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BREDT, PAUL FREDERICK, civil servant, farmer, and grain-trade expert; b. probably 1883 in Leipzig, Germany, son of Paul Bredt and Margarete ———; m. 16 Sept. 1919 Christina Guild in Winnipeg, and they had a daughter and two sons; d. 28 Nov. 1940 in Calgary and was buried in Winnipeg’s Elmwood Cemetery.

Paul Frederick Bredt immigrated to Canada with his family around 1900 and they settled on a homestead near the German community of Edenwold (Sask.), north of Regina. In 1909 Bredt entered the Manitoba Agricultural College in Winnipeg. He earned a bachelor of science in agriculture degree five years later and was awarded the lieutenant governor’s medal for top standing in his graduating class. Nicknamed the “Dutchman,” he won every academic medal and scholarship open to him. Because he was older than his classmates, he was viewed as a mentor by many of them. His activities at the college included participation in the stock-judging team and the debating team. He was president of the student self-government association in 1914.

Returning to Saskatchewan after graduation, Bredt was appointed assistant livestock commissioner for the province, based in Regina. Shortly afterwards, he was named commissioner. In later years Bredt would often be called upon to judge livestock at agricultural fairs in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Near the end of the First World War, however, protests against Bredt’s German nationality led him to resign as livestock commissioner, and his assistant, Alexander James McPhail, quit in solidarity with him.

In 1919 Bredt took up farming at Kemnay, Man., west of Brandon. There he specialized in growing registered grain varieties and raising Shorthorn cattle and Clydesdale horses. He would remain with his family on the farm at Kemnay until moving to Winnipeg around 1937.

Bredt joined the Manitoba Co-operative Wheat Producers upon its creation in 1924. Two years later he was elected a director and became vice-president in 1927. It was renamed the Manitoba Wheat Pool in May 1929 and declared bankruptcy in November 1932. Bredt had become president and managing director of a subsidiary, the Manitoba Pool Elevators, when it was reorganized in 1931. The Manitoba Pool Elevators survived the bankruptcy of its parent company, and Bredt would retain his position there until his death.

Bredt’s ascendancy to the post came at a time of great upheaval in the western Canadian grain industry. During the 1920s the Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta wheat pools had been formed as purchasers of farmers’ grain. Each developed price pools in a system that would be responsible for marketing roughly half of the western Canadian wheat crop by the end of the 1920s. They also built extensive new elevator systems to handle the grain. The pools jointly participated in a separate organization called the Canadian Co-operative Wheat Producers, often referred to as the Central Selling Agency, to bring the wheat purchased from farmers to market. The pools experienced serious financial troubles, however, following the collapse of international wheat prices as the Great Depression took hold [see McPhail]. The provincial and federal governments relieved the pools of their debt and took over unsold grain stocks. With the backing of Prime Minister Richard Bedford Bennett*, grain dealer John Irwin McFarland* was chosen as general manager of the Central Selling Agency. McFarland terminated the policy of direct selling and closed the agency’s foreign offices. In 1931 the pools withdrew from the agency but continued to operate from 1 August as separate grain-elevator companies. Aided by Bredt’s management during these troubled times, the farmer-owned Manitoba Pool Elevators returned to financial stability and became the province’s largest grain handler.

Since the turn of the 20th century, farmers had fought for more control in the grain-marketing system. Despite the failure of the early wheat pools, producers eventually realized their goal through the establishment in 1935 of a federally legislated grain-marketing agency in the form of the Canadian Wheat Board [see Bennett; William Lyon Mackenzie King*]. Bredt took an active part in efforts leading to its formation and was a producer representative on its first advisory committee. Granted a central selling desk, with price pooling aimed at giving farmers the best financial return for their grain, in 1943 the Canadian Wheat Board would finally provide prairie grain growers with the marketing security they had long sought.

Besides acting as a company executive, Bredt was a leader in the agricultural cooperative movement. He was elected president of the Canadian Co-operative Wheat Producers and the Canadian Pool Agencies in 1937, and president of the Pool Insurance Company three years later. He also served on several major national grain committees. He was vice-chairman of the National Barley Committee and representative for the province of Manitoba on the Western Grain Standards Committee. In addition to his agricultural activities, Bredt had been a member of the University of Manitoba’s board of governors from 1933. He also served as a director of the Manitoba Provincial Exhibition Board.

Although Bredt was known as a robust man, all this work came at a cost to his health. On 28 Nov. 1940 he died of a heart attack in Calgary a few hours after speaking at the annual meeting of the Alberta Wheat Pool. He was in his late fifties. In tribute, delegates followed Bredt’s casket to the Calgary railway station, from which it was transported to Winnipeg. He was survived by his widow, their three children, a brother, and a sister. At the funeral service in Winnipeg on 2 December, the eulogist referred to Bredt’s life as “one of unremitting, unselfish service to his fellow men.” Among the honorary pall-bearers was Manitoba premier John Bracken*.

In 1940 the Manitoba Pool Elevators created a trophy named after Bredt, awarded annually in the following years to Manitoba crop-improvement clubs based on the scores of members’ seed plots, their activities, and their overall contribution to the community. Bredt had donated a cup for the annual competition in the summer of 1940, shortly before his death. He was inducted posthumously into the Manitoba Agricultural Hall of Fame in 1978. His citation describes him as “one of the most outstanding grain men in Canada.”

Ron Friesen