Dave Bryan was out looking for financing last week, but not the kind farmers are usually trying to get.
The Central Butte, Sask., grain grower was on the road soliciting donations to help pay for his attempt to have the courts declare the Canadian Wheat Board Act unconstitutional.
He has been told by his lawyer to expect a bill of about $150,000 in the case, scheduled to be heard in Winnipeg in February.
“That’s more than I can handle,” he said in an interview while en route from a press conference in Regina to a fund-raising meeting in Rosetown, Sask. last week.
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So far, he said, about $30,000 had been collected in just a few days of serious fund-raising.
“It’s coming together pretty good,” he said. “We’re sure getting a good reception from farmers who think it’s the way to go.”
Bryan said he hasn’t asked for money from corporations or farm organizations and doesn’t plan on doing so: “Really this is of interest to commercial grain farmers. I don’t think anyone else should be expected to pay for it.”
The Canadian Farm Enterprise Network, a newly formed organization that splintered off from Canadian Farmers For Justice, is also helping raise money for the case.
The 36-year-old grain farmer is facing a myriad of charges arising from incidents involving the trucking grain across the U.S. border.
On Feb. 9 he is scheduled to go to trial in Winnipeg on four charges under the Customs Act arising from an incident in March 1996 when he trucked 1,000 bushels of wheat across the border at Lyleton, Man., without an export licence.
He’s also facing eight other Customs Act charges and a number of criminal charges, including dangerous driving, obstructing a peace officer and assault with a weapon, as a result of another grain trucking incident at North Portal, Sask., in July 1997. Those charges are scheduled to be heard Nov. 12 in Estevan, Sask., although discussions are under way which may see the charges dealt with in Winnipeg in February.
Bryan said he wants to get the criminal charges dealt with quickly so all the attention will be focused on the constitutional arguments that will be made at the Winnipeg trial.
“I don’t want it as some kind of cloud hanging over me when the real important charges go ahead in February,” he said, adding he believes the incidents at North Portal aren’t as serious as the charges make them sound. “I want my day in court to make clear what actually happened.”
Bryan and lawyer Art Stacey, of Winnipeg, plan to argue that the federal CWB Act violates the constitutional division of powers that gives the provinces control over property rights.
They’ll argue grain is the property of the farmer who grows it and the federal government has no legal right to pass laws or regulations, such as the CWB Act, that interfere with how the farmer disposes of that grain.
They say the government and the board are “confiscating” farmers’ wheat and barley by requiring farmers seeking an individual export licence to sell their grain to the board and then buy it back at a price set by the marketing agency.
Bryan and other border runners have been charged under the Customs Act. But Stacey has said that if the court can be convinced the CWB Act is unconstitutional, then no CWB export licence would be required and the Customs Act charges would no longer be valid.
Federal government lawyers say the Supreme Court ruled in the 1950s that Ottawa had the authority to pass the CWB Act and give the agency a monopoly over exports of wheat and barley.
