Why did the Ontario Turkey Producers Marketing Board have to
pay a fine of $1,696,55.09 for over-production, and have its production
allocation from the national agency cut by 2,274,796 kilograms last year?
It’s a question I had in mind when I applied under Freedom
of Information for all correspondence relating to export policies between the
turkey board and its supervisory agency, the Ontario Farm Products Marketing
Commission, between Jan. 1, 2006 and Dec. 20,2016.
This week I got an answer from Connie Johnston Hallahan,
Business Services Coordinator for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and
Rural Affairs.
The answer is that I get nothing.
There were three pages of e-mail correspondence, according
to the information she provided, but either that information was private
because it involves a “third party” or did not pertain to my question, which
was about the turkey board’s export program.
The production penalty was deemed so severe that the Ontario
board and national agency agreed to spread it over three years to minimize the
impact on the industry.
What I have been told my the national agency is that the
penalty applied to operations over a four-year period.
But I was also told that the rumours I had heard about
cheating on exports of breeding stock and subsequent imports are only
coffee-shop gossip.
I am not completely surprised by the lack of information
revealed by the commission and the board to clear up this issue.
The people at the commission have also so far revealed
nothing about the appointment of an investigator to examine governance at the
egg marketing board.
If that investigator has submitted interim reports, or a
final report, we may never know. It hasn’t been sprung yet, even after I filed
a Freedom-of-Information application more than a year ago. I have a new
application in process.
The basic issue, it seems to me, is that the marketing
boards and the commission don’t feel obligated to keep the public informed.
They don’t seem to appreciate that they have been granted extraordinary
privileges to operate supply management within a capitalist economy.
