Sarantakos v. Chicken Farmers of Ontario, 2015 ONAFRAAT 15

Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Appeal Tribunal

Tribunal d’appel de l’agriculture, de l’alimentation et des affaires rurales 1 Stone Road West Guelph, (Ontario) N1G 4Y2 Tel: (519) 826-3433, Fax: (519) 826-4232 Email: AFRAAT@ontario.ca

Guelph (Ontario) N1G 4Y2 Tél.: (519) 826-3433, Téléc.: (519) 826-4232 Email: AFRAAT@ontario.ca

AGRICULTURE, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS APPEAL TRIBUNAL

APPEAL: Sarantakos v Chicken Farmers of Ontario Sarantakos v CFO 2015ONAFRAAT15

STATUTE: Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Act

HEARING: July 15, 2015

DATE OF DECISION: July 17 2015 2015-15

NEUTRAL CITATION: 2015 ONAFRAAT 15

Sarantakos v Chicken Farmers of Ontario

IN THE MATTER OF SECTION 16 OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS ACT, R.S.O. 1990, CHAPTER M.16, AS AMENDED.

AND IN THE MATTER OF: An Appeal to the Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Appeal Tribunal by Paul Sarantakos, of Smithville, Ontario, from Chicken Farmers of Ontario’s (CFO) decision dated April 14, 2015 and CFO’s order and direction dated May 21, 2015 requiring the appellant to provide an email address for communications with CFO, and not allotting crop quota to him commencing with quota period A-133 until compliance with the May 21, 2015 order and direction is achieved.

Before: Jeffrey J. Hewitt, Vice-Chair; Claire Belluz, Member; Arnold Strub, Member

Appearances: Paul Sarantakos – Appellant Geoff Spurr – Counsel for the respondent, Chicken Farmers of Ontario (CFO) Sandy Roulston – Manager, Regulations and Standards for CFO Murray Opstein – Director, CFO

DECISION OF THE TRIBUNAL

This appeal was heard in Guelph, Ontario on July 15, 2015.

Appeal Overview

In 2014, Chicken Farmers of Ontario (CFO) enacted a regulation and policy that required, effective September 30, 2014, all farmer-members, transporters and processors to provide the Board with an e-mail address for the purposes of communications with the Board.

CFO’s regulation also allows a producer for any year to apply to the CFO Board for an alternative method of communication, other than email, and if approved by the Board, may direct the producer to pay a service charge of $1,768 per registered premises per annum to permit communications between the producer and the Board in a format other than a digital format. In this case, the appellant was seeking to continue to communicate with the Board in writing and file forms and information by regular mail.

CFO declined the appellant’s application and ordered the appellant to provide CFO with a commercial email address by May 29, 2015, and advised that failure to comply with CFO’s order will result in his crop quota not being allotted to him commencing Quota Period A-133 and continuing thereafter until compliance is achieved.

Paul Sarantakos appealed CFO’s decision dated April 14, 2015 and CFO’s order and direction dated May 21, 2015 and requested that he be allowed to fill out his forms on paper and return his completed forms to CFO by regular mail.

Preliminary Matter

At the commencement of the hearing, Mr. Spurr, legal counsel for the CFO, advised that the CFO is prepared to allow Mr. Sarantakos to communicate with the CFO in writing, as he has in the past. With this concession, the purpose of the Tribunal continuing with this hearing as it is currently framed is no longer required.

However, Mr. Sarantakos raised in his appeal to the Tribunal the issue of paying the prescribed fee of $1,768, which individuals not using digital communications must pay. Mr. Spurr advised that this issue had not previously been before the CFO Board and that Mr. Sarantakos did not raise the issue of the fee until his appeal to this Tribunal. As such, Mr. Spurr submitted that the proper process to determine that issue has not been engaged. He stated the fee issue should first go before the Board before it comes before the Tribunal. Further, Mr. Spurr submitted that he did not have the proper materials before this Tribunal to discuss this issue.

The Tribunal agrees that, in the interest of fairness, it is necessary that the issue of the fee, if disputed by Mr. Sarantakos, must first go before the CFO Board. The Board may decide in his favour and no further appeal is required. If it does not, then an appeal to this Tribunal may be necessary. But if there is such an appeal, the Tribunal will need to know why the Board decided as it did. Therefore, the matter of the fee is not properly before the Tribunal.

As a result of the CFO agreeing to accept written communications from Mr. Sarantakos, the Tribunal hereby orders as follows:

Order of the Tribunal

1. Mr. Sarantakos shall be allowed to communicate with the CFO in writing.

2. The decision by the CFO to not allocate quota during period A-133 to Mr. Sarantakos is hereby set aside.

3. With regard to the payment of the fee of $1,768, in order to preserve his quota rights, Mr. Sarantakos may pay that fee but do so in protest, without prejudice and retaining all rights to raise the fee issue before the CFO Board and ultimately the Tribunal, if necessary.

4. Alternatively, Mr. Sarantakos may choose to not pay the fee but, instead, immediately commence the process of appealing it to first the CFO Board and then the Tribunal, if necessary. Mr. Sarantakos is advised that, while the parties will endeavor to deal with this matter as quickly as possible, he runs the risk of not being allocated quota during period A-134 if he does not deal with this matter expeditiously.

5. As the current panel of the Tribunal is now well versed in the issues, it shall remain seized for the purposes of any further appeal regarding the fee.

Dated at Tecumseh, Ontario this 17th day of July, 2015