The Manitoba Act, Railroad Subsidies, and Political Patronage

The transfer of Rupert's Land to the Dominion from the Hudson's Bay Company was followed by the Manitoba Act, which marked a watershed point in Canadian political development. Under the terms of the Act, all public lands and natural resources were annexed to the federal government for distribution as railroad subsidies or political patronage.

--R. T. Naylor, Industrial Development, vol. 2 of The History of Canadian Business, 1867-1914 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006), 2.