Canadian Constitution Foundation;
The [Canadian Food Inspection Agency] notified Jones recently that they intend to destroy 41 of her apparently healthy sheep—including 20 pregnant ewes—on Monday, April 2, 2012.
The order was made under the federal government’s “scrapie eradication program.” Scrapie is an illness which affects the productivity and longevity of sheep but is not transmissible to humans.
None of the condemned animals have tested positive for scrapie in live biopsies. Furthermore, none of the animals show any clinical symptoms of the disease. Nevertheless, the CFIA has ordered the sheep destroyed based merely on the “suspicion” of being contaminated. The CFIA has declined all alternative risk-control measures proposed by Ms. Jones and her lawyer, Karen Selick of the Canadian Constitution Foundation.
Faced with the possibility of 2 years’ imprisonment and fines of up to $250,000 if she obstructs the CFIA’s proposed slaughter, Ms. Jones may have no realistic choice but to surrender the animals.
Update! They’re on the lamb.
probably some animal rights nutters or PETA or, hey wait a minute, the think she was involved.
Farmers are so much smarter than snivel servants.
yeah well this has a simple explaination…..
This agency feels it needs to be seen as doing something to justify it’s existance…..something like when the WHO and the CDC banned DDT.
you can almost be guaranteed that the bureaucrats involved have been around for more than six years and are leftover liebrals appointed by a relative, who can probably read, after a fashion, but can’t make sense of what they’re reading…but the moonbat media will blame it all on the eeeeevil Harper.
Little Bo Peep was of no help either.
Shoot, shovel and shut up, part deux.
CIDA is wrong. The owner has done everything necessary to prove the sheep do not have scrapies.
They have no right to destroy her animals. She deserves due process in a free country.
Guess the food inspection agency can’t get that power rush by using common sense. They probably learned from the EPA that happiness comes from ruining a few lives every year. Test first and then make a decision ? Far too logical to let them enjoy their god-like status.
Check out Karen Selick’s blog, some very good topics and opinions.
Great Zot….the scrapies have scarpered.
Yea! Almost Pythonesque…guvament inspectors lose the sheep they were going to kill…
Run! Sheep, Run!!
On a serious note do these farmers need financial help and encouragement to tell the guvament to back off!?
I have mixed feelings about this. While I certainly don’t care to see bureaucracy running roughshod over small producers, scrapie is such a serious disease that we should probably err on the side of caution.
Unanswered questions: how reliable is the testing process, and what is the rate of false negatives? Can the prion responsible lie latent in the animal for years, causing no symptoms? If the herd is seized and killed, is the owner entitled to fair compensation, or is this an insurable loss?
It certainly appears that the issue could have been handled better.
These are the same douchebags who arrest Mennonite farmers for selling raw milk but allow corporate processors like Maple Leaf sell tainted meat. What we are seeing here is a repeat of the scam big agra and the governments pulled on European farmers with their beef and sheep flocks – pre-emptive culls of produce that was not proven to be infected but was “suspect” – we note that only small private producers were made to destroy their livestock in these regulatory purges while the large corporate producers escaped the cull – doubling the price of their produce in the short term until small producers come back on line (if at all)
The Harperites have a real natural reflex for this crap, they tried it 3 times with natural food suppliment suppliers and now they appear to be bullying small meat producers like the EU commies do. Bet these folks don’t contract to Maple Leaf foods 😉
When will this government ever get a handle on the slimy little jackboots in its regulatory regimes?
Found them….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TeiSsJ3G_0
Just call them mint jelly…
This is what happens when we hire nannies. We can be guaranteed the snivel servants will be incompetent and have an agenda. Yet city people think they are protected.
What really protects them is the expertise of modern agriculture.
On a related note, Joel Salatin’s book “Folks, this ain’t normal” (http://folksthisaintnormal.com/) provides an agrarian perspective that is, shall we say, “orthogonal” to corporate farming wisdom.
A very good read.
Dunno. They’re not that rare a breed. I’ve had them. They’re mainly a lamb breed so the lambs aren’t long for this world anyway. Scrapie is a nasty disease that can take down an entire herd, and she did/does have it in her flock. Best to be safe. Farm life isn’t always nice. It would be good if she’s compensated so she can start a new flock.
Damned Ontario Landowners’ Association!
Property Rights advocates by day – movers at night.
I guess the CFIA is now looking like the goat!
Where is this Ladies MP?
These jokes are scrapieing the bottom of the barrel! This is ewesless!!
The CFIA has far too much power and far too little competence. This is another government agency that can invade your property without a warrant and pretty well do as they please. They have a record of destroying healthy livestock and poultry with the farmers unable to receive due process much less acceptable compensation. This is another example of their abuse of power and incompetence.
How can it be a democracy with the rule of law if suspicion is all that is needed to destroy someones property?
the CFIA must be brought back to reality and quick.
She should be compensated. Is there no insurance, like grain-farmers crop insurance?
It seems like regulatory agencies just do things for no reason. How can this possibly serve the interests of Canadians?
More wonderful bureaucratic over reach. Inspectors are supposed to -inspect-, and then if they -find- something take the necessary steps.
This is pre-crime for sheep. Awesome.
Nice that she told ’em to p1ss up a rope. Probably going to see a lot of that until we get these goofs back under control.
Still my friends, those are not her sheep if the Feds say so, and neither is that car in your garage. No property rights, remember? Canadians live entirely at the pleasure of Her Majesty’s Government, and don’t you serfs forget it.
Then maybe we should start to do something about getting our property rights established. Since the charter neglected to cover property rights, i’d argue that the previous rules apply as they were never superceded by the charter.
Criminal Code of Canada
Section 264.1 (1) Every one commits an offence who, in any manner, knowingly utters, conveys or causes any person to receive a threat
[…]
(c) to kill, poison or injure an animal or bird that is the property of any person.
I think they have already broken the law and they haven’t even touched the sheep yet.
Still my friends, those are not her sheep if the Feds say so,…
Possession is nine tenths of the law. Especially if the neighbors sheep look exactly the same. Haven’t seen bureaucrat yet who could tell one sheep, or cow, from another. They’re lucky if they can tell one end from the other.
The perfect place to hide them is a fish habitat. Remember a year or so ago? A seasonal flood covered some farmers’ fields, and those fields were promptly designated fish habitats. The farmers were for all practical purposes evicted from their fields.
I’ll bet those fields are still labelled fish habitat. And I’ll further bet that the bureaucrats, cunning devils though they may be (!), would never think to look for sheep in a fish habitat.
Ah, logic. ‘Tis a wonderful thing.
“It certainly appears that the issue could have been handled better.”
Spoken like a good sheep should.
Regarding the MIA sheep – Reminds me of the proposed re-release in selected markets of the movie “Silence of the Lambs” to be re-titled as “All Youse be Quiet.”
Posted by: Paul at April 4, 2012 11:51 AM
Thought it was ‘Sheepless in Seattle’