After announcing it would file for intervener status in the federal government’s latest legal battle to end the Canadian Wheat Board’s single desk for barley, Alberta’s provincial government pledged to back another intervention also.
The Western Barley Growers Association, based in Airdrie, Alta., will get up to $50,000 from the province toward the cost of its own intervention upon receipt of its invoices, the province announced today.
The group, on its web site, offers barley growers a form to fill out detailing what they believe the CWB’s single desk has cost them. The form, to be directed to the law firm handling the WBGA’s intervention, asks for estimated losses in 2007 and anticipated losses for 2008, as well as how the farmer voted in this year’s plebiscite on Prairie barley marketing.
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A Federal Court judge ruled in favour of a pro-CWB farmers’ group on July 31, just before Ottawa’s planned “barley freedom day,” that the federal government’s bid to end the single desk for barley could not proceed simply through regulatory amendments but would have to face a vote in Parliament.
The federal government said in August that it would appeal. Manitoba has also filed motions to request intervener status on behalf of the CWB, an Alberta government release noted.
