Wayne Bacon has learned at least one thing from his six-year legal battle with the Saskatchewan government.
Patience.
“You just wait it out until the wheels of justice turn, I guess,” the Kinistino, Sask., farmer said as he took a break from spraying last week.
Doesn’t he get fed up and impatient?
“Not any more,” he said with a laugh, adding he fully expects the case will end up in the Supreme Court of Canada, which means it could be years before the matter is finally resolved.
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A year ago this month, a Court of Queen’s Bench judge dismissed a lawsuit launched by Bacon and 385 other farmers seeking damages arising from changes made to the province’s Gross Revenue Insurance Program in 1992.
The farmers appealed (as did the province, in an unusual twist), and as the anniversary of the decision approached last week, they were still waiting for the provincial court of appeal to set a date for a hearing.
“Now we suspect it may be in October,” said Bacon.
The farmers had all their legal papers filed with the appeals court in mid-April, well before the May 31 deadline, he said, but the provincial government asked for and received a 30-day extension.
Provincial government officials have declined to comment on the case.
The farmers argue that the province and the crop insurance corporation breached legally binding contracts with farmers when it changed the terms of GRIP in the spring of 1992 without giving proper notice. They want the government to pay damages equal to the payments they would have received if the 1991 rules had remained in place for 1992.
They also wanted the courts to declare invalid a law passed by the Saskatchewan legislature that said changes to GRIP were legal and denied farmers the right to sue or collect damages.
But in the decision handed down last July, the court ruled that the provincial government acted in the public interest, both when it changed the GRIP contracts and when it passed the law denying farmers legal recourse.
The farmers’ appeal is based on the argument that the judge erred in finding that the government’s action was in the public interest.
Even thought it won, the province has also appealed. It doesn’t want the verdict overturned, but it does want the appeals court to reject several parts of the judgment, including the conclusion that the changes to GRIP were a breach of contract.
