LYLETON, Man. – A border run near here March 11, designed to protest the Canadian Wheat Board as a single-desk seller of grain, attracted several dozen farmers sympathetic to the cause.
The group trucked barley belonging to Andy McMechan, a Manitoba farmer facing charges stemming from his past border crossing incidents, the most recent occurring March 3. As a result, McMechan is prohibited from going within one kilometre of the border.
McMechan observed his farmyard Monday, a sea of activity as farmers from Saskatchewan and Manitoba loaded his barley into seed bags and grain trucks before heading south.
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Ivan Sakundiak, of Buchanan, Sask., drove several hours to join the protest haul across the international boundary, as did Norm Calhoun of Lumsden, Sask.
“This had better make a difference, when normally law-abiding people have to take a matter like this into their own hands,” said Sakundiak.
Calhoun said the group wanted to make its point with the government about the need for a dual market, while also helping McMechan.
He and other farmers who hauled the barley defied Canada Customs agents who ordered them to stop for inspection on the Canadian side.
Matter for the courts
“This is a waste of taxpayer dollars for us to have to enforce this sort of thing,” said customs supervisor Keith Woods, who oversees the western Manitoba border points.
“It is a matter for the courts. The farmers could have sent one truck across the border and we could have charged them and they would have their test case. This is just out of hand.”
Twelve customs officers greeted the farmers as they passed through the port of Lyleton without stopping. The port usually contains only one or two agents.
McMechan said he had contracts for the barley, a waxy, hulless variety, at an elevator in Minot and a mill at Harvey, N.D. He said he is paid $4.38 (Cdn) per bushel at the elevator and $6 at the mill.
But the Canadian farmers hauled the grain only as far as McMechan’s second farm, located on the American side of the border.
Results weren’t available at press time, but the Canadian farmers were expected to encounter problems upon their return to Canada, scheduled Tuesday, when they were to face fines and the impounding of their vehicles.
McMechan’s barley is classified as feed by the Canadian Wheat Board, and he was told by a board official in December that “there were no commercial opportunities for general grain farmers in Western Canada” for the barley.
McMechan needed more than the wheat board’s initial payment to pay off his debts to the Farm Credit Corporation, and said the prices he would realize in the U.S. would make that difference.
Foreclosure delayed
He appeared in court in Brandon March 11 and was able to stall an FCC foreclosure hearing. He was also to appear in court on March 13 in connection with the five recent border-related charges, which include theft over $5,000, eluding examination under the Immigration Act and breach of a recognizance.
He is slated to appear in court in Virden on March 15 to see if a judge has made a ruling on last year’s highly publicized Customs Act charges for exporting grain to the U.S. without a licence.
McMechan said he now has 13 charges pending against him in relation to exporting grain without a permit, but has not yet been proven guilty on any of them.
“If I have to go to jail again, I will,” he said.
