Former directors and supporters of the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly are not letting it go down without a fight.
Cam Goff, director for district six of the Wheat Board from 2008-2011, said the federal government “broke the laws of Canada” when it dissolved the board in December 2011 without first holding a plebiscite among grain producers. He said the government could have easily changed or repealed the law forcing them to hold a plebiscite, but “just ignored the law” instead when they introduced legislation, Bill C-18, in October 2011 to end the single desk for 2012 harvested crop.
Section 47 of the Canadian Wheat Board Act says the government must hold a plebiscite among grain producers before making these changes to the board.
This action by the government drove the Wheat Board as an organization and eight of its former directors to launch a lawsuit in Federal Court against the government arguing the dissolution of the board not go ahead because the government did not follow the rule of law. This lawsuit was seen before the court in December 2011 with the court ruling in the claimant’s favour.
“The judge came down very strongly that the federal government had actually really broken the law or they were not abiding by the rule of law,” said Goff. “He really felt the government had overstepped its bounds.”
The federal government then appealed the case to the Federal Court of Appeal, which sided with the government in a ruling “sometime in late February or March” that refused the directors’ request for a stay of the dissolution of the board and that the federal government’s dissolution actions could go forward.
The claimants then asked the Supreme Court of Canada to decide the case. The Supreme Court ruled it would not hear the appeal Jan. 17. They did not give reasons for this decision.
“Really, we’ve run out of legal options,” said Goff. “Having the Supreme Court say that they’re not going to hear the case means that, aside from the class-action lawsuit, there really is nothing else legally we can do to try to have the government obey the law.
“Unfortunately, the court system doesn’t seem to think the federal government has to be bound by the laws of this country and I find that incredibly disappointing. They should be willing to hear the arguments, but they just said ‘no we’re not even going to listen to you,’ so I find that very disturbing.
“I always thought Canada was a democratic country that works by the rule of law, but apparently it is run by the rule of bye law.”
The class-action lawsuit, launched in Federal Court in February 2012, seeks to reinstate the Wheat Board’s monopoly and if that can’t happen to compensate the affected farmers with $17 billion in damages for the loss.
Goff said the lawsuit includes every farmer in Western Canada who sold grain through the Canadian Wheat Board between 2006 and 2011, unless a farmer specifically requests not to be a part of it. He said everyone involved in the lawsuit would be treated equally in regards to the compensation, but the $17 billion amount is just a starting figure, which will eventually be decided by the court once they adjudicate on the issue.
To read more please see the January 28 print edition of The Davidson Leader.
All posts by Tara de Ryk
Braves wallop Cyclones in LLHL action
The Davidson Cyclones senior men’s hockey team came within 20 minutes of giving themselves a good chance of securing a second place finish and first round bye in the Long Lake Hockey League (LLHL) playoffs last Tuesday, but then the wind shifted dramatically their opponent’s way.
Leading 4-2 heading into the third against the LeRoy Braves in a must-win game, the Cyclones would give up seven goals in the third frame to eventually lose 9-7 to the team they are trying to leapfrog in the LLHL standings. After the game, Davidson sat tied with the Braves and the Lanigan Pirates for second place in the league, with LeRoy having a game in hand. The Cyclones regular season is finished while both Lanigan and LeRoy have makeup games scheduled for this week.
“We probably didn’t finish the way we wanted to (against LeRoy),” said Jason Shaw, head coach of the Cyclones. “We worked hard to get up to 4-2, but then in the third period guys got tired and everything that (LeRoy) shot seemed to go in. It’s tough when you only have a limited number of players, but I thought our guys tried their best. It’s just that a few mistakes cost us.”
Shaw said the Cyclones “just ran out of bodies” against LeRoy. Forward Pat Cey, who is trying to make a comeback after suffering a wrist injury earlier in the month, had to shut it down after taking the warm-up and captain Derek Allan injured his knee in the first and couldn’t go in the second and third.
