Anti-Canadian Wheat Board crusader Andy McMechan will not get his day in the Supreme Court of Canada this year.
The court last week turned down a request that the Manitoba farmer be able to appeal his 1996 conviction on six charges of disobeying Canada Customs procedures after he trucked grain across the American border without a permit.
The three-member panel of Supreme Court judges did not give reasons for refusing to hear the appeal. Normally, appeals are heard if there are constitutional, national or justice system issues at stake.
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McMechan, a farmer from Lyleton, Man., was convicted of refusing to comply with customs rules when he returned from hauling wheat into the United States. He also refused to turn over a tractor used in a border crossing, which cost him 155 days in jail for refusing to comply with a court order.
However, he was never charged with violating the Canadian Wheat Board Act monopoly on export sales of wheat and malting barley.
McMechan’s pitch to the Supreme Court was that his convictions under the Customs Act were illegal since they hinged on the assumption he had illegally exported grain. However, he was never charged with that offence and so the related charges should also have been dropped.
The court announcement last week was quickly interpreted by critics of the wheat board monopoly as evidence that the issue cannot be fought through the courts.
The answer, said Reform MP and deputy agriculture critic Garry Breitkreuz, is to enshrine property rights in Canadian law.
“Under Pierre Trudeau’s charter of rights, there are no guaranteed property rights so you cannot go to court to fight the board on the basis that they are confiscating your property,” the Saskatchewan MP complained in a Sept. 18 interview.
Russ Larson, of Outlook, Sask., a member of the Canadian Farm Enterprise Network that has been raising money to finance court challenges, said the justice system and the courts are not the answer.
“It’s obvious this is a political issue and it will continue to be fought there,” he said.
