John Collier Underhay (15 January 1829 – 23 October 1919[1]) was a farmer, land surveyor and political figure in Prince Edward Island.
Despite these alleged inaccuracies, McLeod concurred that previous sessions of the House of Assembly had "found that an official report was absolutely necessary, as they never could hold the then Opposition members to the statements which they had made in the course of debate without such a record."
"[3] Neil McLeod, however, preferred an alternate publication because of the absence of many, but by no means all, financial records and speeches by Liberal representatives in the Parliamentary Reporter.
Liberal delegates retorted that Conservatives had made accusations of similar omissions prior to "amalgamation" bills, further denied any collusion with editor William Crosskill in source deletions, and then defeated Underhay's proposal.
Passages from the first edition as well as "rewritten" contentions and "facts" warrant critical examination, especially those on leaseholding, the persistence of "practically universal suffrage" after 1893, agriculture, oyster mussel mud digging, the educational system, and Gaelic as well as French Acadian populations.
[4] Legislative reporter Frank H. Risteen's four editions of The Celestial City was another contemporaneous example, published after General Assembly debates over unicameralism in the capital of New Brunswick.
Risteen's depiction of Fredericton and wider New Brunswick infrastructure, ecologies, and commerce warrant critical examination, especially his passages on "a town of 2,500 inhabitants owned and controlled by one man more absolutely than the Czar of Russia controls his vast domains; but the reign of this industrial Alexander is a beneficient one; his subjects are contented and law-abiding, and Marysville is in all respects a model community.