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Ten farmers who broke wheat board monopoly got clemency

GRAIN CROSSING-3

Ten farmers who broke wheat board monopoly got clemency

When Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced in 2012 that he had used an “ancient power” to clear the criminal records of prairie farmers convicted of illegally trucking their grain across the U.S. border, he refused to say how many farmers had had their files wiped clean.

But according to data recently released to the Citizen, of 12 clemency requests granted in total in 2012, 10 were for farmers who had been found guilty of violating the Canadian Wheat Board’s rules. The Parole Board of Canada says the requests were granted on July 27, 2012 — fours days prior to Harper’s announcement.

Between 2002 and 2011, only seven clemency requests in total were granted. Clemency is a rarely used power.

Harper granted the clemency requests to the farmers in the context of actions by his government to dismantle the national wheat board, which held a monopoly on decisions about marketing and selling of farmers’ wheat, including across borders. Several had defied it and suffered punishment as a result.

“Let me be clear about this. These people were not criminals,” Harper told reporters during an August 2012 media event in Saskatchewan in which he said clemencies were being granted. “They were our fellow citizens who protested injustice by submitting themselves peacefully to the consequences of challenging that injustice. Those consequences are what was wrong.”

At the time, opposition MPs and legal experts denounced the government’s rare move to circumvent the usual clemency application process. “Harper doesn’t personally grant pardons. Nor is the decision about a pardon supposed to be partisan. They’re corrupting the process,” then-Liberal leader Bob Rae tweeted.

The identities of most of the farmers are still unknown. However, Postmedia News reported after the announcement that Jim Chatenay was one of them, and despite not applying for special treatment, had been relieved to get a phone call from government staff offering it to him. He had served 23 days in jail in 2002 for violating the Canadian Wheat Board’s rules.

 

http://www.canada.com/news/farmers+broke+wheat+board+monopoly+clemency/10386634/story.html

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