Liberal agriculture critic Wayne Easter last week asked two senior officers of Parliament to consider whether agriculture minister Gerry Ritz violated his oath of office when he asked the Canadian Wheat Board for information about individual CWB clients.
In letters to privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart and ethics commissioner Mary Dawson, Easter complained that even after CWB president Greg Arason told Ritz twice that revealing names and commercial details of 25 organic farmers involved in a pilot project would violate the Privacy Act, Ritz demanded the information again.
“I would respectfully request that your office examine the correspondence attached with a view to determining whether the minister … has transgressed the provisions of his oath of office in demanding of the president of the Canadian Wheat Board information which the president in clear and unambiguous language declared the CWB could not provide,” wrote Easter to the ethics and privacy commissioners.
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Part of the ministerial oath of office is “to uphold the laws of Canada.”
Ritz, in an earlier interview, insisted he had done nothing wrong. The CWB Act says it must provide information requested by the minister.
And his motive was not sinister but rather an attempt to contact all 25 farmers who took part in an experimental organic pool to find out why it was not successful, said Ritz.
“These are letters back and forth between an arm of the government and the minister in charge and I have a responsibility to know what happened, what went right, what went wrong,” Ritz said.
“And when I saw the list was only 25 names, I thought I could call them personally and find out how it worked. Was it successful?”
The correspondence, uncovered by the National Farmers Union through an access-to-information application, started last autumn when Ritz asked Arason for an update on an organic pilot project, the number of participating producers, their contact numbers and details of their commercial dealings with the board.
Arason updated him in general, said 25 producers had taken part but personal information could not be divulged under the Privacy Act.
Ritz insisted in a second letter and Arason, now retired, continued to demur.
Easter said last week he believes Ritz’s actions were a clear violation of the minister’s responsibility to uphold the law.
“I have no problem with the minister wanting to know how the pilot project turned out, how many took part, how much was delivered,” said Easter.
“I don’t even have a problem with him asking the first time for the names. Maybe he didn’t know. It was the second letter when he had been clearly told and he still tried to browbeat the president into breaking the law.”
Easter said it was reminiscent of the government decision to fire former CWB president Adrian Measner when he refused to ignore the CWB Act to undermine the single desk mandate that the law requires.
