See fonds level description of RG 4 for history/bio of MPE
Scope and Content
This sub-series consists of records produced by MPE meeting and workshops:
1-7b Spring and Annual Meetings 1988-1998
8 Annual Meeting Agendas 1931-1967
9a-9e Resolutions 1988-1998
10 Information for New Delegates
11 Board and Management Meeting 1997
12 Local Association Meetings 1998 (regarding transition to Agricore)
13. Sunrise / Sunset (transition to Agricore) 1998
14. Spouses Program 1995
15. Miscellaneous Meetings 1993-1995
16. New Committee Members Workshop March 2-3 1998
17. Report of Committee Appointed by Meeting of Representatives of the Provincial Pools & the Farmers Companies February 2 1925
See fonds level description of RG 4 for history/bio of MPE
Scope and Content
This sub-series consists of records from various clubs and departments of MPE:
1 Minto Canola Club 1986
2 4-H Careers
3 Pool Co-operative Seed Association 1966-1967
4a Field Pea and Oat Variety Development Annual Reports 1988-1990
4b. Field Pea and Oat Variety Development Annual Reports 1991, 1992, 1994
This box contains correspondence to the secretaries of locals, memorandums, resolutions, questionnaires and general corresponce. The records include the following:
1. Correspondence to Secretaries of Locals June 30 1924 – July 16 1929
2. Correspondence to Secretaries of Locals July 19 1929 – Sept 28 1931
3a. Correspondence to Secretaries of Locals Oct 16 1931 – Jan 26 1940
3b. Correspondence to Secretaries of Locals Jan 29 1940 – Nov 26 1942
4. Correspondence to Secretaries of Locals Jan 7 1943 – Nov 3 1948
5. Correspondence to Secretaries of Locals Dec 1948 – August 4 1953
6. Correspondence to Secretaries of Locals Sept 21 1953 – Oct 21 1959
7a. Correspondence to Secretaries of Locals Jan 6 1960 – March 2 1964
7b. Correspondence to Secretaries of Locals March 11 1964 – Nov 12 1968
8a. Correspondence to Secretaries of Locals Sept 23 1968 – Dec 3 1970
9a. Correspondence to Secretaries of Locals June 22 1973 – July 11 1975
9b. Correspondence to Secretaries of Locals July 25 1975 – Dec 1979
10. Memorandums 1926 – 1974
11. Resolutions 1927 – 1956
12. Resolutions 1957 – 1974
13. Questionnaires 1941; 1949; 1954; 1963; 1967
14a. General Correspondence Feb 14 1925 – May 7 1931
14b. General Correspondence July 3 1931 – Dec 1954
See fonds level description of RG 4 for history/bio of MPE
Scope and Content
This sub-series consists of summaries of elevator operations. The records include the following:
Box 1:
Summary of Operations 1925-1968 Alexander-Gretna
Summary of Operations 1925-1968 Hamiota-Morris
Summary of Operations 1925-1968 Napinka-Woodnorth
Box 2:
Association Financial and Debt Repayment Summary 1925-1963
Association Financial and Debt Repayment Summary 1925-1963
Box 3:
Summary of Operations 1964-1968
Summary of Operations 1964-1968
Summary of Operations 1964-1968
Box 4:
Summary of Operations A-K 1925-1996
Summary of Operations L-Z 1925-1996
Elevator Points Closed A-L 1926-1987
Elevator Points Closed M-Z 1926-1987
See fonds level description of RG 4 for history/bio of MPE
Scope and Content
This sub-series consists of MPE's involvement in four different inter-provincial committees: Canadian Co-operative Wheat Producers, Inter-provincial Co-operative Ltd, Inter-provincial Pool Board, and Canadian Pool Agencies. The records include the following:
Box 1:
Canadian Co-operative Wheat Producers Minute Book 1924-1944
Canadian Co-operative Wheat Producers / Prairie Pools Minute Book 1945-1983
1a. Inter-provincial Co-operative Ltd. 1966-1979
1b. Inter-provincial Co-operative Ltd. 1965-1979
1c. Inter-provincial Co-operative Ltd. meeting in Toronto Sept 25 1979
1d. Inter-provincial Co-operative Ltd. By-laws 1960-1963
2a. Inter-provincial Pool Board Minutes 1971-1983
2b. Inter-provincial Pool Board Minutes & By-laws 1971-1983
2c. Inter-provincial Co-operative Limited Board and Annual Meeting Minutes 1980, 1982
3a. Co-operative Union of Manitoba Organizing Documents and Minutes 1953-1964
3b. Co-operative Union of Manitoba Minutes March 31 1959 - June 16 1966
4. POS Pilot Plant 1973 - 1975
Box 2:
Inter-provincial Pool Board Minute Book 1945-1984
