Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Chris Martin delivered his written judgment Tuesday in Winnipeg, clearing the way for a judge to hear the allegations on behalf of an estimated 70,000 or so western Canadian farmers who delivered grain to the wheat board’s pool accounts in 2010-11 and 2011-12.

“I think it is good news for the farmers who felt they weren’t dealt with fairly when (Agriculture Minister Gerry) Ritz and (Prime Minister Stephen) Harper were privatizing the wheat board,” Stewart Wells, a Swift Current, Sask., farmer and member of the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board, said in an interview Thursday. “The wheels of justice grind slowly but they’re still grinding.

“It’s the first major progress since the case was launched in 2012 and it’s certified so this is going to be heard in court. It’s just not going to be swept under the rug somewhere. So that’s a pretty major advancement.”

However, Wells didn’t rule out the possibility that the government and G3 will appeal Justice Martin’s decision.

An out-of-court settlement is also possible.

The Harper government government removed the CWB as the sole marketer of western Canadian wheat and barley destined for export or domestic human consumption Aug. 1, 2012.

In 2015, G3 (Global Grain Group), newly formed to subsume the CWB, agreed to invest $250.5 million and in return received the CWB’s assets from the federal government.

G3 is a joint venture firm majority-owned by the state-owned Saudi Agricultural Livestock Investment Co. (SALIC) and Bunge.

The lawsuit brought by Brookdale, Man., farmer Andrew Dennis alleges Ritz acted unlawfully by taking $150.9 million of farmers’ money from the CWB’s pool accounts to help privatize the wheat board.

One hundred and forty-five million dollars was used to triple the wheat board’s contingency fund and $5.9 million went to cover some of the transition costs.

Under the Canadian Wheat Board Act, all money collected in the CWB’s pool accounts earned from marketing farmers’ grain was required to be paid to farmers, less board operating expenses.

“What’s alleged is that Gerry Ritz… was acting illegally and not in good faith — the legal phrase is misfeasance while in public office — when he directed money to the contingency fund that we argue ought to have been paid to farmers instead,” Wells said.

“We argue that he was morally and legally wrong to be hiving off money that should have gone to the pooling accounts and been paid to farmers but instead he was trying to build up the Canadian Wheat Board as an entity so he could later on give it away to Saudi Arabia and Bunge.”

The CWB’s board of directors unanimously passed a resolution calling on the government to cover the cost of privatizing the board instead of farmers, Wells said.

“And then Ritz said in public that he would pick up all the cost, but when the (CWB’s) final annual report came out it showed that they had taken $5.9 million out of the pooling account to cover restructuring costs,” he said. “It makes no sense. It just loops back to the notion that farmers weren’t being treated fairly.”

The suit also asks for $10 million, plus interest since 2012, in damages, bringing the total compensation sought to $160.9 million, excluding interest.

“It’s not that much per individual farmer (if the suit is won),” Wells said. “It totally depends how many tonnes they (farmers) delivered to the pools in those two years, but that’s one of the reasons class actions were invented. It wouldn’t make sense for one or a very small group of farmers to take this sort of action, but it certainly makes sense to launch it as a class.”

Farmers who delivered to the pools in 2010-11 and 2011-12 are automatically part of the class action lawsuit unless they opt out, Wells said.

More information for affected farmers will be posted on a website, he added.

Wells doesn’t know when the case will be heard, but doesn’t rule out it taking another three to five years to resolve.

“They (federal government and G3) have been deliberately trying to delay this process all the way along for the last 10 years… but this is a very significant step toward getting the action certified having the representative plaintiff Andrew Dennis named in the action so he can carry it forward on behalf of all these farmers,” Wells said. “It’s a really crucial step. Without this the case couldn’t have gone anywhere.”

Wells declined to disclose how much money has been spent litigating the case so far.

“We have said all along that we are very grateful to all of the farmers that supported us when we started fundraising for this action back in very, very late 2011 and then in 2012, 2013 and 2014,” he added. ‘We wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without the support of those farmers there’s no question about that. This is truly the farmers’ action. Everybody is looking forward to the result.”

While the case is about the alleged misuse of farmers’ money, it’s also about holding government to account, Wells said.

“Cabinet, through orders-in-council, can change some things but they can never override the existing legislation,” he said. “And that’s what we are arguing happened here — that Ritz was overriding the original legislation with his orders-in-council, which in turn makes his actions illegal.

