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Free Land!
by Jeffrey S. Murray, Library and Archives Canada
The Dominion Lands Act of 1872 was at the heart
and soul of Canada's national policy for more than half a century. This policy
envisioned an industrialized East protected by high tariffs, selling its goods
to, and receiving the agricultural bounty of, a newly settled West. The movement
of goods and services between the two regions would be made possible by a transcontinental
railway, and paid for partly through public subsidies. The Dominion Lands Act
set the parameters within which western land could be settled and its natural
resources developed. With such a framework in place, Canada was free to solicit
European and American immigrants on a massive scale. Through the sweat and toil
of these newcomers, the undeveloped Prairie landscape would be converted into
an agricultural paradise to allow the industrialized East to compete with the
economic might of its American neighbour.
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