The Federal Court of Appeal will hear arguments in June on whether the federal government had the right to impose a gag order on the Canadian Wheat Board in October 2006.
The hearing is scheduled to be held in Ottawa June 10 and is expected to take one day.
The communication restriction prevented the wheat board from making public comments or spending money in the debate over the future of its single desk marketing system.
The wheat board took the government to court and in June 2008, federal court judge Roger Hughes ruled that the order violated the CWB Act and infringed on the board’s right to freedom of speech under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
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Hughes rejected arguments by government lawyers that the order was simply a spending restriction and that it has the authority to direct and control the actions of the board.
“It is entirely clear that the directive is motivated primarily to silencing the board in respect of any promotion of a single desk policy that it might do,” he wrote in the 34-page decision.
He said the directive did not prohibit the board from promoting a dual market.
“If the minister were truly concerned about the costs of such promotions, and there is no evidence of any genuine grounds of concern, then surely he should have dealt with promotion for or against the minister’s preferred position, not just against.”
As for the charter challenge, Hughes said the board is not a government agency and therefore can invoke the protection of the charter.
“There is no doubt that the purpose of the (order) is to restrict a particular form of expression, namely advocating against government policy respecting the wheat board,” he wrote in finding that it violated the board’s rights to freedom of expression.
In a seven-page document filed with the Federal Court of Appeal Sept. 18, government lawyers appealed Hughes’ ruling, saying he erred in virtually every aspect of his decision.
