The federal government’s treatment of Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War will form the legal groundwork on which Ottawa will defend its right to control the sale of prairie farmers’ grain, says a group battling the Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly powers.
The Canadian Farm Enterprise Network held a media teleconference last week hoping to throw a legal argument the government used in 1947 to defend the board’s monopoly back in its face.
“Powers to expropriate property from the Japanese-Canadians were upheld and became the precedent that allowed them to expropriate grain in Western Canada. That is the legal and moral foundation on which the board’s monopoly rests,” said CFEN director Jim Pallister, who farms near Portage la Prairie, Man.
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These are powers that threaten the property rights of all Canadians, he said. “If the federal government can take property from some Canadians, it can take it from all Canadians. That’s disturbing.”
Crown prosecutor Chris Mainella refused to comment on how the federal justice department will argue the case.
In response to the suggestion the treatment of Japanese-Canadians supports the powers of the wheat board, Mainella said “It’s totally erroneous.”
During the conference, Pallister dismissed the suggestion the CFEN was using the Japanese-Canadian incident to sensationalize the case.
“It’s not us making the comparison. The federal government made the comparison when they walked into court and said we have these powers and we’re going to use them.”
The group is putting the finishing touches on a constitutional challenge of the wheat board’s monopoly started by Saskatchewan farmer David Bryan. The case is set to begin Feb. 9 in Winnipeg.
Stripped of powers
Pallister said the Manitoba court, a court of appeal judge and the Supreme Court of Canada all ruled against the monopoly powers in the 1947 case.
But at that time, the highest court in Canada was the Privy Council in London, England. It overturned the Canadian decisions in 1952, citing the government’s argument that the board’s monopoly powers parallel its legal right to confiscate property of Japanese-Canadians during wartime.
But the question lingers over how Bryan’s case can advance individual property rights when those rights were never protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the constitution.
Pallister said this won’t be a charter case. “Our constitution is much more than just the charter.”
Steven Harper, president of the National Citizen’s Coalition, said during the teleconference, Section 91 and 92 of the British North America Act and the 1961 Bill of Rights protect property rights and must be taken into consideration.
In fact, a clause in the Bill of Rights protects the right “…to enjoyment of property and the right not to be deprived thereof except by due process of law.”
Bryan’s case differs from the charter case brought against the CWB by the Alberta Barley Commission because it targets property rights rather than freedom of association.
The CFEN, which boasts 1,000 farmer members across Western Canada, has raised $100,000 for Bryan’s case.
