The federal government plans to appeal the Federal Court's ruling that it broke the law by introducing Bill C-18 a legislation to end the Canadian Wheat Board and Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz is not backing down.

Ritz spoke on John Gormley Live Thursday morning saying he hopes to have the appeal in place within the next few days.

He says presently the Senate is holding hearings on the bill and while it has been a divisive issue the best way to clean it up is to give every farmer in western Canada choice.

“Those that want to retain and continue to use the pooling of the Canadian Wheat Board will have that option,” explained Ritz. “Those that want to market their own or start a value added industry will also have that – this is the best of both worlds.”

A number of listeners called in to express their thoughts about the agriculture minister?

“It’s time that we got being Ritz and the conservative government,” said one man who called in to John Gormley Live.

“Mr. Ritz, to me, is hypocritical,” said another caller.

Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz hopes to have the appeal in place within the next few days not knowing exactly what the Wheat Board is going to do.

“This is all a part of a stalling tactic, part of the scorched earth policy they’ve been implementing all along,” said Ritz. “They don’t want to see a voluntary board succeed we know that it can because we’re going to back stock it for up to five years.”

Ritz says he expects the bill to be passed into law by the end of the year, even though the appeal will not have been heard.

Edited by News Talk Radio's Sabeen Ahmad.