The Braves onslaught came early in the third and was prolonged. Braves forward Ryan McDonald scored his second of the game and first of three in the third at the 2:54 mark. Thirty-four seconds later the game would be tied at 4-4 on a shot by Pearce Gourley.
The Braves had all the momentum. They were hitting any Cyclone that dared touch the puck or enter their zone, but a meltdown on the power play could have cost them.
Cyclones forward Kevin Johnson wristed a nifty top glove side on Braves goaltender Nathan Unrau shorthanded once again giving the home side a lead at 5-4 just over five minutes into the third. This was short lived as the Braves continued to press and tied it up less than two minutes later on a weak shot past Cyclones goalie Brady Willner, who seemed to be fighting the puck all night.
Cyclones forward Steve DeSilva, despite struggling around the ice after taking a hard hit in the first period, scored his second of the game 20 seconds later on a nice bobbling puck play in front of the LeRoy net making the score 6-5 Davidson.
The Braves tied it up again just over two minutes later and took the lead for good three minutes after that, at the 13:49 mark of the third, on a power play goal by Devin Moore. The game could have easily been called here because the Cyclones were done. They couldn’t move up the ice without getting crunched by a Brave and when they did manage to get a shot towards goal LeRoy players sacrificing their body for the win blocked it.
To read more please see the January 28 print edition of The Davidson Leader.
Loreburn wins Mars Bars contest for rink upgrades
The home of the Loreburn 19ers is about to get a $20,000 improvement after being named one of five grand winners of a Mars Bars Play Your Part Promotion.
The contest was open to rinks across Canada with five eventually moving to the final round and a chance of $20,000 if they could get enough pins, found in the wrappers of Mars Bars, entered online. Loreburn faced off in the final round against rinks in Mission, B. C., London, Ont., Warwick, Que. and Marsh Lake, Yukon.
Vanessa Tastad, Loreburn recreation board president and village councillor, said the whole village jumped behind the cause. She said, if chosen, the arena proposed to paint, add stick racks and door closures and install new flooring in their two new dressing rooms at the 48-year-old arena, which sees around 50 skaters come through its doors weekly for their hockey, figure and public skating fix.
“Everyone was pretty pumped around here through the whole cause,” said Tastad. “The rink sold just Mars Bars. The (high school) football team sold Mars Bars at their games and anything that the school had on sold Mars Bars. Everybody was entering pins and they’d drop them off for me to enter at the RM office too. Everyone was really good.”
Tastad said she found out they had been selected to receive the $20,000 prize through a phone call from Mars Bars on Dec. 27, with the announcement going national Jan. 8 informing all five rinks that they would get the full $20,000 for their great work getting their communities rallied around the cause.
“It was a pretty good Christmas present,” she said.
Loreburn is scheduled to receive the cheque by the end of January with the improvements beginning in February or March. Tastad said they will first have to get “organized” concerning getting quotes for the work, but the $20,000 will fully cover everything that needs to be done.
“We have two other dressing rooms that we can use while we’re in the process (of renovating), so we’ll be able to keep the rink running through the work,” she said.
Tastad said she first sent in the application to Mars Bars in March and were informed they advanced to the second round of competition two months later. They was picked as one of the five finalists in June and the community has been eating nothing but Mars Bars ever since.
Marc Garneau reaches out to westerners
Federal Liberal Party leadership candidate Marc Garneau is making the West a priority in an effort to build Liberal memberships in Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia as those provinces take over the economic engine of Canada.
Garneau was in Saskatoon Jan. 10 meeting with students at the University of Saskatchewan on another stop in his cross-country tour of Canada.
“The centre of gravity, economically speaking for the country, has shifted to the West,” said Garneau, who represents the Quebec riding of Westmount–Ville-Marie. “If you look at the province of Saskatchewan, it has a booming economy with great resources (like) uranium, potash and of course grains as well as oil and gas. It also has strong potential with respect to the knowledge-based economy with great universities and good companies.
“There is a great shift in terms of where things are at in Canada economically speaking, so the message that I carry when I go to Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia is that I understand how the situation has changed and how important the West is.”
