Canadian beef farmers want mediator for BSE suit
Friday, October 8, 2010
by SUSAN MANN
Canada’s beef farmers want the federal government to appoint a retired Supreme Court judge to mediate a settlement in their ongoing BSE class action lawsuit.
Ontario beef and cash crop farmer Bill Sauer, the representative plaintiff in the case, says their lawyer told them it could take 10 years for the case to work its way through the legal system. Appointing a mediator “will be the quickest way for any settlement to come in our favour,” he notes.
The farmers have asked for Mr. Justice Frank Iacobucci to be appointed as the mediator. Sauer says the appointment is a good idea. “When he (Iacobucci) looks at all the evidence and the negligence that was caused by the federal bureaucrats I believe he will mediate favorably for the cattle producers of Canada.”
Letters in support of appointing a mediator to resolve the five-year-old case were sent to 308 Members of Parliament. A petition from constituents in the riding of MP Larry Miller (Bruce, Grey, Owen Sound) was read by him in the House of Commons Wednesday.
Sauer says petitions with the same wording as the one Miller read were circulated and signed by farmers across Canada. He doesn’t know how many farmers signed them.
Miller says 26 people signed the petition he read. It was tabled in the House and “it becomes part of the record,” Miller says, noting the petition was referred to the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz couldn’t be reached for comment. A spokesman in his office says by email the minister is “currently in the air traveling to Asia working on reinvigorating international agriculture markets.”
Cameron Pallett, an Ontario lawyer on the farmers’ legal team, says Mr. Justice Iacobucci has been appointed by the federal government to review other serious matters for the country, including the situation involving Afgan detainees. “My question is: Are Afgan detainees more important to the government of Canada than 135,000 hard-working Canadian farm families?”
Quoting from a 2004 federal Agriculture Standing Committee report, it says in the petition that the immediate border closing across the industrialized world to Canadian cattle and beef products (in May, 2003) sent cattle prices spiraling downward, led to the record levels of cattle inventories, dramatically raised feed costs, drained beef farmers’ cash positions and wiped out any chance of profitability for farmers in 2003 “with little prospects for recovery in the immediate and foreseeable future.”
In their letter to Members of Parliament, the farmers say it’s difficult to exaggerate the damage suffered by the Canadian cattle industry since May, 2003.
For its part, the Ontario Cattlemen’s Association is staying out of the lawsuit. LeaAnne Hodgins, communications manager, says as part of its mandate the association lobbies the federal government for funding to help beef producers and it can’t then turn around and sue the government.
Producers have been free to make an individual decision to either join the lawsuit or not, she says.
Launched in April 2005, the farmers allege in their lawsuit that negligence by federal government officials and Ridley Inc. caused the BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) crisis in Canada and the corresponding loss of income to Canadian cattle producers. The lawsuit against Ridley Inc. alleged the company manufactured infected feed that was fed to a cow diagnosed with BSE in May, 2003. Damages claimed are in the billions of dollars.
The action against Ridley was settled in February, 2008 after an agreement was reached between the farmers and the company. Ridley’s potential liability was capped at $6 million. The money was paid into a trust fund to provide financial support for ongoing actions against the federal government. As part of the settlement, Ridley denies liability and wrong doing on its part.
The allegations against the federal government haven’t been proven in court. BF