New Brunswick maple syrup exporter wins case against Quebec regulator

A New Brunswick maple syrup processor has won an appeal court victory in his dispute with the marketing federation that controls syrup production in Quebec. The New Brunswick Court of Appeal says in a written decision released last week that Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers' limits on the amount of sap and syrup Etienne St-Pierre can buy don't apply in the East Coast province. The appeal decision upholds an earlier decision by the Court of Queen's Bench in Fredericton, which said the attempt to apply the quotas to St-Pierre's company in Kedgwick, N.B., didn't apply. The Quebec injunction was originally issued by the Quebec Agricultural Marketing Board after the federation filed a complaint against St-Pierre in 2007. But the New Brunswick courts have refused to accept the board's decision and its ratification by a Quebec court as having jurisdiction in the province. Justice Alexandre Deschenes wrote the Court of Appeal agreed with earlier rulings that the federation was trying to extend Quebec regulations into a separate jurisdiction. He also agreed that since the injunction against St-Pierre was a temporary order and since the Quebec board was still reviewing its own jurisdiction it wasn't logical to enforce an injunction that might not last.