OTTAWA, Feb. 10, 2017 /CNW/ – Ensuring our provincial and territorial partners are treated fairly is fundamental to creating jobs and economic prosperity for middle-class Canadians.
Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, the Honourable Jim Carr, and Manitoba’s Minister of Growth Enterprise and Trade, the Honourable Cliff Cullen, today formally announced an agreement to transfer the Federal Soldier Settlement Board mineral rights and associated revenues from the Government of Canada to the Government of Manitoba. This agreement provides Manitoba with a payment of about $13 million for revenues generated from past oil and gas activities on these lands.
The Soldier Settlement Board was created by the Government of Canada in 1917 to assist veterans returning from the First World War to set up farms. Lands in various provinces were leased to veterans, but the federal government reserved the mineral rights beneath the land surface.
The Government leased some of these mineral rights for the production of oil and gas and collected royalties, rentals and returns associated with these leases. The 1930 agreement that transferred natural resources to the Province of Manitoba did not include the transfer of these mineral rights and revenues from the Government of Canada.
In 2015, the Governments of Canada and Manitoba began working on a transfer agreement that was signed following consultations with affected Indigenous communities in the province. Both governments consider the agreement to be fair in recognizing provincial jurisdiction over the subsurface mineral rights. The agreement also demonstrates the Government of Canada’s commitment to consulting with Indigenous communities and to working with its provincial and territorial partners to the benefit of all Canadians.
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