A group of Alberta farmers is raising money to challenge at the Supreme Court of Canada a decision that allows a power line to cross farmland without a public hearing.
Scott Stenbeck, lawyer for a group of southern Alberta farmers, said he’s received cheques from farmers across the province wanting to donate.
“If this case stands, it’s a precedent that farmers will have to live with for the next several decades,” Stenbeck said. “If you let it drop at this point, you have to be prepared to live with it.”
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Stenbeck said without an appeal to the Supreme Court, future challenges by landowners will be dismissed because the legal system would consider the conflict to have been dealt with earlier.
“What this case is saying is you can expropriate without some full oral hearing on the issue,” said Stenbeck.
He wants the courts to rule that the federal or provincial governments must first hold a hearing.
“Does that landowner get a say before they get locked in and are doomed to have one of these lines within a two-kilometre bracket?”
The Lavesta Area Group , which successfully fought a transmission line through central Alberta last year, has also donated to the case.
“The Lavesta Area Group takes the position that it is unconstitutional for the government to encroach upon an individual’s private property rights unless there is an imminent and necessary public interest or need,” Joe Anglin, the group’s spokesperson, wrote in a news release announcing its financial support.
The southern Alberta transmission case involves the first international power line between Canada and the United States. The Montana Alberta Tie LLC, or MATL, is a private power line that will run from Lethbridge to Great Falls, Mont. It is designed to carry electricity generated by wind farms.
Because the 123 kilometre long Canadian portion of the 230 kilovolt power line eventually crosses the international border, Tonbridge Power, the company leading the project, applied to the federal National Energy Board for a permit in 2005.
The NEB authorized a general permit for the line but limited it to a two km corridor as it crosses irrigated farmland.
The precise route of the line within the two km corridor was left to the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board to determine. The NEB said public hearings about the line were not necessary and granted the permit.
“What’s causing the problem here is the interaction of federal and provincial law,” Stenbeck said.
The Alberta Court of Appeal dismissed the landowners’ appeal May 5, ruling the utilities board satisfied all needed requirements.
Tonbridge chief executive officer Johan van’t Hof, said he was pleased with the provincial appeal court decision.
“We had hoped that this would be the decision, but we were prepared to respect the process regardless of the outcome. I now plan to proceed to engage with landowners personally with the highest level of sensitivity to move this project forward.”
One of the three judges on the Alberta Court of Appeal dissented and wrote a conflicting decision.
Stenbeck said the dissenting voice is a major factor in the decision to appeal to the Supreme Court.
“Very rarely, in the provincial court of appeal, when they have three justices, do they have a split like this. The fact there’s a split at all means it’s too close to call. Not only was there a split, but madam justice Conrad wrote a dissenting decision. What that’s saying, is there is a very experienced, well educated, thoughtful, insightful person that sees it our way,” he said.
“On another day and in another place, the majority of the Supreme Court of Canada may see it that way as well.”
Stenbeck has until Aug. 5 to file his appeal with the Supreme Court. It’s expected to take at least 18 months to wind its way through.
