WHEAT IN WESTERN CANADA 127 



In Canada a different course was followed. The Gov- 

 ernment of Canada took into conference representatives 

 of the producers and also of the trade, and especially of the 

 Grain Exchange. The Government heard all that the 

 most experienced members of the Exchange had to say 

 about the marketing of grain, and, as a result of these ne- 

 gotiations, the Government of Canada, on June 11, 1917, 

 created a body called the Board of Grain Supervisors for 

 Canada^ and clothed it with certain authority by an Order- 

 in-Council under the Defense of the Eealm Act. The 

 Board, on the one hand, is not a great buying corporation 

 like the United States Grain Corporation and, on the other 

 hand, it does not usurp the functions proper of the Board 

 of Grain Commissioners. It is a regulating body not an 

 operating body. Its primary functions are: (1) to regu- 

 late the price at which grain shall be bought and sold dur- 

 ing the period of its existence, and (2) to regulate the 

 distribution of grain so that the grain will go to the Ca- 

 nadian people and the Allied powers. It has sometimes 

 been said that the Board has power to commandeer all the 

 grain in Canada. It has no such power: it cannot go to 

 the farm, for example, and commandeer the wheat there, 

 and its power to commandeer at elevators is a power to 

 enforce the price it has set. If the owner of the grain 

 that is in an elevator refuses to sell at the price set, the 

 Board has power then to take the grain at that price.^^ 



The Board of Grain Supervisors at first consisted of 

 eleven members but now consists of twelve. Six of these 

 twelve members are not members of the Winnipeg Grain 

 Exchange. Of these six, one is the President of the Ca- 

 nadian Council of Agriculture, one a member of the Board 

 of Grain Commissioners, one is the representative of the 

 unorganized farmers, two represent labor organizations in 



65 Ibid., p. 43. 



