Thursday, May 24, 2012

Tribunal rejects OFA, CFFO and NFU-O




The tribunal has rejected re-certifications for all three general farm organizations, leaving them scrambling to try to patch holes in the dike so they can retain their financing under the Farm Business Registration Act.
Mark Wales, president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, says it will seek a meeting with officials in the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) to figure out how to proceed.
One thing he wants is a minor change in the regulations so it will be clear that when farmers choose one of the three general farm organizations to get the $195 registration fee they pay, plus HST, it will cover membership in that organization.
The OMAFRA Appeals Tribunal spent almost a year preparing its response to the applications for re-certification – they come up every three years – and has gone into great detail to outline concerns about the Farm Business Act’s fees being treated as membership fees.
At one point in its decision, the tribunal reveals that it considered ruling that the $195 is the registration fee and that a membership fee would be in addition to that payment.
In addition to calling for additional information and justifications after the public hearings in June, the tribunal consulted AgriCorp and the Hansard records of debates in the legislature in 2002 when the Farm Business Registration bill was under discussion.
Wales and Nathan Stephens, interim staff leader at the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario (CFFO) both said they will do whatever’s necessary to gain re-certification.
In the meantime, “it’s business as usual,” Wales said.
He called the tribunal’s ruling “very technical” and said “we’re not doing anything different from before” when previous tribunals have granted re-certifications.
As an example of a detail, Wales said the tribunal says the OFA failed to comply with requirements to file audited financial statements within 10 days of its annual meeting. Wales said that time period “is chaotic” at the office and the OFA was 11 days late; “others were up to a year late.”
Another detail: the tribunal wants to know how many farmers applied for a rebate of their registration fee. Wales said the OFA provides the total amount refunded, so it’s a simple matter of dividing that total by the membership fee to know how many farmers got refunds, “but we will provide that figure in the future.”
The tribunal also questioned the value of “in kind” services the OFA provides to its locals to show that it devotes at least 25 per cent of its revenues to supporting locals. Wales said that if field-staff services are included, the OFA far exceeds the 25 per cent minimum.
“These are things we can work on,” he said of discussions with OMAFRA. “There’s nothing that can’t be overcome.”
Unlike many tribunal decisions, there is no right of appeal to the Minister of Agriculture or to divisional courts because the legislation says the tribunal’s decisions on certifications are final.
                      
(See separate story re. National Farmers Union).