Saskatchewan wants to make sure the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency follows the rules when allotting new quota.
The provincial government, the Saskatchewan Agri-Food Council and Saskatchewan Egg Producers have asked for a judicial review of quota allocations from August to December of this year.
Roy White of Saskatchewan Agriculture and the council said CEMA has not been following the criteria laid out in the federal-provincial agreement for eggs.
“Saskatchewan has been shortchanged in the quota that may have come to the province if they had done it in a compliant fashion,” White said.
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The latest dispute follows four years of meetings between the Saskatchewan group and CEMA and a complaint to the National Farm Products Council last spring.
White said producers and the province want more quota for Saskatchewan and believe that would have already happened if CEMA followed the rules.
“We have a right to have more and an interest in taking on more,” he said.
CEMA determines the quota allocation, or number of eggs that can be produced by each province. In turn, provincial organizations such as Saskatchewan Egg Producers dole out the quota to producers within the province.
Bernadette Cox of CEMA said her group is committed to working with all provincial partners and upholding the laws that govern the agency.
“In our view, we have followed all the regulations that are required to be followed,” she said.
