The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food Appeals
Tribunal has finally posted its reasons for denying accreditation to the
National Farmers Union – Ontario under the Farm Registration and Farm
Organizations Funding Act.
The decision was released before Christmas and came after a
public hearing in July.
The Ontario organization has had to rely on direct
memberships this year because it can’t collect any of the money ($195 plus HST) that Agricore
requires from farmers to register their farms every year. They need a
registration to access many government subsidies and programs, including
reduced municipal taxes on farmland.
The first reason the tribunal gives for rejecting the
application is that it does not have members in the province. The farmers are
members of the National Farmers Union, not the National Farmers Union – Ontario
which filed the application, the tribunal reasons.
And the tribunal says the national organization does not qualify
to participate in “stable funding” under the terms of the legislation.
And it rejects the opinion the agriculture ministry offered
via its lawyer during the hearing, saying it must follow the wording of the
act. If the politicians who passed the act had wanted it to mean what the
ministry’s lawyer said it means, they could of, and should have, worded it that
way, the tribunal decided.
In the words of the decision, “at the hearing on
July 18, 2012, it appeared to the tribunal that a related organization, the
National Farmers Union (the "NFU"), might be the organization
representing farmers in the province rather than the NFU-O. The NFU is a
national farm organization based in Saskatoon and operates in Ontario as
"NFU Region 3."
The tribunal also came to “adverse conclusions”
when the NFU-O, after consulting with its lawyer, refused to produce documents
outlining relationships between the Ontario and national organizations.
It finds that the Ontario organization is under the thumb of
the national organization.
“Even if the directors of the NFU-O were to
revolt against the NFU, the NFU would still be firmly in control,” writes the
tribunal.
The tribunal says it respects Ann Slater, at the
time the regional co-ordinator for NFU-O, when she testified that she perceives
no conflict of interest between acting on behalf of the NFU-O and the NFU with
head offices in Saskatoon.
But the tribunal points to documents and writes
“to any disinterested observer, it would be obvious that the negotiation of
such agreements (between the national and Ontario organizations) would place
the regional coordinator in a conflict of interest, as the interests of the two
corporations are almost certain to diverge at some point during the
negotiation.”
The tribunal also points to a report from the NFU
treasurer, citing an increase in the stable funding fee in Ontario, as a reason
why revenues for the national organization increased, and says this undermines
the argument made during the hearing that Ontario is financially independent.
The lengthy report continues in a similar vein to
find evidence that the Ontario organization is really dancing to tunes composed
in Saskatoon.
The tribunal says it appreciates that previous tribunals
have granted the NFU-O accreditation, but says this tribunal is not bound by
previous decisions and notes that the previous tribunals did not have all of
the facts this tribunal garnered.
“For example, there is nothing in any of the tribunal's
previous decisions to indicate that key documents such as the NFU's by-laws,
the NFU's financial statements, and the legal agreements between the NFU and
the NFU-O were in evidence before the tribunal on previous applications.
“In any event, based on the tribunal's review of
the facts and the law in this case, the tribunal is unable to accredit the
NFU-O on this application.”
The Ontario Federation of Agriculture and the
Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario were also rejected when they filed
their original applications for re-accreditation.
After the tribunal outlined its reasons for those
rejections, then agriculture minister Ted McMeekin eased the terms for
re-accreditation, the two organizations made a number of changes and gained
accreditations.
They will, however, face renewal challenges
because McMeekin’s easing of the terms is temporary. Both organizations are
changing the process they follow when signing up members.