“Whether they (farmers) agreed with the wheat board being a (mandatory) marketing agency or not they still didn’t deserve to have money taken from the pooling accounts and just given to the King of Saudi Arabia and Bunge.”

After taking over the CWB, the new G3, renamed G3 Canada Ltd., was 50.1 per cent owned by SALIC and Bunge and up to 49.9 per cent potentially owned by farmers, depending on how much grain they delivered to the new firm.

Farmers were to earn $5 of G3 equity for every tonne.

G3 Canada had two shareholders — G3 Global Grain Group and the farmers’ equity trust. Farmers who deliver to CWB own units in the trust and the trust owns shares in G3 Canada Limited.

After the farmers’ equity is fully allocated, or in seven years (2022), G3 Canada Ltd. can buy the equity, but isn’t obliged to.

In 2016 Reuters reported SALIC’s ownership within G3 Global Grain Group jumped to 75 per cent from 49 per cent, according to an April 28, 2016 Bunge filing.

— Allan Dawson is a reporter for the Manitoba Co-operator at Miami, Man.

The post Farmers’ CWB class action lawsuit gets certified appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

In Winnipeg Nov. 22 Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Chris Martin heard from lawyers representing the plaintiff and defence on how the case that began almost nine years ago should proceed.

“The purpose of the process here is so that the judge can ensure that this case moves forward in a way that serves the best interest of the farmers,” Anders Bruun, one of the lawyers for plaintiff, Brookdale, Man., farmer Randy Dennis, said in an interview Nov. 23. “So our proposal has to be one that we think is in the best interests of the farmers in terms of publicity on how they can claim money (if the case is won) and so forth. That’s the test. What’s the best way to move this case forward in the interests of farmers?

“Is it best to certify as a class action instead of requiring 70,000 farmers to sue individually?”

Based on a Manitoba Court of Appeal ruling Dec. 2, 2020, Bruun said he is confident the proposed class-action lawsuit seeking more than $160 million in compensation to farmers who sold grain through the CWB pool accounts in 2010-11 and 2011-12, will be certified.

“Now it’s a question of determining what the protocol for moving the action forward is going to be,” Bruun said.

“It’s essentially, what should the terms of certification be?”

If the class-action lawsuit is certified the plaintiffs will then have to prove the federal government and G3, which took control of the CWB’s assets in 2015, misused farmers’ money.

Why it matters: If the lawsuit is certified, allegations that the Harper Conservative government misused farmers’ money to privatize the Canadian Wheat Board will be tested.

The suit alleges the federal government improperly used $151 million that should’ve gone to farmers to cover some of the costs transitioning the CWB from a statutory, single-desk wheat and barley marketer, to a private grain company.

Of the $151 million, the suit claims $145.2 million ended up in the CWB’s contingency fund and $5.9 million was withdrawn from the CWB’s pool accounts.

The CWB set up a contingency fund to cover losses that occurred when farmers opted to price grain sales outside the CWB’s pools. It was normally funded when transactions earned more than the price farmers sold at. The fund was meant to break even over time.

“In order to fund the transformation of the board to a privately held entity, the defendants engaged in a course of conduct intended to reduce payments to farmers who had sold and delivered grain to the board during the class period and to increase the monies in the contingency fund,” the lawsuit alleges.

The CWB Act didn’t allow the wheat board to use money earned from its pool accounts for anything other than covering its operating expenses.

Gerry Ritz, who was agriculture minister at the time, said the government would cover the costs of transitioning the CWB to an entity that could be acquired by a private company.

“Nevertheless, the board improperly charged $5.9 million in transition costs to the pool accounts, which reduced the amount that was available to producers upon payment of their contracts during the 2011-12 crop year,” the claim alleges.

“The plaintiff pleads that the board breached its duty of good faith to the class (farmers who delivered to the CWB) by ignoring its obligations to the producers, and by allocating money to the contingency fund that otherwise would have been paid to the pool account contract holders.”

The case is simple, Bruun said. Under the wheat board act the CWB was obliged to buy all wheat “offered by a producer for sale and delivery.”

After the CWB sold the grain farmers delivered, the earnings went into the pool accounts. The CWB deducted the costs incurred in marketing the grain and by statute was obliged to return what was left to the farmers who delivered the grain.

