“If democracy is to flourish, it must have criticism,
If government is to function, it must have dissent.”
 - Henry Steele Commager

A Light on the Law

Meaghan Daniel                July 23, 2008

Battle stories in the David and Goliath genre are epic, inspirational tales. One modern version we take for granted is the story of the farmer and the government.

The story of this case begins back in 1992 when Roger Holland of Maidstone Saskatchewan was issued a game farm license for his elk farm. In 2001, responding to some issues surrounding Chronic Wasting Disease in the elk and deer, (a transmissible neurological disease similar to BSE), the Saskatchewan government introduced a surveillance program. Holland complied with the program and regulations and was issued herd status certificates indicating that his elk herd was free from disease until 2003.

In 2003, this provincial surveillance program was broadened to include national certification. But in order to be certified against disease farmers were required to sign an indemnification and release. Their signature would mean that the farmer could not sue Canada for damages suffered under the certification program and the farmer was to secure Canada against claims related to the program.

Holland and many others refused to sign. The government reduced the status of those herd which, in turn, dramatically reduced the value of those herds. So the farmers sued.

In the case of Holland et. al. v. Saskatchewan of 2004, the court declared that there was no legislative authority to include an indemnification and release in the surveillance program and thus the government was wrong to assign the lowest herd status.

In 2005, the government had still not changed the herd status or attempted to compensate the farmers, and so the farmers sued. Roger Holland is now the lead plaintiff of 200 farmers, who put this question before the court: when can a public authority be held accountable for private damages? It seemed like the law already had a clear answer – almost never. Citizens can not sue the government for private damages arising from a policy decision. The elk farmers wished to sue for the implementation of the 2003 program and the failure to follow the court order.

Their partial victory in court has etched out an exception to this rule. The Supreme Court stated that a citizen may now sue the government for private damages, if their policy or action goes against a court order. This decision essentially means that the farmers may now begin another lawsuit. The first step is to have their class action suit certified by the court. Once this happens, the trial itself may start.

I will be rooting for David.

The Eco-Geek

        Dave Vasey                    July 2, 2008

The wild, western trip is getting me further down the rabbit hole of food politics and grassroots agricultural initiatives in Canada. In British Columbia, we went to the now cooperative Mecca of Nelson, where the largely urban community has ensured that local farmers are being provided for through community supported agriculture or CSA’s. Though still a developing model, CSA’s represent a genuine hope for community and rural pride, while generating funds for farmer’s pocketbooks..... Read more

A commentary for the National Farmers Union-Ontario

Grant Robertson             July 2, 2008

MPP Ernie Hardeman wants you to see the signs

There has been a seemingly unusually high level of talk around issues dealing with compensation and who should be asked to bear the brunt of costs for societal good. It has been on the minds of many local farming friends and the NFU has been having internal discussions around some of these issues as well.
There has been a great deal of legislation, public comment and other actions that have as their basis an issue of who benefits and who pays the costs. The issues vary from protection for species at risk, our water, protecting farm land and other similar issues. Often there is a connection to the environment of the province. Very few thinking citizens are against protecting water, the natural world or farm land. In theory they are all very good and necessary things. It is the practical application of these societal goals that causes concerns to be raised.
Let’s be blunt. In the 20th century we took our natural heritage for granted, particularly here in North America. Water is plentiful, so it seems a good place to flush away all our problems. Cheap oil meant we could travel with little cost from far flung distances each and every day. We lost our understanding of the interconnectedness of all life, so we forgot about the necessary stewardship of our fellow planet sharing creatures.
With the exception of the vast north of this province, much of the land mass of Ontario is owned by farmers. Private property owners hold most of the recharge areas for our water, our animal corridors and the land on which our urban areas are expanding. The trouble arises with government when they then make these private landowners primarily responsible for protecting our water, land, the future of food production, and our wildlife under pressure. While there are good programs for farmers and rural landowners to access, like the Environmental Farm Plan, they still place the primary financial burden on the individual.
Society, all of us, caused the problems we are now facing. It was borne of our very lifestyle and our lack of long term thoughts to the consequence of our actions. It was government and their experts that recommended tiling and draining land that might have performed a better service to the province by recharging water, or being a green area. Those same experts advised removing treed fence lines to maximize production, isolating wildlife populations and their travel corridors. It was not farmers that made the decisions to not intensify urban settings within current borders, but instead create sprawl on Ontario’s prime farmland. The simple reality is that all of us created the problems and it is going to take all of us to fix them.
Expecting the farm community to shoulder the costs for broader societal benefits is not only wrong-headed, it is a blueprint for needed action not taking place. Unlike other businesses farmers do not have a market mechanism to recoup increased costs by passing on the costs to the end users or purchasers of products. To find real solutions we the people of Ontario are going to have to come to terms with the need to fully compensate rural landowners for these societal benefits. If governments at all levels are really looking for positive actions and not just looking for voter-positive headlines, then we need to find ways to share the entire costs across all of society. If we want rural landowners to take land out of production, we need to pay them for lost income. If we want species protected we need to understand that the last refuges of these animals were not created by the landowner, but by the destruction of the habitat for which we are all responsible. Foisting off the costs for the things we all broke would not be okay in any other area of society. It is time to make sure that compensation for fixing these problems is not something that people need to fight for, but central to the solutions we wish to enact.


Grant Robertson is a senior elected official with the National Farmers Union-Ontario and a National Board Member of the NFU. Grant and his family farm near Paisley, Ontario. The author can be contacted at grant@bmts.com
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