WINNIPEG – Farming has always been unpredictable, but Henry Kuhl never guessed he’d be driving from his Portage la Prairie farm every day for two weeks to sit in a jammed Winnipeg courtroom.
But the free-market farmer said his trek to join other producers in supporting Dave Bryan’s constitutional challenge of the Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly grain powers could be the most important part of his farming operation.
“It’s a matter of livelihood,” Kuhl said outside the court.
He and other farmers could be heard muttering in disgust as federal justice department lawyers told court the wheat board’s monopoly powers are valid under federal law.
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“Farmers are more than producers, we’re also marketers and when the crown says things like we need the government to sell our product, that really hits below the belt,” Kuhl said.
“It’s like telling farmers we’re lower class citizens than other businesspeople … and we’re too stupid to market our own product.”
Poplar Point, Man., producer Jim Leslie, also attended the trial and said farmers’ rights are being violated, and producers have to stick together and fight to the end.
If the court challenge fails, farmers will move their fight into the political arena, said Deloraine, Man. producer Delory Nestibo, one of the farmer witnesses who testified for the defence.
“If we lose, we’ll learn from it and come at this from another direction.”