“The case is really that simple, which may be why we’ve seen one feeble delay tactic after another (by the federal government’s lawyers),” he said.

The Conservative government ended the CWB’s single-desk marketing authority Aug. 1, 2012.

In 2015, G3 (Global Grain Group), newly formed to subsume the CWB, agreed to invest $250.5 million and in return received the CWB’s assets from the federal government.

G3 is a joint-venture firm majority owned by the state-owned Saudi Agricultural Livestock Investment Company (SALIC) and Bunge.

After taking over the CWB, the new G3, renamed G3 Canada Limited, was 50.1 per cent owned by SALIC and Bunge and up to 49.9 per cent potentially owned by farmers, depending on how much grain they delivered to the new firm.

Farmers were to earn $5 of G3 equity for every tonne.

G3 Canada had two shareholders — G3 Global Grain Group and the farmers’ equity trust.

Farmers who deliver to CWB own units in the trust and the trust owns shares in G3 Canada Limited.

After the farmers’ equity is fully allocated, or in seven years (2022), G3 Canada Limited can buy the equity, but isn’t obliged to.

In 2016 Reuters reported SALIC’s ownership within G3 Global Grain Group jumped to 75 per cent from 49 per cent, according to an April 28, 2016 Bunge filing.

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The Winnipeg-based company announced Monday it will build new facilities at Rycroft, Alta. and Melfort, Sask., with construction starting later this year on both toward completion in early 2023.

The two elevators will each be built with 150-car loop track systems connecting to Canadian National Railway (CN) track, and will each include storage capacity for 42,000 tonnes of grain.

Other “high-efficiency features” will allow producers the ability to unload a Super-B truck in less than five minutes as well as “excellent” road access, the company said.

“G3 is keeping grain moving to market, and that means more delivery opportunities for our farmer customers, and faster service which saves farmers time and money,” G3 CEO Don Chapman said in the company’s release.

Other grain handlers with elevators at Melfort include Viterra, Richardson Pioneer and The Andersons, while Richardson, Parrish and Heimbecker, Cargill and Grain Millers Canada have facilities at Rycroft.

G3 has been on a relatively steady expansion track on the Prairies since its formation in 2015, today operating 17 Prairie grain elevators and five port terminals.

Those include elevators opened earlier this year at Vermilion, Alta. and Swift Current, Sask. In 2020 G3 opened five Alberta elevators, along with its West Coast port terminal at Vancouver. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The Manitoba Court of Appeal has overturned a lower court judge’s ruling to strike the suit.

The higher court on Wednesday “ruled that our cause of action — ‘malfeasance while in public office’ — is legitimate, and that our litigation against the federal government can continue,” Wells said Friday via email.

“The alleged offence occurred when Gerry Ritz was the minister of agriculture and the Canadian Wheat Board was being destroyed by the Harper government in 2011.”

The decision, Wells said, means “we can continue our legal process which calls for the repatriation of $150 million to farmers who were marketing wheat and barley through the CWB in 2010-11 and 2011-12. The legal action also calls for $10 million in punitive damages. With interest accruing since 2012 the total number would be in the $190 million range.”

In a phone interview, Wells said the Court of Appeal’s written ruling underscores the suit’s credibility.

“There is nothing on the record before this court to suggest that the allegations (in the suit) are bald conclusions, patently ridiculous or manifestly incapable of proof,” the Court of Appeal’s written ruling states in part.

It goes on to say the lower court judge’s decision to strike the suit “is so clearly wrong as to amount to an injustice.”

Wells said it’s unclear when the suit will go before a judge to be certified. If it is, farmers who did business with the CWB during those two crop years will be part of the action, unless they opt out.

Of the $151 million the suit claims should’ve gone to farmers who delivered to the CWB, it alleges $145.2 million ended up in the CWB’s contingency fund and $5.9 million was withdrawn from the CWB’s pool accounts. The allegations have not been tested in court.

The CWB set up a contingency fund to cover losses that occurred when farmers opted to price grain sales outside the CWB’s pools. It was funded when transactions earned more than the prices farmers at which farmers sold. The fund was meant to break even over time.

“In order to fund the transformation of the board to a privately held entity, the defendants engaged in a course of conduct intended to reduce payments to farmers who had sold and delivered grain to the board during the class period and to increase the monies in the contingency fund,” the claim alleges.

