The Supreme Court of Canada has handed victory to a group of New Brunswick potato farmers by refusing to hear an appeal from the federal government.
The decision made Feb. 19 ends a 15-year legal battle between about 180 New Brunswick potato farmers and the government in a case dealing with a potato virus outbreak in the province more than 20 years ago.
Kevin Jensen is one of the potato growers who launched the lawsuit against the federal government in the mid-1990s. The farmers claimed improper testing by the government failed to detect the PVYn virus in seed potatoes imported to New Brunswick in the late 1980s.
Jensen said the government also claimed a large number of sites in the province were affected by the virus, something the farmers denied in their lawsuit.
The New Denmark farmer said the mistakes meant the loss of markets in the United States and Mexico.
