The records in this fonds have undergone a number of intellectual rearrangements during their custody in Library and Archives Canada. The records that were transferred from the Privy Council Office in 1907 were initially designated the "E Series". The "E Series" included not only records relating to the Executive Council of the Province of Lower Canada but also records relating to the Executive Councils of the colonies of Quebec, Upper Canada, and Canada. The description of the records of the Councils of the four colonies was subsequently further refined with the division of their records, according to the functions of "state" and "land" activities, into an E Series (state) and an L Series (land). Other records relating to the functions of the Councils of the four colonies which were acquired from the Secretary of State and from the Office of the Governor General were initially included in the "S Series" and the "G Series", respectively. Some transfers were effected amongst the E, S and G Series prior to 1950.
In 1950 the record group system of description was introduced into Library and Archives Canada. The records of the Councils of the four colonies were collectively designated "Record Group (RG) 1" within this system and the intellectual arrangement structure was formalized in the publication of an inventory titled Public Archives of Canada - Manuscript Division - Preliminary Inventory - Record Group 1, Executive Council, Canada, 1764-1867 (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1953). This intellectual arrangement schema reflected a broad division of the functions of the Executive Council into State and Land matters, distinguishing the records of each of the two functions by means of separate series and separate alphabetic prefixes (E or L) attached to series numbers (e.g., E1-State Minute Books series; L1-Land Minute Books series). Research to date has not uncovered a full explanation as to why this particular intellectual arrangement structure was devised.
It was recognized at that time that some compromises were required in the intellectual arrangement, for practical reasons. For example, the 1953 Inventory explained: "The records were organized as E Series (State Records) and L Series (Land Records). Although the basic principles of this organization differ considerably from those now followed for the record group system, it has been decided that a reorganization should not be attempted because of the numerous published references to both series.... The designation E or L before the series number has been retained as a further indication that the series have not been reorganized but are described together as component parts of the one record group."
Even more problematic for the archivists trying to discern original order and provenance in the early 1950s was the physical inter-mingling of records. As the 1953 Inventory explains, although the minute books for the Councils of Quebec and Lower Canada had been kept separate, transferred to the Privy Council at Confederation, and transferred to the Archives from the Privy Council Office in 1907, the other records of the Councils of Quebec and Lower Canada had had a more convoluted history. They had been filed together, at some point in the past, with the records of the civil and provincial secretaries in Quebec and Lower Canada. As the successor to the civil and provincial secretaries, after Confederation, the Secretary of State of Canada fell heir to their records. When the records of the civil and provincial secretaries were transferred to Archives in 1906 from the Office of the Secretary of State, they were found to contain many documents created or accumulated by the Executive Council Office of the Province of Lower Canada. Among these, the land records and those state records relating to public accounts had been maintained as separate identifiable units and it was possible to re-unite them with the Council minute books in RG 1. However, the rest of the state records were so interfiled with the correspondence of both the civil and provincial secretaries that it was impossible to separate them and to re-unite them with the other Council records in RG 1. Consequently these records were left with the records of the civil and provincial secretaries in what became known as Record Group 4 (Records of the Civil and Provincial Secretaries, Quebec, Lower Canada and Canada East, 1762-1867).
The intellectual arrangement structure introduced with the inauguration of the record group system in 1950 remained in place until 2002-2003. Following the adoption of the archival fonds concept by the National Archives it was decided to attempt a new intellectual arrangement for the records of RG 1. Record Group 1 brought together the Council records of the four colonies largely according to record type (minute books, draft minute books, submissions, etc.) into series irrespective of geo-political divisions. In the most recent intellectual re-arrangement, it was decided to abandon this schema in favor of one which respects the geo-political reality - that there were four distinct colonies (Quebec, Lower Canada, Upper Canada, and Canada) each with its own Councils. There was not a single "Executive Council" throughout the period of the British colonial regime.
The arrangement schema presented here, then, is the result of an attempt to dismantle the intellectual arrangement structure that has existed for five decades and replace it with one based on four separate offices of records creation. A single Record Group has been converted into four fonds: the Executive Council Office of the Province of Lower Canada; the Councils of the Province of Quebec; the Executive Council Office of the Province of Upper Canada; and the Executive Council Office of the Province of Canada. Moreover, given the decision to undertake a major intellectual re-arrangement within the existing Record Group 1, it was also decided to take the opportunity to attempt to bring together those records which had, over the decades, been found to be astray from RG 1 and described within other record groups. There are instances in which records which were linked to other record groups (especially Records of the Civil and Provincial Secretaries, Quebec, Lower Canada and Canada East - RG 4) were known to belong with the records of the Executive Council. These records are now being linked, to the extent possible, to whichever of the four "new" fonds they relate.
Because of the inconsistent manner in which successor entities dealt with records inherited from predecessor entities, to say nothing of the arrangement decisions taken over the years which now obscure original order, it is recognized that the schema presented here remains a "work in progress". Provenance and original order cannot always be re-created and some pragmatic compromises have had to be made. These are explained in the relevant series level descriptions. Intellectual arrangement of the records in this fonds will continue to evolve as investigation continues into the inter-relationships among the records.
