Tight milk board election contested
Friday, November 22, 2013
by SUSAN MANN
The Dairy Farmers of Ontario board will be discussing a request next week to include some excluded ballots from the recent election for the Perth and Huron (Region 10) farmers’ representative on the board.
Current board member David Murray who is also DFO’s first vice-chair, lost the election to Henry Wydeven of St. Marys. Neither Murray nor Wydeven could be reached for comment. Murray, of Mitchell, has been on the board since 2006.
John Van Dyk of Tavistock, who finished third in the election, says 58 per cent of the 545 farmers eligible to vote cast ballots in the mail-in voting last month. Just two votes separated the top-vote getter, Wydeven, from Murray.
Van Dyk says there are 12 post dated ballots after Oct. 29 and “I believe 10 of those will be post dated Oct. 30. That’s what the challenge may be about,” he notes.
According to an article in DFO’s Oct. 9 Dairy Farmer Update on its website, ballots had to be “mailed or consigned for delivery no later than Oct. 29.” And Dairy Farmers advised farmers in that article to get their ballots in early to ensure they are received in time.
The contested ballots have not been opened, Van Dyk says, “so they could be anybody’s ballots.” There’s no guarantee if the ballots were allowed to be included that Murray would be declared the winner for Region 10.
Van Dyk says he ran for the position because he says there needs to be some transparency on several quota matters but “people didn’t seen to really care about that.” For example, Van Dyk says the Ontario board stated farmers in Nova Scotia overwhelming voted in favour of retaining the quota price cap during a special vote in August. But farmers in Nova Scotia were told they’d lose 10 per cent of their quota if they opted out of the P5 (made of five eastern Canadian provinces; Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island) quota harmonization policies “so of course everyone voted unanimously in favour.”
Ontario farmers weren’t told that Nova Scotia farmers were advised in a letter from the P5 quota committee they would face dire consequences if they didn’t retain the harmonized quota policies, he says.
Graham Lloyd, general counsel and communications director, says by email they have received a request “to reconsider counting some ballots that were excluded.” The board will discuss the matter at its regular meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday. The request to reconsider counting some ballots “needs to be addressed by the board,” Lloyd says.
Lloyd says the candidates have the results of how many ballots they each received but DFO does “not make the numbers public. We only release them to the candidates.”
Van Dyk says candidates were told the board could decide on a number of different options.
In response to an earlier story announcing the election results, two people have told Better Farming that Murray will be taking the matter to the Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Appeal Tribunal.
In an email, Tribunal chair Kirk Walstedt says no appeal has been received from Murray. BF