A group of farmers and Canadian Wheat Board monopoly supporters are still fighting for compensation for the monopoly’s elimination.
They recently fleshed out their claim that hundreds of millions of dollars were wrongly withheld from farmers.
Four farmers have submitted an amended statement of claim in a class action lawsuit against the federal government, saying the government kept grain sales revenue in 2011-12 that it should have passed on to farmers, as well as putting other costs onto farmers.
The Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board say the CWB usually passed on 93 percent of grain sales money to farmers between 1998 and 2011, but that percentage plunged to 83 percent in 2011-12. They claim that difference in value in a year of high grain prices was about $720 million.
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The exact earnings of the board and its spending is unclear, the plaintiffs say, because the government refused to make the CWB’s financial statements public from 2012-13.
The FCWB claims federal government money meant to cover the transition costs of the CWB from government monopoly to private interest weren’t used to cover those costs in the final year of the monopoly. Instead, they say, the money was mostly kept for following years.
That left some of the costs against the CWB in its final monopoly year, which they believe were deducted against farmer sales revenue.
The FCWB is also calling on the federal auditor-general to investigate how the government covered the costs of the CWB monopoly wind-up.
Contact ed.white@producer.com
