Dozens of Manitobans have joined a class-action lawsuit over a stolen laptop that contained private information from 32,000 Canadian farmers, according to a Saskatchewan law office.
The statement of claim was filed Monday morning in the Saskatchewan Court of Queen's Bench. It accuses federal Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Gerry Ritz and the Carman-based Canadian Canola Growers Association of showing "reckless disregard" in the storage of unencrypted personal data on the laptop, stolen in March.
Although only two plaintiffs are named, roughly 100 people are involved, said Tony Merchant of the Merchant Law Group, which filed the statement. He said roughly one-third of those involved are from Manitoba.
Farmers named include Manitoban Darryl Oliver, who lives on a farm in the Rural Municipality of Archie.
Oliver was "shocked and emotionally dismayed to learn that his confidential information was in the hands of a thief," according to the statement of claim, and especially surprised his data was still being stored, considering he quit farming actively in 2005.
The statement goes on to say the plaintiffs suffered "severe and significant emotional distress and trauma, and economic loss or damage."
Reached by phone, Oliver referred all comment to Merchant.
The Saskatchewan-based lawyer said the group is seeking "exemplary damages," which he thinks "ought to be $5 million or something."
The laptop belonging to the canola association was stolen March 30, but it took more than two months for farmers to be told their social insurance numbers, bank account numbers and other data had been stored on the missing computer.
The information had been gathered for canola payment programs run by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Roughly 7,000 of the 32,000 farmers affected were from Manitoba.
No details about the location of the theft have been officially released, but the statement of claim asserts the laptop was stolen in Winnipeg.
CCGA general manager Rick White declined to discuss the lawsuit Monday, while Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada did not respond to a request for comment late Monday afternoon.
Merchant pointed to other recent incidents of information loss, including cases involving Winners HomeSense, Passport Canada and DaimlerChrysler, the latter the target of another class-action suit by his firm.
"We believe the court should say, 'You're not getting smarter as a result of the experience that's going on around you, so we're going to punish you in order to make an example, to government and other companies, that this just can't continue,'" the lawyer said.
lindsey.wiebe@freepress.mb.ca
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