In 1807 Ezekiel Hart, one of the four sons of Commissary Aaron Hart, was elected to represent Three Rivers in the Legislature. He declined to be sworn in according to the usual form, “on the true faith of a Christian,” but took the oath according to the Jewish custom, on the Pentateuch, and with his head covered. At once a storm of opposition arose, due, it is said, not to religious prejudice or intolerance, but to the fact that his political opponents saw in this an opportunity of making a party gain by depriving an antagonist of his seat. After heated discussions and the formality of a trial, he was expelled, and when his constituents re-elected him, the House proposed passing a bill to put his disqualification as a Jew beyond doubt. But the governor, Sir John Craig, dissolved the Chamber before the bill could pass. After a bill, in conformity with a petition by the Jews, was passed in 1829, and sanctioned by royal proclamation in January 1831, authorizing the Jews to keep a register of births, marriages and deaths, they felt encouraged and made another attempt to secure recognition of their civil rights. When a new bill extending the same political rights to Jews as to Christians was introduced in the Legislative Assembly in March, 1831, it met with no opposition. It rapidly passed both the Assembly and the Council, and received the royal assent June 5, 1832. The Jews of Canada were thus emancipated about a quarter century before their co-religionists in the mother country. Mr. Nathan of British Columbia was the first Jewish member of the Canadian Parliament.