The legality of a federal agriculture minister’s changes to who automatically gets ballots for Canadian Wheat Board director elections is to be decided in Federal Court in Winnipeg starting Jan. 20.
The hearing dates back to a 2008 application by a pro-CWB farmers’ group, the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board, which had hoped for a hearing before that year’s round of director elections.
FCWB member Laurence Nicholson of Seven Persons, Alta. said in a release Thursday that the group had hoped for a “speedy” trial at the time. “True to form, though, the federal government fought us at every turn and the expedited trial was denied,” he said.
Read Also
Senft to step down as CEO of Seeds Canada
Barry Senft, the founding CEO of the five-year-old Seeds Canada organization is stepping down as of January 2026.
Shortly before CWB director elections in 2008, the FCWB said, a “secret” letter was signed by Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz and sent to the CWB.
“This letter of instruction from the minister overturned the CWB Act and Regulations — changing the voting rules for the 2008 elections,” the group said, stating that Ritz’s letter was issued in July that year but not made public for two months.
“The result was that thousands of legitimate CWB permit book holders were stripped of their legal voting rights without even a direct notice that their rights had been eliminated,” the group said.
“At exactly the same time, however, the Harper government was again spending large amounts of taxpayer money making it easier for people that had never held CWB permit books, and never ever intended to market grain through the CWB, to receive a ballot.”
FCWB, Nicholson said, “believe that it is illegal for the government to override a farmer-run-and-financed election process mandated by Parliament with a ‘secret’ letter.”
