WINNIPEG – A defeat in court, followed by a stern lecture from a Winnipeg judge, have done little to deter farmers vowing to break the Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly.
“Our philosophy is we’re going to be in the wheat board’s face on this until we win,” said Russ Larson, chair of the Canadian Farm Enterprise Network, from his Outlook, Sask. farm.
The same day Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench justice James Smith tossed out the latest constitutional challenge against the board and fined Saskatchewan farmer Dave Bryan $9,000 for illegally selling his grain in the U.S., nine producers were putting the final touches on the next attack, Larson said.
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They’ll argue the CWB Act contravenes Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms because it doesn’t treat all farmers equally, said Bryan’s lawyer Art Stacey, who is taking the case.
“Producers in designated territories are treated differently,” he said. The case will likely focus on the fact farmers in the Prairies are regulated by rules under the CWB that don’t apply to producers in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada.
During the nine-day Bryan trial, Stacey argued the board’s monopoly infringes on farmers’ property and civil rights, which fall under provincial jurisdiction.
Justice Smith ruled that’s true, but he called it a necessary part of the federal government’s authority to regulate trade and commerce issues such as grain marketing.
And while there’s no opportunity for producers to dispute the price the board offers in the buy-back program, there is compensation “and in my opinion no confiscation or expropriation of property,” Smith said.
The buy-back system requires farmers to sell wheat to the wheat board and then buy it back before they can sell it domestically.
In announcing his decision to a courtroom packed with farmers, many of them wearing white carnations as a show of support for Bryan, Smith sent a harsh message to farmers trying to score political points by breaking the law.
“You took the law into your own hands because you didn’t like it, so you could do what you wanted in order to win political points for your position … that’s unacceptable,” he said.
“There is no one who admires one who does something as a matter of principle (more) than myself, but there are ways in this country to show opposition.”
Producers fighting the monopoly should turn their attention to the new rules governing the board under Bill C-4, said a wheat board spokesperson who showed up for the verdict.
“I would suggest their efforts might be better put to establishing who’s going to be on that new board of directors and who will be making the decisions on their behalf,” said Deanna Allen.
The CFEN raised $150,000 in farmer donations to pay for Dave Bryan’s case.
Stacey said the Central Butte farmer’s appeal should come before the Manitoba Court of Appeal in the next few months. Bryan said if that fails, he’ll apply to bring his case before the Supreme Court of Canada.
