Complaint over aerial spraying goes to small claims court

REGINA — The sound of a low-flying plane sends Aidan Fremont’s children running into the house.

They’re wary after what happened in July 2023 on the family’s acreage near Paddockwood, Sask., about 50 km north of Prince Albert.

Fremont said a spray plane operated by Lafleche, Sask.-based Sky Ag Services was working in a nearby barley field when it came over their yard still spraying. He and his son were covered.

“It was dripping off me,” he said.

“It was dripping down the roof of my barn.”

Within two days, the yard’s trees were yellow.

Fremont filmed the incident with his phone, ready because two days earlier his father’s home had been sprayed. They lost all their fruit trees and garden. A neighbour three kilometres away was also sprayed.

He has spent nearly three years since then trying to find out what was sprayed, how to prevent it from happening again and who is responsible.

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After filing a complaint with Transport Canada within the 30-day window, contacting Health Canada and an investigation from the provincial government’s forensic agrologist, he was left with few answers and forced to file Freedom of Information requests to get details on his own file.

Fremont said it has all taken too long and none of the government departments involved were willing to do anything about it. Health Canada told him to call back if there was damage.

“I was also told I need to have a sensitive crop like organic land or bees because my children aren’t sensitive enough,” he said.

He took Sky Ag to small claims court in March 2026 and is waiting for the second appearance in June. The lawyer representing Sky Ag did not respond to The Western Producer.

The plane, Fremont said, had been hired by Monette Farms.

Saskatchewan Agriculture’s forensic agrologist went to the property about three weeks after it was sprayed.

“His initial impression within minutes of exiting his car was that a Group 4 herbicide was used because of the extensive damage to vegetation,” Fremont said.

Plant tissue testing found a fungicide, Prosaro XTR, had been used. The agrologist couldn’t explain why the damage was so severe.

Paper trail difficult to chart

Although Fremont reported the incident to Transport Canada within days, it took months for anyone to respond. Then, he was told his complaint had been lost.

A complaint from the neighbour who had been sprayed was also lost.

The Transport Canada investigator told Fremont to contact Shawn Bourgeois, owner of Sky Ag. Fremont said the conversation was not pleasant, but Bourgeois told him the spray was safe and he shouldn’t worry.

In the meantime, Transport Canada wasn’t able to get all the information it needed because the plane’s hard drive had been wiped.

The applicator was required to develop a safety plan, but Fremont said he wasn’t allowed to see it. He was told the pilot’s licence had been suspended for a year.

He began filing Freedom of Information requests. Those raised even more questions after one included a report from a Transport Canada investigator to whom Fremont had never spoken. There was no mention of the 18 months he had spent working with the other investigator. He just recently was able to raise his concerns with a director in the department.

He also spent $20,000 on bees in an effort to meet federal senstitivity requirements and asked the neighbouring farm to phone when they intend to spray. Although they used ground sprayers in 2024, in 2025 they used helicopters.

“I’ve gone through all these channels and I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do with no resolution,” he said.

Fremont claims he attended a rural municipality meeting and the council said there was nothing they could do. He alleged one councillor laughed at him.

“My child and I had fungicide pouring out of our eyes and my councillor … laughed at me,” he said.

Previous violations

Sky Ag has been implicated in other incidents like this. Recently, the company and some complainants from Speers, Sask., settled out of court after the entire community was sprayed in 2023. The FOI documents indicated the company also sprayed some of the Prairie Berries crop at Keeler, Sask., and other operations.

It’s unknown which, if any, of the company’s pilots may have been at fault or suspended as a result of these complaints. An FOI request filed by The Western Producer indicated the company was supposed to be fined for at least two violations.

Fremont said he only wants to be sure this never happens again and that he can live on the property where his family has lived for generations. The land being sprayed used to be pasture but was broken up for crop production.

He worries his property won’t be worth anything if large farms hire aerial sprayers who aren’t conscientious about where they spray.

On the province’s east side, farmer and RM of St. Phillips councillor Ron Sernowski said he was frustrated when the aerial applicator he hired flew over his farmyard. Sernowski has a pilot’s licence and said it isn’t difficult to avoid going over yards.

He was dismayed when the company he had hired dismissed his concerns, saying they are running a business and sometimes have to do what they need to do. That answer “blew my mind,” Sernowski said.

“We’re hiring these guys and is it a lack of respect? Is it a lack of understanding?” he said.

A buffer zone between his and a neighbour’s fields has been destroyed by aerial application, and he said many farmers are questioning whether they should continue using this method.

In nearby Norquay, residents reported significant garden damage last August due to nearby pre-harvest spraying.

Sernowski said the tendency is to blame the landowner when the problem is really the pilot.

A resolution at the 2024 Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities convention called for tighter regulation on aerial applicators, but he said nothing has changed. Sernowski said he isn’t necessarily in favour of more rules, but they might be needed.

“We’re not talking about over-regulation. We’re making an appeal to these guys not to fly over top of our farmyard.”