The federal CWB Act didn’t allow the wheat board to use money earned from its pool accounts for anything other than covering its operating expenses. Gerry Ritz, who was agriculture minister at the time, said the government would cover the costs of transitioning the CWB to an entity that could be acquired by a private company.

“Nevertheless, the board improperly charged $5.9 million in transition costs to the pool accounts, which reduced the amount that was available to producers upon payment of their contracts during the 2011-12 crop year,” the claim alleges.

“The plaintiff pleads that the board breached its duty of good faith to the class (farmers who delivered to the CWB) by ignoring its obligations to the producers, and by allocating money to the contingency fund that otherwise would have been paid to the pool account contract holders.”

The Conservative government ended the CWB’s single-desk marketing authority effective Aug. 1, 2012.

— Allan Dawson is a reporter with the Manitoba Co-operator at Miami, Man.

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David Anderson, MP for the southwestern Saskatchewan riding of Cypress Hills-Grasslands since 2000, announced Monday he won’t seek re-election on Oct. 21.

Anderson, 61, didn’t give a specific reason for his departure in his statement Monday, other than to say “the time has come to step down,” adding “it has been an honour to serve the people of southwest Saskatchewan and I know I will miss doing so in the future.”

Currently the secretary for human rights and religious freedom in the Conservatives’ shadow cabinet, Anderson said it’s “my expectation that Andrew Scheer and his caucus will form the next government of Canada and I give them my support and best wishes.”

Before entering federal politics, Anderson farmed at Frontier, Sask., about 170 km southwest of Swift Current.

First elected as a Canadian Alliance MP, Anderson was that party’s associate critic for agriculture, behind southern Manitoba MP Howard Hilstrom in the lead chair. He also served as critic for the CWB, a portfolio he also handled after the Alliance’s 2003 merger into the Conservatives.

During the Conservatives’ run in government under Stephen Harper, Anderson sat as parliamentary secretary for the CWB from 2006 to 2013, then as parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs from 2013 to 2015.

Following the Conservatives’ return to official Opposition in 2015, Anderson served briefly (2016-17) as the party’s lead agriculture critic under interim leader Rona Ambrose.

When the CWB’s single marketing desk for Prairie wheat and barley was deregulated in 2012, Harper hailed Anderson in a speech as having “long fought hard for marketing freedom for his fellow farmers.”

Harper also credited Anderson with spearheading the move for formal pardons for Prairie farmers charged with violating the federal CWB Act. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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From non-profit community groups to major corporations, the numbers don’t lie. If funds have been misallocated or things aren’t quite on the level, it can’t truly be hidden.

No matter how hard someone tries to cover it up, there’s always a loose end, a number that doesn’t quite add up, and a fresh set of eyes will cause that to jump out off the ledger and reveal the truth.

Some companies even force key financial staff to take vacations just to ensure some oversight.

It’s for this reason the federal government’s steadfast refusal — spanning two successive federal governments of two distinct political stripes — to provide a full and open accounting of the Canadian Wheat Board’s final year is so troubling.

In December 2014 the Globe and Mail newspaper noted the latest fulsome financial report it could find on the CWB’s website dated from 2011-12.

It noted the company was clearly up for sale, had been on a buying and building spree and was “allegedly” prosperous, but noted the choice of that word was necessary because there was no hard proof one way or the other.

Just four months later, in April of 2015, the sale of the CWB to a joint venture of Bunge Canada and Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Company (SALIC) Canada was announced. That entity paid $250 million for 50.1 per cent of the CWB, and rebranded it G3 Global Grain Group.

The remaining 49.9 would “… eventually be acquired by producer patrons of the CWB, who will receive $5 of equity for every tonne of grain sold to the CWB,” according to Martin Cash of the Winnipeg Free Press.

• Read more: [Editorial] The farmers’ (equity) trust in the CWB

Since then there’s been, from some quarters, claims that the deal was sweetened, with money owed to farmers, in an attempt to kill off the CWB once and for all.

There’s little doubt then agriculture minister Gerry Ritz wanted a deal done. It’s impossible to say for sure why, but it’s also impossible to ignore that, politically, it was an expedient solution for him.

So long as the organization remained more or less intact, it would always be a rallying point for those who sought to have the single sales desk reinstated.

Recreated as a privately controlled subsidiary of two global organizations, no such residual sway would linger.

