SASKATOON – The battleground in the war over the Canadian Wheat Board could soon shift from border crossing points to courtrooms.
A spokesperson for Canadian Farmers for Justice said last week the organization is preparing a “battery of legal challenges” to the board’s monopoly over wheat and barley exports.
And Russell Larson, a farmer from Outlook, Sask., said he and many other members of the organization now believe that’s where the board’s fate will ultimately be decided.
“It’s not to say that once we’re done harvest we’re not going to start trucking our grain across the border again. That’s always an option,” he said.
Read Also
Land crash warning rejected
A technical analyst believes that Saskatchewan land values could be due for a correction, but land owners and FCC say supply/demand fundamentals drive land prices – not mathematical models
But with 125 to 150 people facing a variety of charges for shipping grain across the border in violation of the existing regulations, that’s where the attention will be focused.
“When those cases come to court, that’s where this will be resolved,” he said, adding the organization is building a “war chest” to finance a series of challenges to the board’s authority.
Larson said he wasn’t surprised at the news that agriculture minister Ralph Goodale is poised to reject the recommendations of the Western Grain Marketing Panel to remove feed barley and some wheat from the board’s monopoly.
Legal challenges to come
While he’s disappointed the panel’s recommendations, which he called a sensible first step toward deregulation, won’t be implemented, he said legal challenges will soon make views of politicians irrelevant.
“With the issue before the courts, it really doesn’t matter what Goodale says or does from here on in,” he said. “We know what we’re working for and we’d just advise him to stay out of the way.”
Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association president Larry Maguire also expects to see more legal challenges to the board if Goodale decides to leave the board’s monopoly intact. That would be bad news, he said, because if the courts support those challenges “one day we’ll wake up and the board will be gone forever, like the Crow Benefit.”
