Constitutional Act 1791

The two Canadas after the enactment of this act.

The act reformed the government of the Province of Quebec (1763-1791) to accommodate, amongst other Loyalists, the 10,000 United Empire Loyalists who had arrived from the United States following the American Revolution. The Province of Quebec, with a population of 145,000 French-speaking Canadiens, was divided in two when the act took effect on 26 December 1791. The largely unpopulated western half became Upper Canada (now southern Ontario) and the eastern half became Lower Canada (now southern Quebec). The names Upper and Lower Canada were given according to their location along the St. Lawrence River. Upper Canada received English law and institutions, while Lower Canada retained French civil law and institutions, including feudal land tenure and the privileges accorded to the Roman Catholic Church.

The legislative Council for the Affairs of the Province of Quebec, with its subset Executive Council cabinet, was continued and reinforced by the establishment of freeholder-elected legislative assemblies. These elected assemblies led to a form of representative government in both colonies; the Province of Quebec had not previously had a legislative assembly.

The Constitutional Act attempted to create an established church by forming the clergy reserves, that is, grants of land reserved for the support of the (Protestant) Church of England. Income from the lease or sale of these reserves, which constituted one-seventh of the territory of Upper and Lower Canada, from 1791 went exclusively to the Church of England and, from 1824 on in a complex ratio, the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland. These reserves created many difficulties in later years, making economic development difficult and creating resentment against the Anglican church, the Family Compact, and the Château Clique, although it did eventually lead to the growth of an Ottawa neighbourhood known as The Glebe. The act was problematic for both English and French speakers; the French Canadians and the Roman Catholic church in Quebec felt they might be overshadowed by Loyalist settlements and increased rights for Protestants, while the new English-speaking settlers felt the French still had too much power. However, both groups preferred the act and the institutions it created to the Quebec Act which it replaced.

Hierarchy of power under the Constitutional Act 1791.

The act is often seen 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.

• Constitutional history of Canada
• Act of Union (1840)
• Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester

• 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 III 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.