Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board, which launched a class action suit against the federal government, ‘disappointed’
Western Canadian farmers trying to sue the federal government for $17 billion over its handling of the Canadian Wheat Board have hit a legal roadblock.
In an April 9 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada said it would not review a lower court decision that had blocked farmer attempts to launch a claim against Ottawa.
The ruling comes as disappointing news to aggrieved farmers and Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board, which has led legal efforts against Ottawa.
“We are naturally disappointed that Canada’s legal system has been unable to fully hold the federal government accountable for the confiscation and destruction of the Canadian Wheat Board in 2011,” said FCWB spokesperson Stewart Wells.
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“The legal system has quite simply not been able to afford justice to western Canadian farmers so far.”
The response from the federal government was positive.
Federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz said in a statement that the ruling “once again upholds western Canadian farmers’ right to marketing freedom.”
“The overwhelming majority of farmers have embraced the new economic opportunities created by marketing freedom and are taking Canadian agriculture to record heights,” he said.
Last year, the Federal Court of Canada ruled that a $17 billion class action against the federal government should not be allowed to proceed because some farmer claims against Ottawa were not supported by law.
However, the federal court also ruled that a smaller lawsuit, possibly valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars, should be allowed to proceed based on the possibility that some revenue from CWB grain sales may have been misallocated.
Farmers who disagreed with the federal court assessment hoped the Supreme Court would overturn the lower court’s decision.
However, the Supreme Court’s April 9 ruling ends those hopes.
It also suggests that farmers’ claims to CWB’s tangible assets, including ships and office buildings, have no legal standing and that producers’ attempts to secure monetary compensation for lost marketing opportunities will not proceed.
Anders Bruun, a Winnipeg lawyer involved in the class action suit, said attempts to have the case heard at the Supreme Court were based on the belief that farmers, by virtue of having supported the CWB’s operations through mandatory grain sales, had a legitimate claim to property owned by CWB and to the wheat board itself.
“We thought that this would be a very good case for the court to look at and (to consider) the issue of property in a slightly broader way than they have up to now,” Bruun said.
“After all, farmers have poured huge amounts of money into the entity over the years. They had the benefits of an operating service … but there are still capital assets and other property that was inherent in that wheat board that has been taken away by the federal government.”
Brunn said plans to proceed with a smaller lawsuit related to misallocation of grain revenues and other CWB funds will proceed.
Close to 2,000 farmers involved in that class action will seek to have their case certified this summer.
Information on how to join the class action is available online at www.sgmlaw.com.
brian.cross@producer.com
