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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Court reserves decision on wheat board
Trevor Hagan / The Canadian Press archives The wheat board is reducing staff as monopoly end nears. (CP)
OTTAWA -- The Federal Court of Appeal reserved its decision Wednesday on whether Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz broke the law when he introduced legislation to eliminate the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly.
The federal government is appealing last December's ruling by Justice Douglas Campbell Ritz contravened the Canadian Wheat Board Act by not holding a vote among farmers to decide whether to keep the monopoly.
Campbell's ruling wasn't binding on the government, nor did it say anything about the validity of the bill.
The government proceeded with the legislation, which was passed and given royal assent in December.
In February, Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench Justice Shane Perlmutter refused to grant an injunction suspending the bill until Campbell's decision was sorted out. Perlmutter rejected the claim Ritz had broken the law.
Ritz was elated by Perlmutter's decision and said he expects the same result from the Appeal Court.
"We are confident that the court will see the merits of our case," Ritz said in a written statement Wednesday.
Stewart Wells, chairman of the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board, called the government's plan to dismantle the monopoly "reckless and irresponsible" and said it is already costing farmers millions of dollars.
Friends is continuing with a class-action lawsuit to restore the wheat board's monopoly and compensate farmers $17 billion.
Regardless of the Appeal Court's decision, the case has little bearing on the movement of the Prairie grain industry to an open market. The appeal, sources say, is about politics since the bill eliminating the monopoly is already in effect and its provisions are coming into force gradually.
By Aug. 1, the monopoly will be gone and Prairie wheat and barley farmers will be able to choose whom to sell their grain to for the first time in more than six decades.
This weekend, new regulations surrounding voluntary payments for research on barley and wheat will be printed in the Canada Gazette.
The payments, known as checkoffs, will be collected by the Alberta Barley Commission rather than the CWB. The funds will still be voluntary and will still be directed to the same research groups.
The wheat board is shedding workers as it prepares for a lighter workload.
The agency will be down to 288 workers at the end of May, compared to 430 a year ago. It will drop to about 100 workers by the end of the year.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 24, 2012 A5
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