Garneau, 63, said he entered the Liberal leadership race on Nov. 20 due to this desire to change the focus of the country’s economic policy. He said the economic centre of the world has shifted to Asia where there is a high demand for western Canadian resources and, as a result, Canada must find an “efficient way” to get these resources to countries like China and India.
To demonstrate a way to do this, Garneau released his four-point economic strategy earlier this year, which includes a desire for open foreign investment in Canada under transparent and concrete rules, an investment in transportation infrastructure for resources moving to the BC coast for shipment to Asia, environmental protection based on scientific evidence and partnerships with aboriginal communities through resource revenue sharing.
While he believes this may be a start in keeping Canada on a strong footing economically, Garneau said these changes couldn’t right the ship all by themselves. He said with an aging population and underused youth that Canada will not be able to keep up with powerhouses China and India unless an investment is made in a “knowledge-based economy” as well.
“The Harper government is only focused on resource development, but should also focus on diversifying the economy,” he said. “On occasion the price of a resource is going to go down, because there are fluctuations in the world market and in world demand for our resources.
“Having a diversified economy means focusing on trying to exploit that other wealth within this country, which is its people. It’s a focus on putting in place a federal policy that will help to make us more innovative in this country and more competitive with respect to other countries.”
To read more please see the January 28 print edition of The Davidson Leader.
Pasture patrons form provincial group
Saskatchewan ranchers and farmers who use the province’s PFRA community pastures have united to form an association with the aim of ensuring the pastures remain viable for cattle production and grazing.
More than 200 patrons last Wednesday packed the Sutherland Hall in Saskatoon to learn about and then support a proposal to form the Community Pasture Patron’s Association of Saskatchewan (CPPAS).
Nearly every pasture in the province was represented. The turnout demonstrated that farmers and ranchers, although separated by geography, ideology and even political philosophy, could come together on at least one issue: federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz’s April 2012 announcement that Ottawa would end the management of community pastures by 2018.
The government’s plan to disband the 75-year-old PFRA pasture system and sell or lease the lands has raised widespread concerns from patrons worried about losing the professional grazing management provided by the PFRA pasture managers as well for the ecological well-being of the land.
The patrons at the meeting “overwhelmingly supported the idea,” to form an association said the CPPAS’s president and Bladworth farmer Ian McCreary, who represents the Elbow-Willner community pasture.
Patrons at the meeting gave the association a mandate to represent patrons on issues pertaining to the transition of PFRA pastures and to negotiate with the government on the financial terms on which the pastures are transferred to patrons.
One of its most pressing tasks is to “push for a delay” on the transfer of the first 10 pastures so that no pastures are transferred before the start of the 2015 grazing season.
McCreary said they want to slow down the process to allow due diligence to be done to ensure the long-term viability of the pastures and the environmental protection of those lands.
The transition of the first 10 of Saskatchewan’s 62 pastures is to start in the 2013 grazing season.
The federal government’s decision to get out of the community pastures business came unexpectedly as details of its budget last spring began to trickle out.
“It certainly came as a surprise to us,” Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister Lyle Stewart told the crowd.
To read more please see the January 28 print edition of The Davidson Leader.
Milne
Cecil Alexander Milne of Craik, Sask. (formerly of Aylesbury, Sask.) passed away peacefully on Saturday, Jan. 12, 2013 at the Regina General Hospital, Regina, Sask.
Cecil is survived by his loving family: wife Pearl; son Wayne (Liz) and their family, Cari (Ryan) MacDonald and family Ashlin, Kayla and Logan; daughter Sherry (Arnold) Thalgott and their family Tonya (Byron) Francis and family MacKenzie, Taylor and Richelle (Mark) Fallis and family Rylen plus one; sisters Edna White and Marie Kuaz; sister-in-law Mildred Ackerman and brother- and sister-in-law Ron (Beda) Reich; also nieces, nephews and other family members. Funeral services are pending. A complete announcement will be placed in a future edition.