Miles Materi of Mountain Morning Farms at Salmon Arm, B.C.,
is fighting mad about an inspection by the British Columbia Egg Marketing Board.
He said the inspector arrived at his premises accompanied by
a disgruntled RCMP officer “who really didn’t want to be there” to help the
board exercise a search warrant.
He said the inspector entered his barn, took a few pictures
and left.
He believes the inspection came as retaliation for his
aggressive pursuit of documents about the egg board’s operations,
particularly with regards to L.H. Gray and Son Ltd.
He filed a Freedom of Information request that includes
documents relating to Gray’s egg-grading operations in the province, but has yet to get anything a year later.
Materi believes Gray and the B.C. egg board have “shut down
all the grading stations” that are competitors “and now they’re trying to take
a run at me.” He said so far he hasn't been able to get solid, documented evidence to substantiate that belief.
In his running battle with the egg board and its supervisory
body, the Farm Industry Review Board, Materi says he warned them “I’m going to
rattle every skeleton in the closet I can.” The egg board inspector arrived soon after.
He has also used Freedom of Information to gather Ontario
documents about Gray and has obtained copies of Court of Appeal documents related
to a multi-million-dollar lawsuit that small-scale competitor Svante Lind has filed against Gray,
Burnbrae Farms Ltd. and the Ontario egg marketing board.
He has accused them of conspiracy to drive him out of the egg-grading business, of violations of Canada's Competition Act and of marketing dirty and cracked eggs, claiming they are Grade A.
Gray, the Hudson family which controls Burnbrae and the egg
board deny any wrongdoing. The allegations of conspiracy and a number of other
illegal acts remain to be tested in court.
Materi said the Farm Industry Review Board has stalled the
release of information for more than a year. He appealed to the province’s
privacy commissioner, pointing out that some of the information he seeks
relates to public health and safety.
More recently, Materi said the Attorney-General’s office has
asked him to provide documentation about his complaints about egg-industry
shenanigans by Monday.
He said he believes the Attorney-General’s office is delving
into “governance issues.”
