New quota policies in limbo as dairy board awaits Tribunal ruling

Thursday, July 30, 2009

by SUSAN MANN

Dairy Farmers of Ontario’s board couldn’t make a decision at its regular meeting this week to run the August quota exchange because it hasn’t yet heard from the Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Appeal Tribunal on the status of its new quota policies.

They are slated to become effective Aug. 1 as part of an agreement Ontario has with Quebec, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick to bring in common quota policies for farmers in those provinces. The Ontario Quota Rights Organization has appealed to the Tribunal to declare the new policies null and void and that’s resulted in an automatic ‘stay’ being imposed in Ontario under provincial legislation. That means the new policies, including the quota price cap, the end of the transfer assessment, the new entrant quota assistance program and others, can’t be implemented here unless the stay is lifted by the Tribunal.

“We can’t implement the new policies as long as the stay is in effect,” says Wes Lane, DFO communications director.

Normally the August exchange would have been open for bids on July 20 but the board decided to delay the exchange opening until the Tribunal rules on the stay.
 
On Monday DFO argued at a pre-hearing conference in Guelph before Tribunal vice-chair Frank Handy that the stay isn’t needed for all the new quota policies and that it should just be limited to the 41 active dairy farmers who are members of the Ontario Quota Rights group. The Tribunal was to release a verbal decision as soon as possible followed by written reasons at a later date, Lane says.

Initially DFO said on its web site that the board would decide if it could operate the August exchange at its meeting on Wednesday. But now the exchange is still being delayed for a few more days, Lane says.

The board will have to make a decision to either cancel or run the August exchange by the end of the day on Tuesday, Aug. 4 even if it hasn’t heard from the Tribunal by then, he notes.

The Ontario Quota Rights Organization is made up of at least 75 members – 41 active dairy farmers and 34 former producers. But group member Doye Harrigan says new farmers are joining all the time. The group went to DFO’s board June 23 asking that the harmonized quota policies set to come in Aug. 1 be declared null and void. DFO refused and Quota Rights then filed an appeal with the Tribunal.

Quota Rights has a number of concerns with the new policies, including that DFO failed to provide adequate and meaningful consultation with farmers, there weren’t adequate and sufficient studies to outline the potential impacts of the new policies on farmers’ operations, there weren’t any costs associated with implementation provided to farmers, and there weren’t any benchmark criteria to allow for a review of the policies to determine if they’re succeeding. Quota Rights concerns are outlined on their web site at: www.oqro.ca.

DFO declined to comment of Quota Rights concerns. Lane says they particularly didn’t want to comment until the Tribunal rules on the stay.

In addition to asking for DFO’s new policies to be suspended or stayed, the Quota Rights group is asking the Tribunal to order DFO to establish a consultation process with its members along with other interested farmers and stakeholders to develop a comprehensive quota policy based on mutually-agreed upon independent studies. The policy would then have to be approved by 70 per cent of dairy farmers in a referendum before being implemented.

Meanwhile, the common quota policies are set to be implemented on Aug. 1 in the four other P5 provinces - Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Quebec and Nova Scotia, Lane says.

In Ontario the Tribunal hearing on declaring the policies null and void will likely be heard in late September or early October. But it could be later if either side has scheduling difficulties. BF