Beauharnois (Province of Canada electoral district)

Beauharnois was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada East, in a rural area south of Montreal. It was created for the first Parliament in 1841 and was based on the previous electoral district of the same name for the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada. It was represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly.

The electoral district was abolished in 1867, upon the creation of Canada and the province of Quebec.

Boundaries
The electoral district of Beauharnois was south of Montreal (now in the Beauharnois-Salaberry Regional County Municipality), extending south to the boundary with the United States. The town of Beauharnois was the major centre.

The Union Act, 1840, merged the two provinces of Lower Canada and Upper Canada into the Province of Canada, with a single Parliament. The separate parliaments of Lower Canada and Upper Canada were abolished. The Union Act provided that the pre-existing electoral boundaries of Lower Canada and Upper Canada would continue to be used in the new Parliament, unless altered by the Union Act itself.

The Beauharnois electoral district of Lower Canada was not altered by the Act, and therefore continued with the same boundaries which had been set by a statute of Lower Canada in 1829:

The County of Beauharnois shall be bounded on the north east by the said County of Laprairie, on the north west by the River Saint Lawrence, and on the south west and south by the southern boundary of the Province, and shall include the Grande Isle, and all the Islands nearest to the said County, and in whole or in part fronting the same; which County so bounded, comprises the Seigniory of Beauharnois, and the Townships of Hemmingford, Hinchinbrooke, and Godmanchester, and the tract of Indian lands to the west thereof, extending to the Indian Village of Saint Regis, inclusively, on the southern boundary of the Province.

Members of the Legislative Assembly (1841–1867)
Beauharnois was a single-member constituency, represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly.

The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly for Beauharnois. The party affiliations are based on the biographies of individual members given by the National Assembly of Quebec, as well as votes in the Legislative Assembly. "Party" was a fluid concept, especially during the early years of the Province of Canada.

Abolition
The district was abolished on July 1, 1867, when the British North America Act, 1867 came into force, creating Canada and splitting the Province of Canada into Quebec and Ontario. It was succeeded by electoral districts of the same name and boundaries in the House of Commons of Canada and the Legislative Assembly of Quebec.