The
Chicken Farmers of Ontario, the Association of Ontario Chicken Processors and
several of the biggest chicken processors in the province have won a partial
victory over CAMI International Poultry Inc. of Welland.
CAMI
has filed a lawsuit against them, claiming a conspiracy among them to deny the
company enough chicken supplies to satisfy its customers’ demand for Hong Kong
dressed birds.
Justice
J.R. Henderson agreed with the chicken board and processors that there is some
“confusion about what was taken” from CAMI when Ontario and Quebec marketing
boards signed an agreement to ban inter-provincial trade in live chickens.
CAMI
had been buying Quebec birds to keep its customers supplied with about 800,000
birds slaughtered each quota period. After the ban went into effect, it could
only source about 250,000 birds per quota period.
CAMI
argues that the trading ban left the Ontario chicken board with birds that were
being exported to Quebec and it divided those birds among Ontario processors,
but denied CAMI its share.
That,
CAMI claims, violates a number of laws, including the competition act, the
federal-provincial agreement on internal traded, and amounts to expropriation
without compensation.
Henderson
said “there is at least a germ or a scintilla of a chance” CAMI could succeed
on this claim that the members of the AOCP ended up with supplies that should have
been granted to CAMI.
The
chicken board argued that CAMI had no base quota covering the birds it was
importing, therefore the chicken board took nothing from CAMI.
Henderson
disagreed and said CAMI might succeed with its claim that something of value
was taken by the chicken board and distributed to other processors.
Henderson
also dismissed the chicken board and processors’ challenge that there has been
no violation of the Competition Act. That claim, says Henderson “has a chance
of success.”
There
were no arguments presented during this court challenge about the
federal-provincial agreement on internal trade because the lawyers can’t find a
copy of the agreement.
The
main court case is scheduled to be heard in Welland early next year.
CAMI
has filed another court challenge against the way the federal government and
the federal-provincial marketing boards deal with applications for
supplementary import permits.
When
CAMI applied for a permit to import chickens from the U.S. so it could meet its
customers’ demand for Hong Kong dressed birds, the marketing boards said they
could find regular chicken to fill the orders. CAMI is arguing that it’s not
right to deny a supplementary import permit on this basis because the specialty
market is left unfilled.
