Projected Land Base under Equity

The posession of First Nation Land is under the equity promise would amount to 19,016 square miles or 9 percent.

The amount of land under Crown control is 192,759 square miles or 91 percent of Manitoba.

Treaty Land Entitlement

Reservation land sizes in Manitoba were determined in Treaty # one (1871) by a Crown commitment to 160 acres per family of five.  All other treaties in Manitoba subsequent to Treaty # one followed the same format.   Canada refused to rely on population numbers provided by the indigenous people at the time of Treaty negotiations. They demanded a census to be taken in order to determine the size of the reservation land base..

So what is TLE?  Here's an example:

Following the treaty census, a particular First Nation is deemed to have 500 people, therefore they were entitled to have a reservation size 500 population divided (by a family of) 5 =100 families of five x 160 acres  = 16,000 acres. 

The First Nation was supposed to get land for 500 people but for whatever reason Canada only recognized a land base for 320 people.  Instead of 16,000 acres they got a reservation land base of 10,240.

The shortfall in the land base is 180 people divided by 5 x 160 acres = 5,760 acres.  So for over one hundred and twenty years the First Nation did not have use and benefit of 5,760 acres. That is what is called Treaty Land Entitlement.  It is the shortfall of acres they were supposed to get over 120 years ago.

Under the TLE agreement made with 19 First Nations in Manitoba, it will take up to 15 years to acquire the shortfall land and given the track record of Canada on land claims, even longer to convert it to reservation land status. In the meantime, (the next fifteen years) Canada and the province will still have use and benefit of over 99% of the land and resources of the land: