Potash is based in Saskatchewan and the Canadian government had rejected the acquisition as not in the national interest.
First severe drought hit southern Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario, turning crops to dust.
According to a study that was carried out by the Conference Board of Canada, a think-tank, the deal would cost Saskatchewan an estimated C$200m $$198m) a year in tax revenues, because BHP Billiton could write off a C$12 billion potash mine it is developing in the province.BHP Billiton could still sweeten its bid.
DURING the Depression of the 1930s, drought turned much of Alberta and Saskatchewan, on Canada's western prairies, into a dust bowl.
Ontario's premier, Mike Harris, at once injected C$900m into health care, before, this week, calling a provincial election.In Saskatchewan, the birthplace of Canadian medicare, the premier, Roy Romanow, also faces an election soon.
THINK of Saskatchewan, and if you can place the western Canadian province on a map you might conjure up a vision of an endless prairie of wheat, so flat that the locals joke that "you can watch your dog running away from you for hours".
Now think again: Saskatchewan boasts the fastest economic growth rate of any Canadian province not just because of wheat but a rich mix of other farm crops as well as potash, uranium, oil and natural gas, all of which are enjoying record prices.
Depression and drought then ushered in eight decades of decline.More recently, Saskatchewan has been overshadowed by neighbouring Alberta, where oil and gas have created Canada's richest province.
The UFCW is recruiting at another dozen of the 44 stores in Quebec and at twice that number elsewhere in Canada.Its is no accident that the union's organising campaign has progressed furthest in Quebec and, to a lesser degree, Saskatchewan.
The Bloc may well hold on to two-thirds of Quebec's seats.The NDP's main strength lies in western Canada, where its provincial versions run the governments of British Columbia and Saskatchewan.
Its takeover was greeted quietly.That was a contrast with the nationalist response to the attempt in 2010 by BHP Billiton, an Anglo-Australian mining giant, to buy another Prairie business icon, the Saskatchewan Potash Corporation, which was blocked by both the provincial and federal governments.
