Although at first only handful of colonists met the voting requirement, and most of those that did were tied to the HBC, the franchise was gradually extended, and the assembly began to assert demands for more control over colonial affairs, as well as criticize colonial governor Sir James Douglas's inherent conflict of interest as both governor and Hudson Bay Company's chief factor.

In an attempt to minimize the influence of the assembly he had been ordered to establish, Governor James Douglas, who described himself as "utterly averse to universal suffrage, or making population the basis of representation,"[1] set an unusually high property requirement of 20 acres (81,000 m2) for voters.

Dr. John Sebastian Helmcken, chosen as the first Speaker of the Assembly, would remain in that role until British Columbia joined Canadian Confederation in 1871.

James Yates, the Victoria publican, and Thomas Skinner, the farmer, were the voices of dissent in the assembly, always at odds with the company and its men.

Reformers such as Amor de Cosmos and Leonard McClure, who began to truly challenge the power of Douglas and his successor Arthur Edward Kennedy, continued to butt heads with establishment supporters such as George Hunter Cary, Henry Pering Pellew Crease and Robert Burnaby and William Fraser Tolmie.