Haultain desired that the entire area between Manitoba and British Columbia be incorporated as a single province, due to the region's shared history and economy.
Two sections in the act as passed caused significant controversy: section 17, which constitutionally entrenched the existing rights of the religious minority in each school district, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, to establish publicly funded separate schools, with no discrimination in public funding against the separate schools, and section 21, which reserved management of public lands and natural resources to the Government of Canada.
Clifford Sifton resigned rather than support the initial draft of this provision, which he considered to be expanding the rights then in force under the territorial law.
Section 21 allowed the Government of Canada to retain control over the public lands and natural resources in the new province, unlike the situation in the older provinces, which had control over their public lands and natural resources.
[3] While the act provided for monetary transfers to compensate for the lack of resource revenue, this policy hindered the economic growth of the new province[citation needed] and became one of the original sources of western alienation.