Then-federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz (second from right) announces G3’s plan to take a majority stake in CWB in April 2015 in Winnipeg. (Dave Bedard photo)

Farmers’ CWB class action lawsuit gets certified

Suit claims federal government wrongly used farmers' money to help privatize the Wheat Board

Reading Time: 4 minutes A class action lawsuit alleging the government of Canada and G3 Canada Ltd. unlawfully used millions of farmer dollars to privatize the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) has been certified after wending its way through the courts for 10 years. Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Chris Martin delivered his written judgment Tuesday in Winnipeg, clearing the […] Read more

File photo of a G3 primary elevator. (G3.ca)

G3 planning two more Prairie elevators

Northeastern Saskatchewan, Peace sites in works

Reading Time: < 1 minute Grain handler G3 has added a pair of new grain elevators — one in Alberta’s Peace region, the other in northeastern Saskatchewan — to its drawing board. 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 […] Read more


(File photo by Dave Bedard)

CWB class-action suit a step closer to litigation

Manitoba Court of Appeal overrules lower court, allows case to seek certification

Reading Time: 3 minutes A proposed class-action lawsuit against the federal government and G3, alleging millions of dollars of farmers’ money was improperly used to privatize the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) in 2012, is a step closer to certification and litigation, says Stewart Wells, chair of the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board, which is backing the suit. The […] Read more

Saskatchewan MP David Anderson, shown here at a 2014 event hosted by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Prevention of Genocide, has announced he won’t seek re-election in October. (DavidAnderson.ca)

Former Conservative ag critic won’t run again

Reading Time: 2 minutes A former Conservative agriculture critic best known for his work on the Canadian Wheat Board file won’t return to the House of Commons after this fall’s election. 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 […] Read more


(File photo by Dave Bedard)

CWB class action suit takes step forward

Reading Time: 3 minutes A proposed class action lawsuit against the federal government and G3, alleging farmers’ money helped privatize the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB), is another step closer, says Anders Bruun, one of the lawyers working on the suit. In a written ruling released Monday, Master Shayne Berthaudin of the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench ruled against the […] Read more

G3’s lake terminal at Hamilton, Ont. (G3.ca)

G3 has a new CEO

Reading Time: < 1 minute There’s been a change at the top of Canada’s newest major grain company. 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, […] Read more


(Dave Bedard photo)

G3 expanding into Alberta market

Reading Time: 2 minutes The grain company formerly known as the Canadian Wheat Board plans to start work next month on two new elevators including its first in Alberta. 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 […] Read more

Tom Button

Editor’s Note: Even in the East, it’s good the West won

Five years after Ottawa put the last spike in the Canadian Wheat Board, farmers are showing they’re more than sharp enough to do their own marketing

Reading Time: 2 minutes Of course the optics might have been much different. If commodity prices had sunk far below the average cost of production, the West’s cartoonists would have had a field day calling for Ottawa to throw a life ring to farmers who had lost their pool. Even so, as Country Guide field editor Lisa Guenther reports […] Read more


After the CWB

After the CWB

Whether you farm in the West or East, looking at how Prairie farmers are managing their sales after five years on their own will make you a better marketer

Reading Time: 9 minutes Maybe you mourned its demise, or maybe you danced on its grave. Either way, five years after the federal government put the Canadian Wheat Board’s single desk six feet under, it’s clear there will be no resurrection. How have farmers adapted to marketing wheat without the single desk? Where are they excelling, and where not? […] Read more

Gerry Ritz won’t be coming back to the House of Commons in September. (Manitoba Co-operator photo by Shannon VanRaes)

Ex-agriculture minister Gerry Ritz quits Commons

Reading Time: 2 minutes Gerry Ritz, the federal minister for agriculture and agri-food for nine years in Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, is done with federal politics. 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.” […] Read more