Documents acquired through access to information requests have large sections removed
A CWB class action lawsuit will go ahead, but the monetary damages being sought by aggrieved farmers will probably be in the millions of dollars rather than the billions.
Winnipeg lawyer Anders Bruun said an April 9 Supreme Court decision that blocks a $17 billion claim against Ottawa will not affect plans to proceed with a smaller lawsuit, potentially worth “hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Bruun said the exact amount of the class action claim is difficult to estimate, partly because public access to CWB’s financial statements has been restricted.
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“We believe that there’s a very substantial amount of money that was moved forward to the new CWB from the old Canadian Wheat Board in an inappropriate way,” Bruun said.
“That portion of the claim against Ottawa is alive and well despite the Supreme Court ruling. It was allowed at the trial level, it was appealed by (Ottawa) to the Federal Court of Appeal and the court of appeal has allowed the case to go ahead.”
Bruun said the ongoing claim against Ottawa is related to the alleged mismanagement of money that should have been directed into the CWB’s pool accounts during the 2012-13 crop year and paid to farmers.
Farmers involved in the class action say some money that should have been paid to farmers in the form of grain cheques was instead placed in a contingency fund that was to be used at the discretion of CWB directors.
Class action litigants are also disputing the legitimacy of write-downs that affected the value of certain CWB assets, such as computers.
They are also unclear about the source of funds that were used to pay employee severance packages at the board.
Aggrieved farmers say money derived from the sale of their grain should not have been used to finance CWB’s transition from a mandatory state-trading enterprise to a voluntary, government owned marketing agency.
Bruun conceded that some of the CWB’s transition costs were financed through an “injection of federal cash into the wheat board’s pool accounts.”
Ottawa announced in June 2012 that it would provide $349 million to help CWB cover extraordinary costs related to the transition to a voluntary marketing agency.
However, it is not clear how that money was used or if additional money derived from farmers’ grain sales was also used.
“It’s not quite clear how any of that was done because we don’t have access to the wheat board’s audited financial statements,” Bruun said.
“The CWB’s financial statements have not been disclosed by (agriculture) minister (Gerry) Ritz. They released an annual report from the CWB for the 2012-13 crop year, but it only contained notes to the financial statements. The financial statements themselves were removed entirely.”
Bruun estimated the value of the class action in the “several hundreds of millions,” but conceded that it is difficult to estimate the exact value because details of CWB’s financial operations have been not been made public since Aug. 1, 2012.
Ottawa and CWB have refused to release detailed financial statements, suggesting the information is commercially sensitive and could hurt efforts to find an appropriate corporate partner for CWB.
By law, the voluntary CWB must be “commercialized” before Aug.1, 2017.
Attempts by The Western Producer to access the CWB’s financial statements have been mostly unsuccessful. Copies of CWB’s 2012-13 audited financial statements were acquired through access to information provisions, but key portions of the statements had been blacked out or removed.
“As you are no doubt aware, since Aug.1, 2012, CWB has been marketing grain in a highly competitive environment,” CWB wrote in response to the access to information request.
“No other grain company in Canada publicly discloses the information that you have requested…. The public disclosure of certain information could be very detrimental for CWB’s business.”
Another access to information request seeking copies of correspondence between Ritz and CWB president Ian White in October 2011 returned 268 pages, including 257 pages in which the information was either removed or blacked out.
brian.cross@producer.com
