ManitobaThe owner of a privately owned rail port in southern Manitoba’s Red River Valley wants to know why the provincial government provided an $18-million grant to help create a rival rail port further down the valley.Mid-Canada Transload says government should focus on health, highways instead of subsidizing competitionBartley Kives · CBC News · Posted: Nov 13, 2025 6:00 AM EST | Last Updated: 3 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 6 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Mid-Canada Transload founder Real Tetrault and sales director Jarrod Firlotte said they were taken aback by an $18-million grant for a rival rail port. (Tyson Koschik/CBC)The owner of a privately owned rail port in southern Manitoba’s Red River Valley wants to know why the provincial government provided an $18-million grant to help create a rival rail port further down the valley.Mid-Canada Transload Service operates two grain elevators along five kilometres of private track alongside Highway 75 and CN’s Letellier subdivision, just south of Letellier, Man., in the rural municipality of Montcalm.Mid-Canada ships oats, flax, soybeans and other commodities around the world, allowing smaller customers to access Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf of Mexico seaports via Burlington Northern Santa Fe’s U.S. rail network and Canadian National rail lines on this side of the U.S. border.One week before the 2023 provincial election, Manitoba’s then Progressive Conservative government provided an $18-million grant to buy land and conduct studies for a separate rail port 70 kilometres to the north, in the RM of Ritchot.This proposed development is the brainchild of JohnQ Public, a corporation owned by 11 Manitoba municipalities. At the time it was issued, the province did not disclose the grant, which Mid-Canada Transload founder Real Tetrault said he only learned about from CBC News reports this spring.”I was flabbergasted. I couldn’t believe that the government of the day would put out a grant to a startup to compete against us,” said Tetrault, a former banker, farmer and oat-milling company president who started up Mid-Canada with entirely private capital in 2016. Mid-Canada Transload Service operates two grain elevators along five kilometres of private track southeast of Letellier, Man., near Highway 75 and CN’s Letellier subdivision. (Tyson Koschik/CBC)”We’re enabling Manitoba products to end up in a lot of different countries around the world,” he said, standing in a warehouse at his Montcalm operation earlier this month. “We’re paying taxes in the province, so why would they do something like this?”Manitoba’s NDP government, which took power in October 2023, announced this summer it’s reviewing the grant for the rail port, which JohnQ Public calls the Winnipeg Region Rail Port.The $18-million grant allowed JohnQ to purchase land west of Highway 75 for the rail port, and to conduct engineering and environmental assessments, according to the province.A progress report prepared by JohnQ Public for the NDP government in July 2024 stated the company was negotiating an agreement with Burlington Northern Santa Fe, also known as BNSF, to serve as an anchor tenant and rail operator at the new rail port.JohnQ Public’s board chair and chief executive officer did not respond to CBC News requests for comment.BNSF, which operates a rail yard along a short stretch of track in Winnipeg’s River Heights neighbourhood, has not commented on the proposal.Not a ‘death knell’ for company: expertTetrault said he does not understand why the company would make such a move.”I don’t know the benefit of why they would need a rail park to further their product. There’s only so much product that can go into the U.S., and the grain elevators are already able to do that,” he said, referring to a series of elevators along the Red River Valley.Barry Prentice, who directs the Transport Institute at the University of Manitoba’s Asper School of Business, said he does not believe a rail port in Ritchot would threaten Mid-Canada’s transloading operations in Montcalm, because trucks would have to drive 70 more kilometres to reach the proposed new operation.”They might lose some traffic, but I don’t think this is a death knell for them, by any stretch of the imagination,” Prentice said Wednesday in an interview.JohnQ Public plans to build a rail port on what’s now agricultural land west of Highway 75 in the rural municipality of Ritchot, south of Winnipeg. (Rudi Pawlychyn/CBC)In addition to offering transload services, the Winnipeg Region Rail Port could assemble large trains and host “businesses relocated from urban Winnipeg,” according to JohnQ Public’s website.Prentice said BNSF could benefit from a larger yard than the one it runs in the River Heights area. It could also prove less expensive to operate in Ritchot than within Winnipeg, he said.”For BN to continue to service Winnipeg and be interested here, a better facility would certainly help that,” Prentice said.Provincial review comingA provincial review into the JohnQ Public grant, slated to be complete at the end of the year, is looking into “the decision-making of this pre-election grant,” and will consider the effects of the proposed Ritchot rail port on “existing rail and transportation sectors,” Ryan Stelter, a spokesperson for Manitoba Finance Minister Adrien Sala, said in a statement.That includes Mid-Canada Transload and CentrePort, an existing multi-modal trade area that straddles the border between Winnipeg and the RM of Rosser. CentrePort has a 270-hectare rail park that is in the process of being developed. It has not commented on the proposed Ritchot rail port. Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham said the potential conflict highlights the need for better regional planning.”We should be competing against other regions — not against each other — if we want to build a stronger economy for everyone in Manitoba,” Gillingham said in a statement. Mid-Canada, meanwhile, said it can handle more shipping business, including whatever is proposed for Ritchot, said Jarrod Firlotte, Mid-Canada’s sales director.”Regardless of their volume, we can handle it. They can have it here and the taxpayer wouldn’t have had to spend any money,” Firlotte said. If a business needs government help, maybe they shouldn’t be doing it at all.- Mid-Canada Transload founder Real TetraultFirlotte and Tetrault said they’re concerned Manitoba spent money on business subsidies rather than performing its core functions.”Government should stay where government belongs: social programs, infrastructure, new highways, health care, education. That’s where government should be,” Tetrault said.”We pay tax dollars so they can do that, not to start up a business from nothing and compete against us. That’s not government’s job.”If a business needs government help, maybe they shouldn’t be doing it at all.”WATCH | Rail port owner questions provincial grant to possible rival:$18M grant to potential competitor rankles owner of Manitoba rail portThe owner of a privately owned rail port in southern Manitoba’s Red River Valley wants to know why the former Progressive Conservative provincial government provided an $18-million grant to help create a rival rail port further down the valley.ABOUT THE AUTHORBartley Kives joined CBC Manitoba in 2016. Prior to that, he spent three years at the Winnipeg Sun and then 18 at the Winnipeg Free Press, writing about politics, music, food and outdoor recreation. He’s the author of three books – two of them Canadian bestsellers – and the winner of a Canadian Screen Award for reporting.With files from Joanne Levasseur
Owner of private Manitoba rail port questions $18M provincial grant to potential rival
