Revised Acts and Ordinances of Lower-Canada.

“An Act to Declare Persons Professing the Jewish Religion, Entitled to all the Rights and Privileges of the other Subjects of His Majesty in this Province.” Enacted in 1831-2, the first year of the reign of King William IV, the Act is cited as I Will IV Cap. 57 and appears here on p. 33. This notable piece of legislation reads in its entirety: “Whereas doubts have arisen whether persons professing the Jewish Religion are, by law, entitled to many of the privileges enjoyed by the other subjects of His Majesty within this Province: Be it therefore enacted that all persons professing the Jewish Religion being natural-born British subjects inhabiting and residing in this Province, are entitled and shall be deemed, adjudged and taken to be entitled to the full rights and privileges of the other subjects of His Majesty, his Heirs or Successors, to all intents, constructions and purposes whatsoever, and capable of taking, having and enjoying any office or place of trust whatsoever, within this Province.” Also enacted and appearing on pp. 622-23 of this volume, the right was granted to Jews to have “fit and proper places of worship and of burial.” Rabbis were also granted the privilege of keeping their own register of births, marriages and burials of their member-communities. If the intention of such legislation was to encourage Jewish migration to British Canada to help erode the French-identified Catholic majority, it had only limited success. In 1831 there were only 107 Jews in Lower Canada and 50 years later, in 1881, just 2,393 in the whole country. It took not political emancipation but the pogroms in Russia to meaningfully develop the Jewish population of Canada, such that by 1920 it exceeded 125,000 Jews.