After three long years of gathering evidence, waiting, debating and presenting their arguments in court, farmers involved with challenging the Canadian Wheat Board under the constitution’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms were shocked to hear their arguments have no place in the courts.
They said they expected to win.
“It was a cross between disbelief and anger,” said Saskatchewan farmer Conrad Johnson.
“In the evening I just sat on the couch in the dark for four or five hours,” said Johnson, one of 21 farmers named in the case along with the Alberta Barley Commission and the Western Barley Growers Association.
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“I was extremely confident we would get a positive ruling,” said Johnson, who gave evidence in court saying he had been discriminated against by the wheat board.
“In most of the arguments we not only won, we slaughtered them,” said Johnson. “Our side felt very adamantly, and rightly so, that grain farmers in the designated area are discriminated against.”
Brian Otto also doesn’t like the decision and he’s not prepared to stop fighting.
“It’s been three years going and it may be a few years yet,” said Otto, of Warner, Alta., also a farmer named in the case.
Tim Harvie, one of the leading farmers involved in the case, said his side was “pretty shocked” when the decision came down.
While some producers feel they have no choice but to continue with the appeal, Harvie said they can’t ignore the mounting court costs.
Already the challenge, mostly funded by the Alberta Barley Commission, has cost $1.4 million.
Harvie said an appeal will not have the same costs. With no more experts to be called, the lawyers will reorganize the material and write another argument.
Support from farmers
“We’re not going to just fritter money away. We feel we have a strong mandate to continue.”
But Bill Cooper, another Saskatchewan farmer, wonders if they should try another tack.
“I was never very confident we would win the day.”
Cooper let his name stand as a plaintiff because he thought it would help to have a high profile farmer from each province represented in the case.
“Maybe some of us were a little naive to put our names to this kind of thing or think we would ever get anywhere with it.”
In the end Cooper is concerned it’s going to be the farmers who lose, whatever the outcome. Farmers are footing the bill for the wheat board lawyers and also for the barley commission lawyers.
“The money is coming out of the pockets of farmers. We’re paying
either way.”