One might think the current Liberal government would be anxious to shine a spotlight on such skulduggery. Instead it seems set on all but ignoring the issue, when not actively blocking efforts to have the numbers reviewed.

• Read more: CWB sale to be scrutinized by new Liberal government

Despite repeated requests from some groups — notably the National Farmers Union and the Canadian Wheat Board Alliance — the government has been steadfast in its reluctance to open the books.

In no small part that’s probably because if there was any wrongdoing, legal or moral, it’s going to be an expensive mistake to fix, measured in hundreds of millions of dollars.

No doubt the current government has other things it would like to spend that kind of cash on, rather than redressing something that happened under a previous government.

Slowly, however, there seems to be some movement towards a final accounting. Most recently the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench ruled against Ottawa, which was requesting the court strike the statement of claim.

• Read more: CWB class action suit takes step forward

It doesn’t necessarily mean the lawsuit will go ahead, but it is one key hurdle cleared.

The allegations in that as-yet-unproven statement of claim are interesting to all farmers who sold wheat and barley through the organization.

In simple terms, the plaintiffs allege the feds funnelled a total of $151 million to the ultimate buyers of the organization. They say $145.2 million was placed in an expanded “contingency fund” and $5.9 million was taken from pool accounts.

“In order to fund the transformation of the board to a privately held entity, the defendants engaged in a course of conduct intended to reduce payments to farmers who had sold and delivered grain to the board during the class period and to increase the monies in the contingency fund,” the statement of claim alleges.

What has been curious is the deafening silence by most farmers and farm groups on this topic. Back in the days of the single desk one could hardly go 10 days without a press release alleging wasteful mismanagement in some form. Not so today.

It’s likely most don’t want to get stuck in the quagmire of the CWB debate again, and that’s understandable. But asking for a full accounting of what went on is a far cry from going back in time.

The numbers really add up, and shouldn’t be ignored. If the numbers in the lawsuit are accurate, for each of the 70,000 farmers the CWB did business with, that equals $21,571.

Wouldn’t you like to know if that should be in your pocket?

The post Editorial: Follow the dollars appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

In a written ruling released Monday, Master Shayne Berthaudin of the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench ruled against the government’s attempt to walk away from a putative class action, which claims more than $145 million in damages owed to farmers who delivered wheat and barley to the CWB in the 2010-11 and 2011-12 crop years, along with $10 million in punitive damages.

“This ruling puts the government’s shirt in the wringer,” Stewart Wells, a farmer at Swift Current, Sask. and chair of the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board (FCWB), said in an interview Thursday.

“In the proposed class action farmers contend the former minister of agriculture, Gerry Ritz, deprived farmers of monies they should have received from the 2010 and 2011 crop years. Instead of paying farmers, we believe this money was used to sweeten the pot for whoever was going to acquire the wheat board.”

G3 Global Grain Group, a joint venture of U.S. agribusiness Bunge and Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Co. (SALIC), acquired the CWB and its assets in 2015.

The federal government’s failure to stop the lawsuit clears the way for it being certified, Bruun, a Winnipeg lawyer, said in an interview.

“We have the paperwork filed seeking certification of the class action already,” said Bruun, adding he is confident it will be approved by the court.

Bruun represents the proposed class’ representative plaintiff, Brookdale, Man. farmer Andrew Dennis, together with Jordan Goldblatt and Louis Century, Toronto-based lawyers specializing in civil litigation and class proceedings.

Of the $151 million Dennis claims should’ve gone to farmers who delivered to the CWB, he alleges $145.2 million ended up in the CWB’s contingency fund and $5.9 million was withdrawn from the CWB’s pool accounts. The allegations have not been tested in court.

The CWB set up a contingency fund to cover losses that occurred when farmers opted to price grain sales outside the CWB’s pools. It was funded when transactions earned more than the price farmers sold at. The fund was meant to break even over time.

“In order to fund the transformation of the board to a privately held entity, the defendants engaged in a course of conduct intended to reduce payments to farmers who had sold and delivered grain to the board during the class period and to increase the monies in the contingency fund,” Dennis’ statement of claim alleges.

The federal Canadian Wheat Board Act didn’t allow the wheat board to use money earned from its pool accounts for anything other than covering its operating expenses. Gerry Ritz, the federal agriculture minister at the time, said the government would cover the costs of transitioning the CWB to an entity that could be acquired by a private company.

