The Committee of the Privy Council have had before them a report, dated 4th April, 1941, from the Minister of National Defence, submitting as follows:—
A formal request was recently received from the United Kingdom Government with regard to the establishment in Canada of a full-scale Experimental Station for defensive measures against Gas and Chemical Warfare, to be financed and operated jointly by Canada and the United Kingdom on the basis that both capital and maintenance costs would be shared equally by the two Governments.
A survey of possible sites for such a station has been carried out in Western Canada, and a satisfactory area has been found in the vicinity of Medicine Hat, Alberta, known as the Tilley East Area.
This area comprises about 700,000 acres, of which 600,000 acres is Provincial Crown Land and 100,000 acres is patented lands, partly settled. The Province has also granted grazing and cultivation leases on about 158,000 acres of the Provincial lands.
To make the area available for use as an Experimental Station, it will be necessary to remove all the present settlers and to cancel all existing leases.
The Province of Alberta has offered to acquire all the patented lands, to remove all settlers to new locations, to cancel all leases, and to carry out all necessary negotiations, surveys and other legal procedures, and to give to the Government of Canada a 99-year lease on the entire area of about 700,000 acres, in consideration of a payment by the Dominion to the Province of $600,000.00 which is the actual cost, as estimated by the Province, of carrying out the above procedure. The Province undertakes to make the whole area available in a period of three months.
This proposal has been carefully examined by the Quartermaster-General and by the Real Estate Adviser of the Department of National Defence, who have compared it with the alternative of direct acquisition of the patented lands by the Dominion, involving arrangements for rehabilitation of settlers, cancellation of Provincial leases, surveys and other legal procedures all to be carried out by agents of the Dominion Government. They are of the opinion that the cost of these operations would certainly be more than $600,000.00, and would require a minimum of six months to complete. They have therefore, after consultation with Mr. E. L. Davies, a representative of the Director of Scientific Research under the Ministry of Supply of United Kingdom Government, reported in favour of acceptance of the offer of the Province of Alberta.
