Marginal note:Short title

1. This Act may be cited as the Soldier Settlement Act.

Marginal note:Definitions

2. In this Act, and in any regulations made under it, unless the context otherwise requires, the expression

“agricultural land”

• (a) “agricultural land” means land which, in the opinion of the Board, is adaptable for agricultural purposes and the value whereof for any other purpose is not greater than its value for agricultural purposes;

“block”

• (b) “block” means a parcel or parcels of land owned within a settlement area by any person, and whether or not the parcels are contiguous the one to the other, but including only the parcels any part of any one whereof is situated within three miles from any part of another of them;

“Board”

• (c) “Board” means the Director of Soldier Settlement;

“Commissioner of the Board”

• (cc) “Commissioner of the Board” means the Director of Soldier Settlement;

“Court”

• (d) “Court” means the Federal Court of Canada;

“district superintendent”

• (e) “district superintendent” means a person appointed as such by the Board;

“Dominion lands”

• (f) “Dominion lands” means any lands owned or held by the Dominion of Canada, excepting Indian or School Lands;

“former Act”

• (g) “former Act” means The Soldier Settlement Act, 1917;

“gazetted”

• (h) “gazetted” means published in the Canada Gazette;

“land” or “lands”

• (i) “land” or “lands” includes granted or ungranted, Dominion, provincial or private lands, and real or immovable property, messuages, lands, tenements and hereditaments of any tenure, and real rights, easements and servitudes, streams, watercourses, waters, roads and ways, and all rights or interests in, or over, or arising out of, and all charges upon, land or lands as herein defined;

“military” and “military forces”

• (j) “military” and “military forces” include “naval” and “naval forces”;

“Minister”

• (k) “Minister” means the Minister of Veterans Affairs;

“owner”

• (l) “owner” includes a person holding private land in fee simple, and a person who, being trustee, executor, administrator, life tenant, mortgagee or otherwise, has the legal power to will or convey, whether with or without the consent or approval of a court or of any person having any estate or interest, such land to be held in fee simple or by a person as the owner thereof;

“permanent improvements” and “improvements”

• (m) “permanent improvements” and “improvements” includes buildings;

“private land”

• (n) “private land” means any land which has been alienated by the Crown;

“property”

• (o) “property” includes land, as herein defined, and goods, chattels real and personal, and personal or movable property, and all rights or interests in, or over, or arising out of, and all charges upon, property as herein defined;

“Registrar of Deeds” or “Registrar”

• (p) “Registrar of Deeds” or “Registrar” includes the registrar of land titles, or other officer, with whom, according to the law of a province, title to land is registered;

“Registry of Deeds”

• (q) “Registry of Deeds” or other words descriptive of the office of a registrar of deeds, includes the land titles office, or other office in which, according to the law of a province, title to land is registered;

“settlement area”

• (r) “settlement area” means an area of land in any part of Canada, so designated, and defined as this Act requires by the Board, within which the Board exercises or proposes to exercise, its power of compulsorily purchasing lands;

“settler”

• “settler” to mean male member only of certain military forces

  (s) “settler” to mean male member only of certain military forces means a person who at any time during the war has been therein engaged on active service in a military force

  • (i) of Canada and has served out of Canada; or wherever he may have served, is, by reason of disability incurred or aggravated as the result of such service, in receipt of a pension, or

  • (ii) of His Majesty or of any of His Majesty’s Allies and, being ordinarily resident in Canada when he enlisted in or otherwise became a member of such force, has served thereafter out of Canada, in a theatre of actual war, or

  • (iii) of His Majesty or of any British Dominion or Colony and has served out of the country wherein he enlisted or otherwise became a member of such force in a theatre of actual war;

  and has been otherwise than dishonourably discharged from such force, or has been permitted honourably to resign or retire therefrom, or, without fault on his part, has been dispensed from further service therein; and the widow of any person who died on active service and who, but for his death, might be a settler as now defined, shall be capable of being a settler in her deceased husband’s right: Provided that, notwithstanding anything in this Act, settlers of the class numbered (iii) in this definition may be required by the Board to provide a larger cash down payment in case of purchase of property from the Board or to provide greater or other security in case of an advance or loan received from the Board, than is by this Act authorized or required with respect to settlers generally; Provided further that the word “settler” as applicable to the class of persons numbered (iii) in this definition shall be deemed to include male settlers only;

“soldier grant”

• (t) “soldier grant” means a free entry on Dominion lands, granted by the Minister to a settler recommended by the Board;

“special settler”

• (u) “special settler” means a settler as defined in this section, who, in the opinion of the Board, has had adequate and successful farming experience in Canada, and who is possessed of qualifications or equipment which, in the opinion of the Board, specially fit him for success as a farmer;

“standard date”

• (v) “standard date” means the first day of October in Manitoba and the provinces west thereof, and the first day of November in the provinces east of Manitoba;

“this Act” and “Act” and “former Act”

• (w) “this Act” and “Act” and “former Act” includes regulations lawfully made thereunder;

“the war”

• (x) “the war” means the war declared by His Majesty on the fourth day of August, one thousand nine hundred and fourteen, against the Empire of Germany and, subsequently, against other powers.