DCHP-1 Online

district

• 1 n. a large unorganized or partly organized frontier area established primarily for judicial purposes.

  See also: provisional district  provisional territory  

  • The term has been used in Canada from the start of British rule and has undergone varied modifications of specific meaning and application, the common denominator being its creation for judicial purposes. There are now both federal and provincial districts.

  • 1789  (1905)  The Scite of the county town agreed upon, you will direct the Surveyor for the district to lay out the township . . . as soon as may be.
  • 1963  Mikkie was a fine hunter of the caribou at Henik Lake in the District of Keewatin.

• 2 n. an area designated as a unit for the local administration of public schools.

  See also: school district  

  • 1811  As encouragement for the acquisition of teachers of distinguished respectability, the sum of 100 pounds is annually appropriated to each district, as a salary in part compensation for the services of its public instructor.
  • 1860  Where 40 Children reside in the District, average daily attendance should be kept at the present standard, viz. 20: and where upwards of 40, then half the number in all cases to be the standard average attendance.
  • 1958  "With this new classification put into effect the district was required to pay half of all teachers' salaries."

• 3 n. in B.C., a rural municipality; one of the administrative sub-divisions into which rural British Columbia is divided, corresponding to a township or parish in other provinces.

  • In B.C. a county is a sub-division of the province for judicial purposes only and rarely coincides with a district in boundaries.

  • 1856  "You [Sir James Douglas] are therefore for the purpose of electing the Members of such Assemblies hereby authorized to issue a proclamation declaring the number of representatives to be chosen by such freeholders to serve in the said General Assembly, and if you should see fit, dividing our said Island and its Dependencies, into Districts or Counties, Towns or Townships, and declaring the number of representatives. . . . We have divided the said Island and its dependencies into Districts as follows. . . ."
  • 1948  In the first place, each province is divided into large rural municipalities. These are known as districts in British Columbia; municipal districts in Alberta; rural municipalities in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

• 4 n. See quote.

  • 1958  Today the term "district" (or "territory") is reserved in Quebec for the partially organized areas of Abitibi, Mistassini and New Quebec (Ungava).