1 Clergy reserves

The clergy reserves were lands in Upper Canada (Ontario) and Lower Canada (Quebec) that were specifically set aside by the Constitution Act of 1791 to support the Anglican Church. Though the land was intended to support the Church of England (Anglican), the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) was granted a claim in 1824 to a portion of the clergy reserves as an “established” Church in Canada. Income from the lands gave the Anglican and Presbyterian churches economic resources unavailable to other Protestant denominations, whose members petitioned for the redistribution of the lands amongst all Protestant groups in Upper Canada. In 1840, the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada divided the profits of the clergy reserves, with half designated for the Church of England and Church of Scotland, and the remaining half to all other Protestant denominations. In 1854, the Upper and Lower Canada coalition government of Sir Allan MacNab (1798-1862) and Augustin Morin (1803-65) passed legislation that secularized the clergy reserves as Crown Lands, redirecting their profits to regional municipality funds.

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