Court Date Set For Friends Of CWB Case

Written by Glenda Lee Allan on Wednesday, 02 May 2012

A Court Date has been set for the Friends of Canadian Wheat Board Case

The Federal Government is appealing Justice Campbells ruling that Ottawa acted illegally in introducing legislation affecting farmers and the Canadian Wheat Board.

“We say yes the government can make new laws, the government can change new laws, but what the government can't is ignore existing laws or break existing laws.,” said Stewart Wells former director and a member of the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board, “That's exactly what they did on October 18^th when they refused to allow farmers to vote on these changes.”

Wells adds that previous legislation on the books called for farmers to have a vote in any major marketing changes for the C-W-B, “On October 18^th of last year when Federal Minister Jerry Ritz introduced the bill to dismantle the wheat board, he did that without following section 47.1, so at that point the friends of Canadian Wheat Board and the former elected directors who were directors at that time, challenged the miniters actions in court. And on December 7^th the federal court and Justice Campbell ruled in favour of the farmers and said that yes the government had broken the law, the minister had broken the law when he had moved to make these changes without letting the farmers vote.”

The appeal will be heard in Ottawa on May 23rd.