Clergy reserves
Clergy Reserves were tracts of land in Upper Canada and Lower Canada reserved for the support of "Protestant clergy" by the Constitutional Act of 1791. One-seventh of all surveyed Crown lands were set aside, totalling 2,395,687 acres (9,695 km2) and 934,052 acres (3,780 km2) respectively for each Province, and provision was made to dedicate some of those reserved lands as glebe land in support of any parsonage or rectory that may be established by the Church of England. The provincial legislatures could vary or repeal these provisions, but royal assent could not be given prior to such passed bills having been laid before both houses of the British Parliament for at least thirty days.
The first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe, interpreted "Protestant clergy" to mean the clergy of Church of England only. However, in 1823 the Law Officers of the Crown held that the Church of Scotland was also entitled to a share of the revenues under the 1791 Act. Although Lt-Governor Maitland attempted to suppress the publication of that decision, the Legislature passed resolutions the following year that recognized that church's status.
Complications in establishing leasing procedures prevented the reserve lands from being leased before 1803. Until 1819, the reserve lands were managed by the Province, and in most years they earned revenues that were barely sufficient to cover their expenses. After the Rev. John Strachan was appointed to the Executive Council of Upper Canada in 1815, he began to push for the Church of England's autonomous control of the clergy reserves on the model of the Clergy Corporation created in Lower Canada in 1817. The Clergy Corporation, of which Strachan became the chairman, was subsequently incorporated in 1819 to manage the Clergy Reserves.
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