page_title: Canadian Grain Commission
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Canadian Grain Commission / History
caption_attribution_description: Canadian Grain Commission Bild &amp; Federal Bld, Main St, Winnipeg
context_page_description: The Canadian Grain Commission, also known as the CGC, is a Canadian government department responsible for regulation of the grain handling industry, to protect producers' rights and ensure the integrity of grain transactions.
context_section_description: In 1971 the Canadian Grain Commission replaced the Board of Grain Commissioners for Canada, which was created in 1912 by the Conservative government of Sir Robert Borden.  Even then it was colloquially known as the "Canadian grain commission".
  The 1912 legislation "provides that all owners and operators of elevators, warehouses and mills and certain traders in grain, shall be licensed; for supervision of the handling and storage of grain in and out of elevators, etc.; and prohibits persons operating or interested in a terminal elevator from buying or selling grain. It contains, also, provisions for inspection and grading."
  In 1922, the Davies court ruled that the criminal provisions of the CGA fell without the ambit of the "in any case whatever" section 36 provisions of the Supreme Court Act of 1906, and that therefore the legislators could and did draw up a statute which limited the power of the SCC. The defendant, a Manitoba elevator, was convicted for selling grain on commission without a licence, in contravention of section 215 of the Canada Grain Act of 1912. His conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal, which held section 215 of the Grain Act to be ultra vires of the Dominion Parliament, and the prosecution was handcuffed by the concurrence of highest court.
  In 1925, the power of the Federal government to enact a confiscatory tax scheme, whereby 'if at the end of any crop year in any terminal elevator "the total surplus of grain is found in excess of one-quarter of one per cent of the gross amount of the grain received in the elevator during the crop year" such surplus shall be sold for the benefit of the Board' was denied by the Anglin court of the Supreme Court of Canada.
  In 1971 and in the era of the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB), the power of the Federal government to declare a private grain elevator works constructed after the passage of the legislation as "works for the general advantage of Canada", thus gathering them under its control under section 92.10.c of the BNA Act, was contested in the Supreme Court of Canada. The Fauteux court ruled it be intra vires.
  In 1975, a private rapeseed elevator was declared by the Laskin court to be a "grain elevator" and thus under the control of the CGC and CWB.
  In 1980, the defendant corporation in a case of illicentious sale of grain contended in front of the Laskin court that its employee, the manager of a grain elevator, could not be compelled to testify against it by virtue of an extension of the right to silence. It failed and a trial de novo was ordered. The court held, grosso modo, that the employee was not bound to the body corporate to such an extent, and the doctrines about self-incrimination did not apply.
caption: Grain Commission building, No. 1 Northern visible in the forecourt.
exif: {"Image Tag 0x000B": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image ImageDescription": "Canadian Grain Commission Bild & Federal Bld, Main St, Winnipeg", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image Software": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image DateTime": "2020:02:19 12:18:56", "Image Artist": "Bob Linsdell", "Image Copyright": "Tel: 204-791-2734", "Image ExifOffset": "2374", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "96", "Thumbnail YResolution": "96", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4864", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "14333", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2020:02:19 12:16:18", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2020:02:19 12:16:18", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "7064", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3195", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}