“Nevertheless, the board improperly charged $5.9 million in transition costs to the pool accounts, which reduced the amount that was available to producers upon payment of their contracts during the 2011-2012 crop year,” the claim alleges.

“The plaintiff (Dennis) pleads that the board breached its duty of good faith to the class (farmers who delivered to the CWB) by ignoring its obligations to the producers, and by allocating money to the Contingency Fund that otherwise would have been paid to the pool account contract holders.”

‘Not reason enough’

Dennis’ claim, Berthaudin wrote, alleges regulations passed by the federal government raised the upper limit of funds that could be credited from the Contigency Fund, to $200 million from $60 million, after which $145.248 million, otherwise due to be paid to the class, was diverted to the fund.

The government’s argument behind its motion to strike out the statement of claim, Berthaudin wrote, was that the regulations passed were “statutorily authorized to be passed and are validly enacted (and thus) cannot constitute unlawful conduct.”

However, it’s “not plain and obvious to me that the plaintiff could not establish at trial that there was an unauthorized purpose behind the passage of the regulations and the flowing of funds from the pool account to the contingency fund,” he wrote in his dismissal of the government’s motion.

“More particulars may become apparent once documentary discovery has occurred, but that is not reason enough to conclude that the pleading of material facts thus far is insufficient.”

Further, Berthaudin wrote, the government’s other argument — that Dennis’ claim constitutes an abuse of process — relies on decisions from previous CWB-related proceedings, but the judge found the “underlying factual allegations” in this claim are different from those seen in previous rulings.

The judge specifically noted a 2013 Federal Court ruling which shot down most of a previous class action suit filed by Dennis and other farmers. In that ruling, the Federal Court “specifically did not strike out such claims, allowing them to proceed,” Berthaudin wrote.

FCWB, a longtime opponent of the former Conservative government’s deregulation of the CWB’s single desk marketing authority, is backing the proposed class action suit.

— Allan Dawson is a reporter for the Manitoba Co-operator at Miami, Man. Follow him at @AllanReporter on Twitter. Includes files from AGCanada.com Network staff.

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G3 Canada’s CEO Karl Gerrand left the grain company Tuesday and has been replaced by Don Chapman, the Manitoba Co-operator has learned.

G3 in 2015 purchased 50.1 per cent of the Canadian Wheat Board from the federal government and brought in Gerrand, then the managing director of Bunge Canada, as its first CEO.

Information obtained by the Co-operator says Gerrand and the company’s board of directors agreed a change in leadership was necessary.

Chapman brings more than 20 years of international grain experience to G3, according to the information received by the Co-operator.

Chapman was executive vice-president, international, for the Lansing Trade Group. He has also worked for the Vitol Group, Viterra and Toepfer International.

G3 did not immediately respond to an email seeking more information about the management change.

G3 Canada is a joint venture firm majority-owned by multinational, publicly-traded Bunge, the world’s third largest grain and food company, and by state-owned Saudi Agricultural Livestock Investment Company (SALIC).

While G3 ostensibly paid $250 million to buy CWB, the money wasn’t paid to the government and instead remained in the new company, giving the firm a book value of $500 million, the federal government said at the time.

The remaining 49.9 per cent of G3 shares were set aside as equity to be earned by farmers who deliver grain to the company. Under terms of the deal, farmers have no say in how G3 operates.

G3 has been building a number of high-throughput country elevators in Western Canada and is building an export terminal at Vancouver, expected to be the most efficient in Canada.

— Allan Dawson is a reporter for the Manitoba Co-operator at Miami, Man. Follow him at @AllanReporter on Twitter.

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G3 Canada announced Tuesday it will build a 42,000-tonne capacity elevator at Wetaskiwin in central Alberta, between Edmonton and Red Deer, and a similar-sized elevator at Maidstone, Sask., about 55 km southeast of Lloydminster.

The company said it expects to start construction at both sites in April, pending regulatory approval, and have both completed before harvest in 2019.

Winnipeg-based G3 said both sites will have capacity to unload trucks in less than five minutes, and “highly efficient” loop track systems to “load trains quickly and keep the grain moving.”

Both sites, the company said, are “well placed” to supply G3’s planned Vancouver grain export terminal when it comes online in 2020.

The Wetaskiwin elevator will be built on Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) track south of the city, whose lone grain facility is a 960-tonne capacity site owned by the Wetaskiwin Seed and Grain Co-operative. Other elevators near Wetaskiwin include Cargill and Viterra sites at Camrose, about 40 km east.

