Dave Sawatzky doesn’t have time to celebrate his court victory.
He’s too busy getting ready to seed wheat.
But the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench decision to uphold Sawatzky’s acquittal on charges of failing to produce a Canadian Wheat Board export permit when he trucked his grain across the U.S. border makes his life a whole lot easier, he said.
“I would have either moved, or made plans to grow non-board grains,” said the Gladstone, Man. farmer.
Justice Brenda Keyser dismissed the crown’s appeal of Sawatzky’s May 1996 acquittal in a written ruling released April 21 in Winnipeg.
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Charged with failing to provide customs officials with a permit to sell grain in the U.S., Sawatzky was one of hundreds of farmers who hauled grain across the border to protest the Canadian Wheat Board’s sales monopoly on virtually all western grown wheat and malting barley and foreign feed barley sales.
Pointing to a discrepancy between the English and French versions of the law, Keyser said the English version must be adopted because it is most favorable to the accused.
Produce licence
Like the trial judge, Keyser ruled while Sawatzky was required to obtain a licence, there is no requirement in the English version that he produce the licence at the border.
“There may be any number of reasons why a licence must be obtained but only certain circumstances where it needs to be produced,” Keyser said.
Hours after Sawatzky’s initial acquittal, the government changed the law to prevent other farmers from using the same loophole, Keyser pointed out in her ruling.
Crown prosecutor Chris Mainella said Sawatzky was acquitted on a legal technicality he described as an “historical anomaly.”
The courts have learned from the experience, he said, and will be proceeding with similar charges against 109 other farmers in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
As the first case of its kind, Sawatzky was charged only with failing to provide a permit. The farmers charged after him face charges of failing to provide a permit, as well as failing to report grain exports.
Both judges who heard Sawatzky’s case were clear that farmers must report grain exports, Mainella said.
The crown has 30 days to decide if it will appeal.
Defence lawyer Len Tailleur said the decision could have a major impact on the appeal of another one of his clients, Andy McMechan.
“Indirectly it was hinging on this outcome,” said Tailleur, who argued McMechan’s appeal in February in Brandon.
McMechan, a Lyleton, Man. farmer, was jailed for five months for refusing to hand over his tractor to customs officials who seized it when McMechan failed to produce an export permit.
In light of last week’s ruling, McMechan’s conviction should be overturned on the principle of unlawfulness of the seizure, Tailleur said.
But Mainella said McMechan faces totally different charges.
“It is not an offence not to provide a licence, according to two judges, but it is an offence not to report grain exports in writing,” he said. And, he said, it was on those grounds customs officers seized McMechan’s tractor.
Both lawyers said they expect a ruling on McMechan’s appeal soon.
Sawatzky said once the harvest is in, he plans to sell his wheat to the highest bidder.
“I know I can get more for my grain myself than if I sell through the Canadian Wheat Board,” he said.
“It’s going to provide for a very interesting fall.”
