Act of Union (1840)

The British North America Act of 1840, known as the Act of Union, was a law passed in the British parliament that unified the legislatures of Upper and Lower Canada to form a single Province of Canada. The terms of the union, proposed by the governor-in-chief of British North America, Lord Sydenham, were most unfair to Lower Canada – equal representation for the less populous Upper Canada, the charging of its higher debt against the united province, and a permanent civil list against which the Lower Canadian assembly had long fought.