DCHP-1 Online

Lower Canada

• 1a Hist. from 1791-1841, the official name of the province lying between the Ottawa River and New Brunswick, now included in Quebec.

  See also: L.C. (def. 1)  

  • 1787  The whole of the vast province of Canada ought to be viewed as forming two grand divisions, distinguished by the names of Upper and Lower Canada.
  • 1791  (1911)  Dec. 26--This day the division of the Province of Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada, and the new constitution given to the former, was announced by proclamation.
  • 1836  Judging from the Lower Canada newspapers, which, as in other countries, are the organs of and fomenters of party and faction, we should conclude that parties are breaking up in this country.
  • 1963  In the Union there was also to be equal representation of the two sections which were the old Upper and Lower Canada, now Canada West and Canada East.

• 1b Hist. from 1841-1867, the popular name for Canada East.

  See also: Canada East  

  • 1841  The Solicitor General testified that in Upper Canada the schools educated only one in eight of the population, and that in Lower Canada there were 120,000 of the youth of both sexes who receive not the slightest description of elementary education.
  • 1863  It could not be expected that the language of "la belle France" should maintain its classified purity and beauty out here, when it does not even in Lower Canada.

• 2 since 1867, an unofficial traditional name for Quebec.

  See also: Upper Canada (def. 2)  

  • 1868  The law in Lower Canada respecting caterpillars has just been strengthened by a decision in a case brought by a party to recover damages against a neighbor who carelessly allowed caterpillars to breed in his garden.
  • 1917  If the priests of Lower Canada were, in a body, to advise their parishioners to vote for Laurier, what a howl would be raised by the press of Ontario!
  • 1966  Upper and Lower Canada came together with a head-table flourish last night amid the rocking rhythms of old Canadian folk music. . . .