SASKATOON – A judgment that calls Alberta’s agricultural marketing boards and commissions unconstitutional is under appeal.
“You can’t throw out 30- or 40-year-old marketing legislation and not expect anybody to do something about it,” said Greg Smith, the executive director of the Alberta Turkey Growers Marketing Board, referring to a court decision that called the Marketing of Agricultural Products Act into question.
“You have 16 boards and commissions that their very foundations are supported by that marketing legislation. You’d pull the rug out from 16 boards and commissions.”
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The turkey marketing board, along with the Alberta government and the Canadian Turkey Marketing Agency, plans to appear before the Alberta Court of Appeal in September to argue against a judgment that would do away with a long-standing system in which turkey producers followed supply quotas or paid marketing levies, known as checkoffs, to the turkey marketing board. Groups that oversee other farm products could also be affected.
The move comes after justice Virgil Moshansky ruled in Calgary’s Court of Queen’s Bench that the turkey marketing board lacked the power to restrict a Taber, Alta., farmer from marketing his birds on his own. The farmer sold turkey parts from his processing plant to a California distributor.
He refused to pay the Alberta board’s required levy, which is two cents per kilogram of liveweight turkey.
Most of the province’s agricultural groups, including the Alberta Cattle Commission and the Alberta Barley Commission, could be affected by the decision that was granted a stay last month. The stay compels producers to follow the rules under the current act until three appeal judges announce a decision.
If the groups lose the appeal, government may have to revamp its legislation, said Mike Pearson, corporate affairs manager for the Agricultural Products Marketing Council, which administers the products act. He admits that may not be an easy feat.
But Smith is betting that even if the decision is upheld on appeal, the effect of the ruling will not last for long.
“Even if Moshansky’s decision is upheld for certain parts of it, the government will just fix it …. The Alberta government is not going to turn its back on $3.3 billion in farmgate sales. They’re not going to turn their back on marketing legislation that almost mirrors every other province in this country.”
