OTTAWA – Revenue minister Jane Stewart sounded downright unsympathetic when she was asked whether farmers accused of running the border with export wheat would get their seized trucks back in time to finish seeding.
Several Saskatchewan farmers whose trucks were seized May 15 had asked the government to release their trucks without security or with less security than normally required by Canada Customs so they could use them for spring farming operations.
Stewart, the government minister responsible for Canada Customs, said last week she would not comment on the negotiations. But with seeding all but over on much of the Prairies, any move this week would come too late to help most farmers with planting work.
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But in an interview, Stewart had some advice for farmers who have been at odds with some of her customs agents.
Just doing their jobs
“It’s been difficult for the customs agents at the border,” she said. “I think they have acted very responsibly on this issue, very fairly. The fact of the matter is that when the law is contravened, the trucks were seized.”
She said the customs officials have simply been doing their jobs.
“When there is a law in place, it is the responsibility of the government to make sure it is enforced,” she said.
The Regina lawyer representing the farmers said Monday he had not yet heard if a decision had been made. Patrick Alberts said the trucks were still under seizure and his clients were deciding on their next course of action.
Alberts agreed that the farmers’ need for the trucks for spring seeding is no longer as compelling since those operations have nearly wrapped up, but he said they still want to use the trucks to haul grain.
“If the decision is not to return the trucks then we’d have something to appeal” in federal court, Alberts said.
