Eastern Ontario chicken producers win epic legal battle with CFO

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

by BETTER FARMING STAFF

Last week in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in L’Orignal, Judge Michel Charbonneau issued an endorsement requiring Chicken Farmers of Ontario to amend its regulations within 30 days to take into account the “linguistic rights” of the francophone producers it represents in eastern Ontario.

The decision, which follows lengthy court proceedings brought by a group of eastern Ontario producers, flies in the face of policies adapted by similar marketing boards (see "Other Ontario marketing boards" below), and is expected to overturn existing CFO allocation policy. Ontario’s chicken producers are on the hook for what are likely substantial legal costs.

The judge’s May 10 endorsement, two brief paragraphs in each of Canada’s official languages, uses the phrase “linguistic rights,” twice. It doesn’t say anything about overturning a relatively recent ban on allowing Ontario producers to sell birds to Quebec.

According to Herman Turkstra, a Hamilton lawyer representing the Association of Ontario Chicken Processors, however, this phrase actually means the applicants will continue to contract with Quebec processors as in the past. "Their production will not be processed in Ontario under current marketing arrangements."

The processor association, also a defendant in the court case, originally opposed the 24 francophone producers but changed its mind after conducting two weeks of cross examinations under oath in Ottawa in April, Turkstra says. “AOCP members reached the conclusion that the Applicants had demonstrated a historic basis for their claim to continue, as they have done for many years in the past, to contract with processors in Quebec in French, the language in which they were most effective.

“CFO indicated in Court that it had reached the same conclusion,” notes Turkstra.

While Turkstra and the processors have been very clear with Better Farming about this matter, CFO has been less so. Directors and staff were initially either unavailable or unwilling to comment, saying either that they didn’t understand what had happened or were not allowed to talk about it.

Better Farming left repeated voice mails over a two-day period for CFO communications director Michael Edmonds. We also sent him specific questions by email.

Edmonds never answered our questions but responded by email only: “In terms of a quote you could use: CFO is pleased that an agreement has now been reached to resolve the legal proceedings." Questions sent since this response have not been answered either.

CFO vice-chairman Murray Booy offered: “there is a potential for a settlement . . . All the details have not been worked out.” He described some “minor changes” to the four-party agreement between Ontario and Quebec producer boards and the two provinces’ chicken processor associations. Asked to describe the issues involved in the lawsuit, Booy said, “I don’t feel comfortable doing that.”

Geoff Spurr, lawyer for the chicken board, downplayed the changes to rules over chicken marketing. He said there is already an aspect to the regulations allowing for interprovincial trade in chicken. “The rules relating to it will change so that (producers) have a greater comfort level relating to that activity.”

Spurr allowed “this is still a work in progress” and he was not certain if changes would be required to the four way agreement between the two producer groups and the two processor groups in Ontario and Quebec.

Four banker’s boxes filled with legal documents in the L’Orignal courthouse and the large number of legal resources, and proceedings devoted to the case, suggest the final cost of this dispute will be high.

The leader of the 24 producers, Andre Lamoureux of Orleans, offered few comments on Wednesday evening. “Not tonight,” he said when asked if he would be interviewed. “Tomorrow I have something in court.” Court files suggest Lamoureux’s relationship with CFO has been acrimonious.

Once he filed his legal action against the board, CFO barred him from carrying out his responsibilities as a district committee representative.

The eastern Ontario farmers were represented by Ottawa lawyer Ronald Caza. A legend in the francophone community, he successfully defended the constitutionality of requiring bilingual signs in Russell Township in 2011, and, more than 10 years before, prevented the Mike Harris government from closing the bilingual Hopital Montfort in Ottawa. Caza has not responded to a request for an interview this morning. BF