House of Commons of Canada

“ Under the Canada Act of 1791, the provinces had each a parliament or legislature, an upper house, the Legislative Council, of nominated members, not fewer than seven in Upper and not fewer than fifteen in Lower Canada, and a lower house, the House of Assembly, sometimes called the House of Commons elected by the people, not fewer than sixteen in Upper and not fewer than fifty in Lower Canada. ”

“ Your Honorable House can, doubtless, never deem it right, that under the name of a Legislative Council, an Aristocracy should be imposed on a Country which contains no natural materials for its formation; and will rather as we venture to hope, be of opinion that the Parliament of the United Kingdom is granting to His Majesty's Canadian subjects the power of revising the Constitution under which they hold their dearest rights would adopt a liberal policy, free from all considerations of former interests and of existing prejudices ”

“ The House of Commons, the real arena of Canadian political life, is a long, high-ceilinged room, with a broad aisle extending from the door to the speaker’s dais. On each side of the aisle are rows of double desks behind which sit the two hundred and thirty-five members. Those belonging to the majority party are on the speaker’s right, and those of the opposition on his left. ”

“ There was little evidence among the speakers that they either knew or cared for the wishes of the great majority of Canadians, those of French descent: no suspicion seems to have entered into their minds that institutions which suited Englishmen might not be the best in the world for men who were not [245] of English birth: it was assumed that clever speakers in the House of Commons were better judges of the requirements of a distant British possession than the man on the spot with unrivalled knowledge of local conditions. ”

“ Prompted by these considerations, and guided by the rules of justice and of the law of nations, the British Parliament enacted, that "in all matters of controversy, relative to property and civil rights, resort should be had to the Laws of Canada." ”

“ His Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonial Department acknowledges in his Despatches, that it has frequently been admitted that the people of Canada ought to see nothing in the Institutions of the neighbouring States which they could regard with envy, and that he has yet to learn that any such feeling now exists among His Majesty's subjects in Canada; with regard to which we beg leave to represent to your Honorable House, that the neighbouring States have a form of Government very fit to prevent abuses of power, and very effective in repressing them ”

“ The recently appointed Councillors, who were taken from the majority of the Assembly, and had entertained the hope that a sufficient number of independent men, holding opinions in unison with those of the majority of the people, and of their Representatives, would be associated with them, have thus been overwhelmed by a majority hostile to the Country.
The result has been so much the more fatal, because the people naturally looked upon the Legislative Council, recomposed by the present Governor in Chief, as embodying the sentiments of the Colonial Executive ”