REGINA – The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool is dismissing as a political stunt a law suit by three farmers who want to keep the company off the stock market.
“This claim does not represent a serious legal action,” pool lawyer John Beke said Dec. 22. He said the suit will have no impact on the company’s plans to sell shares on the Toronto stock exchange. “It’s business as usual,” he said.
The suit, launched by the “Co-operating Friends of the Pool,” alleges the pool has breached its contract with its members by not holding an all-member vote on the share offering. They claim this is a fundamental change in the organization and beyond the power of the delegates to decide.
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They want the court to stop the share offering from going forward.
They are also calling for damages against the pool’s directors and its chief executive officer.
Politically motivated
But Beke said the pool has followed all legal requirements in moving toward the share offer. He thinks the suit is politically motivated because it was not launched until months after delegates voted in favor of the share offering, but only one month before the Saskatchewan government might be debating the legislative changes the pool needs to go ahead with it.
Beke said the suit has no basis because the legislation governing the organization gives delegates the power to make decisions such as the share offering.
When the pool was set up, members wanted delegates to have decision-making powers, Beke said. “If they (the farmers who founded the organization) had wanted more power, they would have enacted the act differently.”
Majority in favor
In July, pool delegates voted 80 percent in favor of the share offering proposal. In November, 80 percent of delegates voted against overturning that decision.
Roy Atkinson, who, along with John Burton and Lorne Cholin initiated the suit, said the delegates haven’t understood the issue.
They “have been fed insufficient information,” he said. “This thing has been management driven … and they’ve been pressured into this kind of decision.”
He claimed opposition among pool members to the share offering was overwhelming, but would not say how many support his group.
Beke described the opponents as a “disgruntled minority” and said delegates very closely reflect the members of their area.
Delegates know more than most members about the share offering, and are the people who care the most about the pool and its future, he said.
Atkinson said he is confident launching the suit will force the pool to hold an all-members vote.
“We’re certain, as a result of filing this, that they cannot manage it (the share offering),” he said. “They’re going to have to come to an accommodation.”
