Doug Ashbury
Northern News Services

NNSL (Nov 16/98) - Hay River's two egg producers, Northern Poultry and Dene Eggs, appear forced to sit back and wait to find out how many chickens they can count on.

It will be up to a soon-to-be-established NWT egg board to divide up the NWT's 115,000 quota of egg layers. The quota, an allocation by the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency, was established last year under a territorial-federal agreement.

The problem with the 115,000 quota: there could be about twice that many egg layers in the North.

The board will be set up under the Agricultural Products Marketing Act, proclaimed March 31, 1998.

Still pending are the regulations which have been written but need ministerial approval, Doug Doan, RWED assistant deputy minister, said.

Asked how long it will take for the regulations to be finalized, Doan said, "We're talking about a matter of weeks."

Gary Villetard of Dene Eggs said, "We haven't seen the draft regulations for the new (NWT) marketing board. We've seen the act and we are awaiting the first draft of the regulations."

Frank Richardson, who runs Northern Poultry, said he does not know how much quota he will get.

"I'd like to see the (new NWT egg marketing board) go back over the past five years and come up with an average."

Northern egg producers have been battling in court for about 15 years.

Despite winning in the NWT Supreme Court and the NWT Court of Appeal, Richardson and Villetard recently lost to CEMA in the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Supreme Court decision ultimately means Northern Poultry and Dene Eggs cannot sell their eggs outside the NWT because they are not part of the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency (CEMA).

NWT egg producers claim CEMA's efforts to stop them from selling across territorial-provincial borders was a Charter of Rights and Freedoms violation.

The egg producers focused largely on section six of the charter which includes the right to make a livelihood.

"It's getting harder to make a living. I came here in good faith and brought egg prices down," Richardson said.

But after years of frustration, he said it seems like "everybody's trying to make it cost as much as they can" to do business in the North.

"There's a loss of freedom. Government is telling us how to do everything. I ask myself, why do I want to be in business?"

In light of the Supreme Court decision, CEMA chief executive officer Neil Currie said Thursday he planned to meet with Richardson and Villetard to discuss how NWT producers will be brought into the system.

Part of the discussions will be to "bring them down to quota (but) we're certainly not going to order them to destroy birds," he said.

"The court has declared their movement (of product) into the provinces illegal."

CEMA lawyer Francois Lemieux said the GNWT is establishing its quota and regulatory structure. He also said the NWT will be part of the national egg plan and a full participant in CEMA.

Part of joining the national egg plan means there will be NWT representation on CEMA's board, he said.

The egg controversy stems from the 1972 federal-provincial agreement which established CEMA.

There was no egg production in the NWT so the territory was not admitted into the system. This meant NWT egg producers could not get a quota because they were not part of CEMA. But they could not be part of CEMA to get a quota.

And, as long as NWT egg producers sold their product in the NWT it did not matter. Dene Eggs sells much of its production to Alberta.

Eggs produced under a quota can be sold anywhere in Canada.

Currently, the Canadian quota is about 18 million birds which produce 430 million dozen eggs a year.

Currie also said CEMA is considering raising its quotas and NWT producers can apply for more quota.