G3’s planned Maidstone elevator, meanwhile, will be built on Canadian National Railway (CN) track near the town. The nearest major grain handlers include Richardson Pioneer at Marshall, about 35 km west.

“Farmers near both new facilities will benefit from G3’s service model, providing fast truck turnaround and strong delivery opportunities,” G3 CEO Karl Gerrand said in the company’s release.

G3’s primary Prairie elevator network so far includes eight sites in Saskatchewan and three in Manitoba, plus new facilities under construction near Saskatoon and Melville, Sask., both of which were announced last March and are due to open this summer.

Formed in 2015 with the assets of the former CWB, G3 Canada is a joint venture between U.S. grain giant Bunge and SALIC Canada, the Saudi Arabian government’s ag investment arm, with a minority stake held by Class B farmer-shareholders through the Farmers Equity Trust. — AGCanada.com Network

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The MP for the western Saskatchewan riding of Battlefords-Lloydminster since 1997, Ritz announced via Twitter Thursday morning that he “will not be returning to my seat in the House of Commons this fall.” The Commons resumes sitting Sept. 18.

Ritz, who turned 66 earlier this month, didn’t give a specific reason for his departure in his brief statement. In an interview with the Manitoba Co-operator’s Allan Dawson after the 2015 election, Ritz said his wife didn’t want him to run again, but he had unfinished business on the ag file.

In Thursday’s statement, he thanked his constituents, colleagues in both the House and Senate, the civil service and staff with whom he worked as an MP and as agriculture minister.

“They have all proved themselves to be exceptional people, with the best interest of our great country Canada at heart,” he wrote.

Fellow Saskatchewan Tory MP Randy Hoback thanked Ritz via Twitter on Thursday, replying that Ritz “made being a farmer profitable and cool.” B.C. Tory MP Dan Albas tweeted that the party will miss Ritz’s “stand-up get-it-done style” in caucus.

Ritz, who lives at Brightsand Lake, about 125 km north of North Battleford, most recently served as the Conservatives’ critic for international trade under interim Tory leader Rona Ambrose. He was not on the shadow cabinet roster announced Wednesday by the party’s new leader, fellow Saskatchewan MP Andrew Scheer.

A farmer, general contractor and newspaper publisher, Ritz’s career in federal politics dates back to before the 1993 federal election, when he served as campaign manager for Elwin Hermanson, the Reform Party MP for what was then Kindersley-Lloydminster.

After the 1993 election, Ritz served as constituency co-ordinator for Hermanson. As ag minister, Ritz appointed Hermanson in 2008 to a stint as chief commissioner for the Canadian Grain Commission.

After Hermanson departed for provincial politics, Ritz ran for federal office himself, replacing Hermanson as the Reform Party MP in the 1997 election. He ran successfully under the Canadian Alliance banner in 2000 and has been the Conservative MP since 2004.

Before Harper’s Tories won government in 2006, Ritz served as the associate finance critic (1997-2000), then as associate ag critic (2000-02), deputy whip, (2001-02), public works critic (2002-03) and lead ag critic (2003-04).

After Ritz replaced Chuck Strahl as the Tories’ minister for agriculture and the Canadian Wheat Board in 2007, he oversaw a long-time Tory policy goal through to completion, leading the deregulation of the CWB’s single marketing desk for Prairie wheat and barley and the privatization of the CWB into what’s now G3 Canada.

Elsewhere on the long list of Ritz’s impacts on Canada’s ag sector, he was one of the point men in the federal response against the U.S. government’s mandatory country-of-origin labelling (COOL) law, leading to the law’s eventual repeal on beef and pork in late 2015 following years of challenges and appeals at the World Trade Organization.

Ritz, as ag minister, also helped spearhead the federal response to a massive rail freight backlog on Prairie grain, legislating mandatory minimum grain handles and expanded interswitching on Canada’s Big Two railways in 2014.

He also oversaw the government’s construction of the Growing Forward ag policy funding framework (2008-13) and its successor, GF2 (2013-18). GF and GF2, jointly funded by the federal, provincial and territorial governments, both evolved from the previous Liberal government’s repackaging of agriculture supports and risk management programming into the Agriculture Policy Framework (APF) in 2003. –– AGCanada.com Network

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