Canadian Co-operative Wheat Producers Limited / Canadian Pool Agencies Limited Minute Book 1924-1944
Canadian Pool Agencies Limited Minute Book 1945-1980
5. Co-operative Crop Development Group Constitution and Annual Reports 1984-1993
6. Prairie Pools Inc. Directors Reports 1985-1986
Notes
Description by Jillian Sutherland (2009)
Documents for the Canadian Co-operative Wheat Producers can be found in MPE B.2
See fonds level description of RG 4 for history/bio of MPE
Scope and Content
This sub-series consists of financial records of the central office of MPE:
1-7 Audited Financial Statements 1968-1997
8-9 Capital Budgets 1979-1997
10. Annual Returns
11. Miscellaneous Financial
12. General Expenses 1930-1977
See fonds level description of RG 4 for history/bio of MPE
Scope and Content
This sub-series consists of records concerning the organization, democratic structure and various policies of MPE:
1 Branch Line Abandonment March 1970
2 Rail Line Abandonment 1978-1979
3 Grain Transportation 1969-1975
4 Elevator Statistics by Rail Line 1971-1973
5-7b Democratic Structure Review
8 Amalgamation 1988
The Manitoba Wheat Pool and Manitoba Pool Elevators kept and preserved a chronological record of the meetings of the MPE Board of Directors and annual delegate meetings. The minutes were typed and bound, then placed in the MPE reference library so that employees and members could access them.
Scope and Content
This sub-series consists of minutes of organizational meetings and later meetings held by the Central Office of the Manitoba Wheat Co-operative Producers, Ltd (later known as the Manitoba Wheat Pool) from 1923 until it went under in 1934, and of meetings held by the central office of Manitoba Pool Elevators from 1925 until 1997.
See fonds level description of RG 4 for history/bio of MPE.
Scope and Content
Sub-series MPE B.4 consists of local association financial statements.The statements are bound in uniform hardcover volumes. The statements is organized chronologically, and alphabetically by local association name within each individual year.
The records for each individual local's fiscal year consists of: 1) letter of certification from the auditors; 2) summary of income and expenses of said local association.
This box contains general circulars sent out by the MPE central office to the local ssociations. The records include the following:
1. General Circulars 1926-27
2a. General Circulars 1928
2b. General Circulars 1928
3a. General Circulars 1929
3b. General Circulars 1929
4a. General Circulars 1930
4b. General Circulars 1930
5a. General Circulars 1931
This box contains general circulars sent out by the MPE central office to the local ssociations. The records include the following:
5b. General Circulars 1931
6a. General Circulars 1932
6b. General Circulars 1932
7. General Circulars 1933
8. General Circulars 1934
9. General Circulars 1935
10. General Circulars 1936
11a. General Circulars 1937
11b. General Circulars 1937
This box contains general circulars sent out by the MPE central office to the local ssociations. The records include the following:
12a. General Circulars 1938
12b. General Circulars 1938
13. General Circulars 1939
14a. General Circulars 1940
14b. General Circulars 1940
15a. General Circulars 1941
15b. General Circulars 1941
16. General Circulars 1942
17a. General Circulars 1943
17b. General Circulars 1943
This box contains general circulars sent out by the MPE central office to the local ssociations. The records include the following:
18. General Circulars 1944
19. General Circulars 1945
20. General Circulars 1946
21. General Circulars 1947
22. General Circulars 1948
23. General Circulars 1949
24. General Circulars 1950
25. General Circulars 1951
26. General Circulars 1952
27. General Circulars 1953
28. General Circulars 1954
29. General Circulars 1955
30. General Circulars 1956
31. General Circulars 1957
This box contains general circulars sent out by the MPE central office to the local ssociations. The records include the following:
32. General Circulars 1958
33. General Circulars 1959
34a. General Circulars 1960
34b. General Circulars 1960
35. General Circulars 1961
36. General Circulars 1962
