The lawyer representing eight former CWB directors says his clients will likely know within six months if the Supreme Court of Canada will hear their case.
“And I would expect that if leave were granted by, say, Jan. 15 of next year, that we would almost certainly have had our full hearing on the merits (of the case) within a year of that,” said Winnipeg lawyer Anders Bruun.
The farmer-elected directors lost their positions late last year after the federal government rewrote CWB legislation.
They announced last week that they would seek to have their arguments heard by the country’s top court.
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The former directors say the federal government acted illegally when it passed legislation aimed at ending the CWB’s marketing monopoly for wheat and barley grown in Western Canada.
They argue that Ottawa should have honoured provisions in the former Canadian Wheat Board Act before ending the CWB monopoly.
Those provisions required Ottawa to hold a farmer vote before stripping the board of its single desk marketing authority.
Alternately, Ottawa should have amended the CWB Act before introducing new legislation aimed at ending the CWB’s single desk mandate.
“We believe that this case raises issues that are important to all Canadians and is worthy of careful consideration by the Supreme Court of Canada,” said former CWB chair Allen Oberg.
“This case is bigger than farm policy and has important implications for all Canadians,” added Stewart Wells, another former director involved in the application. “It raises fundamental questions about whether government is above the law.”
Applicants who seek to have their cases heard at the Supreme Court level must first outline their arguments on paper and then apply to the court to have their cases heard.
Applicants must demonstrate that their case involves a significant question of law and that the legal issue at question is of national significance.
Bruun said his clients do not question whether Ottawa had the authority to end the CWB’s single desk powers but whether the federal government followed procedure.
The former directors contend that federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz ignored existing laws and disregarded an earlier Federal Court decision that questioned the legality of Ottawa’s efforts to end the CWB monopoly.
The Supreme Court application is the latest legal volley in an ongoing battle between supporters of single desk marketing and the federal government.
Last year, Ritz introduced Bill C-18, which proposed the elimination of the CWB’s single desk marketing mandate over wheat and barley.
Shortly after that, the Federal Court of Canada ruled that the minister failed to comply with provisions in the CWB Act, which stipulated that farmers must be consulted before any legislative changes affecting the wheat board’s marketing mandate are introduced. Ottawa successfully appealed that ruling at the Federal Court of Appeal.
Bill Gehl, a single desk supporter who chairs another pro-board group, the Canadian Wheat Board Alliance, said the decision to take the case to the Supreme Court will not affect any other CWB-related court actions that are underway.
Gehl did not say how much a Supreme Court hearing would cost but suggested that much of the legal work supporting a Supreme Court hearing has already taken place.
Because of that, any additional costs associated with arguing the case will be relatively small, he said.
