A court order to remove a Saskatchewan farmer from a municipal council serves as a warning to other councillors and reeves who find themselves in a conflict of interest, says the president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities.
“I always tell my councillors that if you’re in doubt, step outside,” said Neal Hardy.
He said councillors or reeves who find themselves in a potential conflict are supposed to abstain from the discussion and from voting on the issue.
Alex Strilaeff, a councillor for the RM of Livingston, was ordered removed from his seat on council this fall after a Court of Queen’s Bench judge found he had a conflict of interest concerning a local hog barn development.
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The judge concluded that Strilaeff, who farms in northeastern Saskatchewan, failed to disclose his monetary interest in three proposed hog finishing barns, contrary to the requirements of the Rural Municipality Act. According to the court, Strilaeff was present when council discussed the proposed project and tried to influence the voting. Those activities also contravened the Municipality Act.
Strilaeff was ordered removed from council and a byelection to replace him is expected to be held later this month. He also is disqualified from holding office in any municipality for three years.
The matter was settled without going to trial. Strilaeff said in an interview last week he had no details about the court order, but he resigned the day it was issued rather than go through a long and costly legal battle.
He acknowledged that in hindsight he was in a conflict of interest. He confirmed that there was an option to buy a quarter section of his land for the hog barn development and that he did take part in discussions last year about granting municipal right-of-ways for pipelines that would carry water to the proposed barns. However, he said he did not realize at the time that he was placing himself in a conflict of interest.
He declared his monetary interest before council this past spring.
“A guy should have been on it, but when you’re farming and you’re trying to keep your ratepayers happy on gravel and grading and snow plowing, you don’t really look at those things at all.”
The hog barn development in the RM of Livingston was to include three finishing barns as part of a larger farrow-to-finish network.
Big Sky Farms, a Saskatchewan hog production company, was interested in the venture, which was being advocated by a committee of local supporters, including municipal councillors.
Ken Sigurdson, a local taxpayer and regional director with the National Farmers Union who sought the court order against Strilaeff, described the outcome as a major victory. He said the court order means all resolutions voted on by Strilaeff concerning the proposed hog barns will have to be reviewed.
“The precedent this really sets is that councils need to be very careful in these types of situations,” he added.
The previous council had agreed that a benchmark of 68 percent support from local ratepayers would be needed before a hog barn development would be considered, but that support was not achieved.
Sigurdson opposed the development on environmental grounds, citing concerns about the potential impact on water quality in Swan River and air quality downwind.
Strilaeff wanted the project to go ahead for economic reasons, including job creation and the establishment of another local market for feed grain. He insisted residents favour the hog barns and environmental issues had been addressed.
“Our young people are moving somewhere else to go to work,” he said.
“The elevators are all gone here and there’s a lot of grain that could have been moved to the hog barns.”
Florian Possberg, president and chief executive officer of Big Sky Farms, said his company is taking a wait-and-see attitude toward development in the RM of Livingston. One of the questions is who will replace Strilaeff on council and how that will affect the council’s sentiments toward hog barn development.
“If we have a community that is enthusiastic about the project, we’ll work through whatever issues need to be worked through. If there’s a community there that doesn’t want a project, they will probably get their way.”
With the current financial malaise gripping the hog industry, Big Sky Farms has put expansion plans on hold. While still optimistic about the long-term prospects for the hog industry, Possberg said he is concerned about the effects that country-of-origin labelling in the United States could have on the industry when it becomes mandatory next year. He also said environmental and animal rights activists supported opposition to hog barn development in the RM of Livingston.
Oppenents are adopting new tactics to stall developments, he added.