37a. General Circulars 1963
37b. General Circulars 1963
38a. General Circulars 1964
38b. General Circulars 1964
This box contains general and special circulars sent out by the MPE central office to the local ssociations. The records include the following:
39. General Circulars 1965
40. General Circulars 1966
41. General Circulars 1967
42. General Circulars 1968
43. General Circulars 1969
44. General Circulars 1970-1979
45. Special Circulars 1926-1939
46. Special Circulars 1940-1949
47a. Special Circulars 1950-1952
47b. Special Circulars 1952-1959
48a. Special Circulars 1960-1969
48b. Special Circulars 1960-1969
This box contains special and farm supply circulars sent out by the MPE central office to the local ssociations. The records include the following:
48c. Special Circulars 1960-1969
48d. Special Circulars 1960-1969
48e. Special Circulars 1960-1969
48f. Special Circulars 1960-1969
49a. Special Circulars 1970-1976
49b. Special Circulars 1970-1976
50. Special Circulars 1973-1974
51a. Farm Supply Circulars 1963-1969
51b. Farm Supply Circulars 1963-1969
The forerunner of Manitoba Pool Elevators (MPE), the Manitoba Wheat Pool was created in 1924 as a mechanism to allow for the co-operative marketing of wheat by Manitoba producers by the United Farmers of Manitoba. The Manitoba Wheat Pool was initially intended to be a provisional organization until the establishment of an interprovincial Pool, but when Alberta and Saskatchewan established their own permanent Pools the United Farmers decided to do the same. The Manitoba Pool was different from the SK and AB Pools in that the municipality was the primary unit of organization; members belonged to their municipal Pool associations first, rather than having direct membership with the central Manitoba Wheat Pool. Manitoba Pool Elevators was established in 1925 as a subsidiary of the Pool in response to local members complaints about the unfair business practices of privately owned elevators. The private elevators also slowed up the shipment of grain to the Central Selling Agency employed by the Wheat Pool, acting as a barrier between the local Pools and the Manitoba Wheat Pool. Once established MPE quickly began to build new elevators and aquire privately owned elevators.
MPE's approach to marketing grain promised to stabilize the market price of grain and ensure a fair market price to producers. Initially the Manitoba Wheat Pool was very successful. However, in 1930, the Manitoba Wheat Pool found itself burdened with an unsold surplus from the preceding year that had been bought from the farmers at a price that was significantly higher than any possible return during the Depression. As a result, in 1931 the Manitoba Wheat Pool's Central Selling Agency defaulted on its bank loans. Despite attempts to save the organization, it was forced to declare bankruptcy in November 1932. The financial difficulties of the Wheat Pool had little to no effect on the Pool Elevators, and so this former subsidiary organization became the main Manitoba Pool organization. This change meant MPE had to reorganize, which they were able to do with funds from the provincial government. The company was successful enough in subsequent years that it was able to finish repaying the Manitoba government a full year early in 1949.
MPE did not limit itself to grain handling; they wished to enrich the lives of rural families through education and to provide economic stability through diversification.
MPE established a lending reference library for members and a traveling library for rural families in 1926. With the passing of the Public Libraries Act in 1948, the province took over responsibility for providing rural families with books. MPE decided that since their traveling library would no longer be needed when rural libraries were established, the best course of action was to donate their library to the Provincial government. They also established and supported programs that educated young people about agriculture and ag business.
Subsidiary companies that dealt with course grains, livestock, packing and fertilizer were established by MPE to streamline and stabilize business for its members.
