TROIS RIVIERES, Que. – While supporters of the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency await a Supreme Court ruling on a northern challenge to its powers, behind-the-scenes political talks may have cleared the way for CEMA to regulate the Northwest Territories.
However, a political deal will not negate the impact of the court decision. It is ruling on whether the agency’s monopoly control over interprovincial and export egg sales violates the constitutional “freedom of association” rights of two large corporate egg producers in Hay River, N.W.T.
That court judgment is expected this summer and anti-Canadian Wheat Board barley lobbyists say a ruling against CEMA will help their court battle against the wheat board monopoly.
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“The ongoing litigation is a side issue and any agreement with the N.W.T will not affect it and it will not affect the deal,” Cynthia Currie, chair of the National Farm Products Council, said in a July 3 interview.
However, the political deal could end more than a decade of stalemate between CEMA and two large corporate farm egg producers in Hay River who have been producing eggs without quota controls and sending the unregulated eggs south into regulated markets.
When CEMA tried to impose its authority, producers went to court and have battled to the Supreme Court, winning victories against the national agency along the way.
Now, a compromise deal between CEMA and the territorial government could pave the way for imposition of quota regulations on the two producers.
Last week, Currie briefed Canada’s agriculture ministers on the proposed deal during their annual meeting. It would allow the N.W.T. into the national system with quota for 115,000 birds – the combined flock sizes now held by Northern Poultry and Pineview Poultry Products Ltd. It would thwart a Pineview plan to add another 60,000 birds to its operation.
If approved by federal and territorial governments and all provinces who are signatories to the CEMA agreement, the N.W.T. could be in the system by late 1997, Currie said.
There are a couple of provincial hold-outs, including Alberta which has to deal with most of the surplus eggs coming south from Hay River.
