Talk:Dominion Lands Act

So everyone knows... The Dominion Lands Act was in 1872. Someone had it as 1873. You can check history books if you want, but I learned about it in class and it's 1872.

Historical inaccuracies

There are a number of dubious statements in this article:

• the Canadian Government -- established by Confederation only five years previously -- was extremely short on funds and never provided compensation to the indigenous nations - The Numbered Treaties provided the First Nations with money, free food, horses, blankets, guns, ammunition, and undisputed ownership of land they chose for reservations. They also guaranteed hunting and fishing rights on all undeveloped Crown land, and freedom from taxes in perpetuity.
• Large-scale immigration to the prairies did not get underway until 1896 (immigrants prior to then generally preferring to live in the U.S. due to a protracted recession in Canada that followed confederation) - The population between Manitoba and the Rockies was 56,000 in 1881, the vast majority of them aboriginal, but increased to nearly 100,000 by 1891 and over 200,000 by 1901. The large increase followed completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885 because Alberta and Saskatchewan, each of which has 4 or 5 times as much farmland as Manitoba, were landlocked and largely inaccessible except by rail.
• the first version of the act set up extensive exclusion zones. Claimants were limited to areas further than 20 miles (32 km) from any railway (much of the land closer having been granted to the railways at the time of construction). - The Canadian Pacific land grant gave it all the odd-numbered sections in Townships within 24 miles of their main line, while the even-numbered sections (half of the Township) were available for homesteading. A homesteader could file on a quarter for $10, prove it up, preempt the adjacent quarter for another $10, and after that he would have to buy adjacent railroad land for $2.50/acre.
• Less than half the arable land in the West was ever to open to farmers for homesteading under the Dominion Lands Act. The Canadian Pacific Railway owned most of the rest - The CPR grant was for 25 million acres. The land given away for homesteads (according to this article) was 478,000 square kilometres, which is 118 million acres, or nearly 5 times as much.

So, I think this article needs a bit of work. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 14:22, 18 August 2014 (UTC)