolution changed the composition of Nova Scotia’s population considerably. Following the Treaty of Versailles (1783), which recognized the United States, Loyalists – people living in the United States who had remained loyal to the English Crown – fled north by the tens of thousands. An estimated 35,000 settled in Nova Scotia, more than doubling its population. This massive influx led to socio-political tensions that would last for years, but it also prompted the establishment of new Maritime colonies in 1784: New Brunswick and Cape Breton.
When the governor of Nova Scotia called the 1758 election, which would lead to the formation of the first legislative assembly in Canadian history, the population was still quite small and made up of fairly recent arrivals. The conditions for eligibility to vote, therefore, had to be more liberal than in England to yield a sufficient number of voters. With the support of his councillors, the governor declared that any Protestant age 21 or older who owned a freehold of any value could vote. In addition, however, prospective voters could be asked to swear the three oaths of state; this ensured that no Catholics would try to vote and disqualified Jews at the same time. As for women, their status was the same as that of English women. In 1759, however, the governor and his council decided to restrict the vote to freeholders owning property generating an annual revenue of 40 shillings, as in England.
The arrival of the Loyalists prompted a change in conditions of eligibility. In 1789, the legislative assembly rewrote the rules of the game. Freeholders still had to meet the criteria established in 1759, but the right to vote was extended to anyone who owned a dwelling with his land, regardless of its value; to anyone who owned at least 100 acres of land, whether farmed or not; and to anyone who occupied Crown land by virtue of an occupancy permit. Finally, the legislative assembly abolished religious discrimination in the eligibility criteria, enabling Catholics and Jews to vote. These new measures favoured urban landowners, fishermen and Loyalists, a good many of whom had only an occupancy permit.
Compared to the rules prevailing in the England of George III, those established by the Nova Scotia assembly were quite liberal – perhaps even a little too liberal. In 1797, the assembly reconsidered and tightened the rules once again. In future, those occupying Crown land by virtue of an occupancy permit would no longer have the vote, nor would freeholders who had not formally registered their property at least six months before an election; owners of 100 acres of land or more would no longer have the vote unless they were farming at least five acres of it.
It was not until 1839 that the assembly changed the rules again. It upheld the right to vote of freeholders owning property generating an annual revenue of 40 shillings but withdrew it from owners of 100 acres of land and those who owned a dwelling with their land. However, property owners who met the same conditions as freeholders could now vote. In addition, mortgagors and co-owners were now eligible to vote, as were tenants, if they owned an interest in real property that earned them at least 40 shillings annually.
Twelve years later, in 1851, Nova Scotia took the significant step of detaching the right to vote from land ownership. The assembly declared that anyone age 21 or older who had paid taxes (in any amount) in the year preceding an election could vote. In ridings where taxes were not yet collected, only freeholders with property yielding 40 shillings a year could vote. The same law stipulated, however, that no woman could vote even if she met the legal requirements regarding taxes or property. The assembly added this clause because, during an election held in 1840, a candidate in Annapolis County had tried to get some 30 women who had the necessary qualifications to vote, common law notwithstanding.
In 1854, Nova Scotia became the first colony in British North America to adopt universal male suffrage – and it would be the only one to do so before Confederation. That year, the assembly adopted a law to the effect that British subjects age 21 or older who had lived in the colony at least five years could vote. It kept the rule allowing freeholders with property generating a minimum annual revenue of 40 shillings to vote; this enabled a number of immigrants of British origin to vote even though they had not lived in the colony for five years. Like the electoral law of 1851, the 1854 act contained a restrictive clause stating that “Indians”[1] and people receiving financial assistance from the government could not vote.
Further change, more conservative this time, came a decade later: the elimination of universal suffrage and a return to more restrictive rules. In 1863, Nova Scotia limited the right to vote to British subjects at least 21 years old who owned property assessed at $150 or more, or personal and real property assessed at $300 or more. The number of eligible British subjects was expected to increase, however, at least in theory, as immigrants now had to live in the colony for only a year to be declared British subjects. [2]
Source: “A History of the Vote in Canada” (Ottawa, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, 2007)
Resources
See Also
- Elections
- Vote
Notes
- The Aboriginal peoples known today as First Nations were referred to then as “Indians” in both federal and provincial law.We use that term here only for historical accuracy and to avoid confusion in discussing the legal provisions governing the franchise.
- Such were the rules that defined the Nova Scotia electorate in August and September of 1867, when the first Canadian federal election was held.