Document Information

Date: 1863-08-25
By: Province of Canada (Parliament)
Citation: Bill J, An Act to alter the Constitution of the Legislative Council, 1st Sess, 8th Parl, Prov C, 1863.
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WHEREAS, in and by the Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom, passed in the Session held in the seventeenth and eighteenth years of Her Majesty’s Reign, intituled, “An Act to empower the Legislature of Canada to alter the Constitution of the Legislative Council for that Province, and for other purposes,” it is, among other things, enacted, that “it shall be lawful for the Legislature of Canada, from time to time, to vary and repeal all or any of the provisions of the Act or Acts altering the Constitution of the said Legislative Council;” and whereas it is expedient to repeal so much of the Act hereinafter mentioned (by which the Constitution of the said Council has been altered) as provides for periodical elections of Members of the said Council: Therefore, Her Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council and Assembly of Canada, enacts as follows:

1. The 3rd, 8th, 15th, 17th 22nd and 23rd sections of the Act, now forming the first chapter of the Consolidated Statutes of Canada, intituled, “An Act respecting the Legislative Council,” and so much of any other section of the said Act, or of any other Act or law as provides that the Elective Members of the said Council shall be elected for eight years, or that writs of elections of Legislative Councillors shall be issued, or elections of Legislative Councillors shall be held, in every second year after the year 1870, are hereby repealed.

2. The Elective Members of the Legislative Council, elected after the date of the commencement of this Act, shall hold their seats during their natural lives, respectively, subject to the conditions contained in the Act cited in the last preceding section.

3. Every vacancy among the Elective members of the Legislative Council, at the date of the commencement of this Act, and every vacancy among them, occurring after that date, by the death, removal, resignation, or acceptance of office, of the Councillor from any Electoral Division, or by the expiration of the period for which any such Councillor was elected, shall be deemed to be an accidental vacancy, according to the intent and meaning of the twenty-first section of the said Act, and shall be filled up the election of a Member for life from the vacant Electoral Division, subject to the conditions contained in the said Act.