This influx of Loyalist, who were use to representative government, caused a great turmoil in Upper Canada. "Loyalist were. . . uncomfortable with a constitutional system lacking any representative branch, the strange condition they found when they settled in Canada." This unrest led to the creation of the Canada Act of 1791 and to the creation of Upper and Lower Canada. The Canada Act of 1791 provided for a governor, advised by a small executive council and a two-chambered legislature, made up of a legislative council that was to be appointed from among the wealthier colonists and an assembly that was to be elected. At the same time, the colony was divided, roughly along the lines of the Ottawa river. "The British reorganized this old colony of Quebec by splitting it into two separate colonies." In the lower province, along the banks of the St. Lawrence, where French Canadians were concentrated, the rights to language, civil law, and religion conferred by the Quebec Act were continued. "The Quebec Act of 1774. . . established the right of French Canadians to retain their language and religion. . . it implicitly recognized the cultural and linguistic differences in British North America." The upper province, settled largely by loyalist refugees from the United States, retained the English common law.
For the next half century the constitutional evolution in the British North American provinces moved gradually towards the direction of increased self-government. In the first stage of this movement towards self-government a reprise of the struggles of the 18th century American colonies for greater legislative control over finance as a roundabout way to influence policy would emerge, but in time the principal target was to shape the executive-legislative relations along the lines of the British cabinet system. "The heart of the matter still was how to bring the executive and the assembly into a working relationship that corresponded to the relationship of crown ministers and Parliament in Britain.