Tobacco Farmers Going to Court

Source from:  Kate Schwass and Daniel Pearce SIMCOE REFORMER Wednesday April 16, 2008 04/17/2008

Suit will take years to resolve, says legal expert Tobacco farmers have given the lawyers the go-ahead to "get us into court as quick as they can," New Tobacco Alliance Committee co-chair Garry Proven says. While the exact number of how many farmers isn't known yet, Proven confirmed it's in the hundreds and is growing every day. "We have more than enough (farmers) to go ahead easily," Proven said in an interview Sunday. "The vast majority of members who were there voted to move ahead." Last week, tobacco farmers met in Delhi at a closed-door meeting of the NTAC to hear a London lawyer's take on moving ahead with a lawsuit against the federal and provincial governments. Lawyer Malcolm Bennett of McKenzie Lake Lawyers of London said tobacco producers have two options. The first is a constitutional challenge of the high rate of taxation on cigarettes. The second is suing the governments for a failure to protect the tobacco-growing industry by allowing illegal and contraband cigarettes into the country. Proven said they are currently contacting committee members who were not at the meeting to ensure they're still in. Then those members who choose to move forward will be informed how much the next step will cost them. The tobacco belt in southern Ontario has seen a major decline in recent years. During its peak, farmers were growing 218 million pounds of tobacco each season. Last year it was 32 million. This season it will likely be closer to 20 million. Tobacco farmers, through the Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers' Marketing Board, have been trying to negotiate a buyout from the federal government, but on March 31, federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said farmers should look to other aid packages to help them get out of tobacco. Proven called the federal government's decision not to offer tobacco farmers a buyout package "heartless." "It struck a nerve," Proven said. Farmers, however, face "a lot of risk and uncertainty" in mounting the suit, said University of Western Ontario law professor Stephen Pitel. Getting a resolution, he said, will probably "take years, not months" while taking on the federal government will be a "challenge." "As defendants they will be well-financed, well-resourced, and well-motivated," Pitel said after being told of the lawsuit by the Reformer. "It's not dissimilar to suing a large corporation." Part of the problem, said Pitel, whose area of expertise is civil litigation, is that farmers will be attacking government largely on policy decisions rather than on every day administrative choices it made. "Policy decisions are historically much more difficult" to win, he said. The government, he added, will also be "motivated" because of the "slippery slope dimension" to a decision against it. Canada still has other government-regulated agricultural industries, such as eggs and milk, that could come looking for money if they too fell, Pitel noted. One Norfolk County tobacco farmer, who asked not to be identified, said he is unlikely to join the suit because "it will take years in court" and "I don't know if it's going to go anywhere." "I'm tired of giving money away," said the man, who will enter his second spring without planting a crop. Enditem