1961 marked the high water mark for the number of local associations within Manitoba Pool Elevators with 225 local associations. After this date the associations began to amalgamate and consolidate. Improvements in rural roads and rail systems and increases in the size of farms and mechanization of farm labour meant that fewer elevators were needed to service all members and regions. These changes led to an organizational restructuring of Manitoba Pool Elevators in 1968. Membership became direct, and the main unit of organization became the central office. The central office administrated the Pool through districts, which were further subdivided into sub-districts. The locals which were formally the main organizational unit came under the immediate direction of the sub-district they were located in. Local association could opt out of this system if they wished, but by 1975 all but 29 associations had become part of the new structure.
In 1998 Manitoba Pool Elevators merged with the Alberta Wheat Pool to form Agricore Co-operative, Ltd. In 2001 this organization merged with the United Grain Growers to become Agricore United, and in 2007 AU was taken over by the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool; the new company is currently known as Viterra.
Custodial History
The bulk of this fonds was accessioned in 1975, when the forerunner to the McKee Archives at Brandon University, the Rural Resource Center, was founded. The original mandate of the Rural Resource Center was to house the records of the Manitoba Pool Elevators. Previous to this, most of the fonds was stored at MPE's head office in Winnipeg. Many accruals to this collection have since taken place, with some of the larger ones being received in 1997, 2001, and 2002.
Scope and Content
Fonds contains records dealing with every aspect of the Manitoba Pool Elevators organization, from the events leading to its formation in the 1920's, to its amalgamation as part of Agricore beginning in the late 1990's.
Fonds includes records of the local co-operative elevator associations established in the period 1925 - 1968 under the Co-operative Associations Act including: organizational papers; minutes of executive boards; minutes of shareholders annual meetings; financial statements; correspondence; membership lists; and miscellaneous documents.
Also to be found are: documents related to the Royal Commission re the Manitoba Pool Elevators Limited ca. 1931; miscellaneous reports and submissions documents (1925 -1952); central office papers consisting of annual reports, circulars to local co-operative elevator associations and documents related to various other activities of the Manitoba Pool Elevators organization. Fonds also contains documents pertaining to the Manitoba Co-operative Poultry Marketing Association Limited and its successor, the Manitoba Dairy and Poultry Co-operative Limited, and related agencies.
Other items in the fonds (dating from the 1890's to 2001) include: books acquired for the Manitoba Pool Elevator Library, including a complete run of both the Scoop Shovel (MPE's first newspaper)and the Manitoba Cooperator; photographs; slides; audiotapes; and reel-to-reel videos.
Finally, the fonds contains a small number of miscellaneous items such as banners, and company issued briefcases.
This fonds is organized into four series, (A) Local Association records, (B) Central Office Records, (C) Subsidiary Companies and Co-operatives, (D) Commissions, Committees and Inquiries
Notes
Description by Mike White (2002), revised and enlarged by Jillian Sutherland (2009-2010).
History/Bio taken from F.W. Hamilton, "Service at Cost: A History of the Manitoba Pool Elevators 1925-1975" (Saskatoon: Modern Press) and from records within the fonds.
Preparation of this description made possible in part by a generous grant from the Brandon University Student's Union Work Study Program 2009.
Researchers are responsible for observing Canadian copyright restrictions.
Finding Aid
File level inventory available for some boxes. The Pool Elevator library and publications are available online through the Brandon University Library catalogue.
A copy of a Local Associations (later the Local Pool Committees) would be sent to the Central Office, where it was stored until a microfilm copy could be made. Records were only transferred to microfilm until 1957.
Custodial History
Local Association records recieved by the Central Office dating from 1925 to 1957 are on microfilm. Records subsequent to 1957 are hardcopies.
Scope and Content
Sub-series MPE B.3 consists of Local Association records from the formation of the association until 1993 or said association's closure. See Box level entries for B.3 for detailed contents of records.
Notes
Description by Jillian Sutherland (2009). Records contained in Series B.3 on microfilm or in hardcopy may also be contained in Series A.
