Champlain (Province of Canada electoral district)

Champlain was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada East. It was on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River, with the town of Champlain being the main centre of the district.

The electoral district was established in 1841, when the Province of Canada was created by the merger of Lower Canada and Upper Canada by the Union Act, 1840. It was based on the previous electoral district of the same name for the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada.

Champlain 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 Champlain was located on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River, centred on the town of Champlain (in the current Mauricie area), and close to Trois-Rivières.

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 Champlain 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 Champlain shall be bounded on the north east by the County of Portneuf, on the south west by the River Saint Maurice, on the south east by the River Saint Lawrence, and on the north west by the northern boundary of the Province; which County so bounded comprises the Seigniories of Saint Anne and its augmentation, Sainte Marie, Batiscan, Champlain, Cap de la Magdeleine, and all the islands in the River Saint Lawrence nearest to and in front of the said county.

Elections were held at the "Ferry nearest the River Saint Lawrence on the north east of the River Batiscan."

Members of the Legislative Assembly (1841–1867)
Champlain was a single-member constituency.

The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly from Champlain. 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, splitting the Province of Canada into Quebec and Ontario. It was succeeded by electoral districts of the same name in the House of Commons of Canada and the Legislative Assembly of Quebec.