Nearly 60 hectares of Crown mineral rights are to be transferred to the Cowessess First Nation, along with the related surface land attaining reserve status.

The land transfer, which amounts to about 147 acres, comes through the Cowessess Treaty Land Entitlement (TLE) Settlement Agreement.

Currently, such agreements are in place between Ottawa, the province, and 36 Saskatchewan First Nations, coordinated through the province’s Government Relations Ministry, providing entitlement funding to First Nations, to buy land anywhere in the province, on a “willing buyer-willing seller” basis, and add it to their reserves.

Since 1992, the province and Ottawa have committed 687 million dollars to TLE settlements in Saskatchewan.