CHAP. VI] THE LOWER HOUSES 475
election merely by reason of any provision of the provincial
law disqualifying from having his name on the list or from
voting—
(a) the holder of any office ; or,
(b) any person employed in any capacity in the public
service of Canada or of the province ; or,
(¢) any person belonging to or engaged in any profession,
calling, employment or occupation ; or,
(d) any one belonging to any other class of persons who,
although possessed of the qualifications generally required
by the provincial law, are, by such law, declared to be
disqualified by reason of their belonging to such class.
There are disfranchised also by chapter 9 voters who
have taken bribes. There are laid down by chapters 5,
6 and 7, Edw. VIL c. 41, electoral districts which do not
coincide with the electoral districts in force in the various
provinces. Each of these districts returns one member,
except those of Ottawa, Halifax, and Queen’s (Prince
Edward Island), which each returns two members. There
are thus 85 districts in Ontario, 65 in Quebec, 17 in Nova
Scotia, 13 in New Brunswick, 10 in Manitoba, 7 in British
Columbia, 3in Prince Edward Island, and 10 for the Province
of Saskatchewan, 7 in Alberta, and 1 for the Yukon Terri-
tory. The quorum is twenty.
In the Provinces of Canada the qualifications, which it
is hardly necessary to give at length, run on the same lines.
The franchise has always been fairly liberal from the begin-
ning, both in Canada, where it depended on an Imperial Act,
31 Geo. III. c. 31, and in the Maritime Provinces under the
Governor’s Commissions, when it was only possible to set
up a freeholder or other liberal franchise by virtue of the
prerogative. Sir J. Macdonald was a convinced adherent to a
property franchise, and it was no doubt a legitimate arrange-
ment at a time when the population was very scattered and
in consequence often illiterate. But changed times have
rendered things otherwise, and the normal franchise is now
manhood suffrage, for women’s suffrage is still unpopular
! See Houston, Constitutional Documents of Canada, pp. 11 seq. For the
New Brunswick franchise, see Hannay, i. 154; ii. 344, 345. Originally it
was given to all males, 21 years old and three months resident, but a
property franchise was created in 1791 and reduced in 1889.
