by SUSAN MANN
The president of the Ontario Landowners Association says government needs to consider adjusting slaughter rules so people can take responsibility for their own food.
“A lot of people don’t want to buy it from a processing plant because they have no idea what the animal looked like before it was killed,” says Tom Black. “They want to buy it and see it alive and that’s what drives people out to the country to do this, especially immigrants. They want to do the pre-kill inspection.”
Black made the comments following the recent fine levied against a Stouffville-area farmer for slaughtering animals without the before and after inspection required by law.
On March 14 in an Ontario Court of Justice in Newmarket, Akram Wasim pleaded guilty to four charges and was fined $12,225 plus the 25 per cent victim fine surcharge. The charges were: one count of slaughtering food animals (goats and sheep) without a license; one count of failing to present live food animals to an inspector for inspection and approval for slaughter; one count of failing to present the carcass of food animals intended for human consumption to an inspector after slaughter and one additional count of slaughtering animals without a license on April 20, 2013 while the first offenses were still before the courts.
Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources officers visited Wasim’s farm on Oct. 26, 2012 and found him slaughtering animals in front of customers. After investigating, officers found Wasim didn’t have a license to operate a slaughter facility and there wasn’t any before and after slaughter inspection, according to an April 8 agriculture ministry press release.
Wasim couldn’t be reached for comment.
Black says while his organization doesn’t advocate breaking the law, his personal opinion is “what better inspector is there than the person who is going to eat it. He’s going to inspect that animal before and after (slaughter) a way better than any hired inspector because he’s going to be eating it and he has more time to do it.”
Black questions how much time government inspectors spend actually looking at livestock before they’re slaughtered. He says he took a truckload of his 300 chickens to a provincially licensed plant to get them killed and the inspector came to the back of the truck looked in and cleared them for slaughter. “Is that inspecting each individual chicken? There’s no way they do that.”
According to the ministry’s news release, in Ontario, the Food Safety and Quality Act and its meat regulations make it mandatory for slaughter facilities to be licensed and have an inspector present before and after slaughter to minimize food safety risks to consumers. Rodger Dunlop, manager of the regulatory compliance unit for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food, says farmers can only slaughter their own animals on their farms for their own consumption. Any animals being sold for consumption must be slaughtered in a federally or provincially licensed facility “and in that case they would be subject to the inspection.”
Before slaughter, an inspector must look at all animals “and just verify and approve them for slaughter,” Dunlop says. “That essentially rules out any potential diseases or conditions that might be harmful to other animals or to people for human consumption.”
Inspectors “do a thorough post-mortem inspection to make sure the animal is free of any pathological conditions or disease that might render it unfit for human consumption,” he says.
Dunlop says the fine Wasim received wasn’t the maximum amount that’s listed in the Ontario Food Safety and Quality Act. That maximum amount is $25,000 per count. “It’s not approaching the maximum, but it is a significant penalty,” he says. BF
Comments
I agree there really needs to be some thing done with slaughter rules . I don't know how many times this past year that I have been told that a farmer has had an animal go down only to send it to the compost pile . Perfectly good meat going to waste all while we have people and children going hungry , food banks claiming that numbers of people in need continuing to climb .
I have lived for years on meat that my parents had slaughtered at home . Why should it be any different to bring a cattle beast to the butcher that was killed on the farm than a deer that was run down for lord knows how long , chased in to a firing range , killed , gutted out in the bush or who knows where and then delivered to a slaughter house for processing . Why do we have double standards ?
When did it become necessary for a gov't to control all aspects of our lives including what we choose to eat or drink and like the Liv Tahor kids that you cannot in Canada teach or school your own flesh and blood in what you believe in . How stupid or incompetent does the gov't think people are when they refuse too allow them there own choices on processing a food animal for there own use. It is no longer the go'v of the people but people controlled and ruled by there gov't rules
You have to have Laws , have you ever heard of BSE(mad cow) people eating a cow that cannot get up because of a broken leg or the splits is one thing but not getting up because it is sick is another. People teaching their kids to what they believe in is another thing what if they believe in incest or Girls getting married at an age below 16 to a guy in his 60,S or they shall hate people for the colour of their skin. We need laws to protect the innocent and young from people who believe that they can do whatever they want to them or sell unfit crap to them to eat ( some believe if it does not kill you its fit to eat or sell) but you would not see them eating any of it.
There is nothing wrong with on farm slaughter for your own use - government does not control or prevent that. BIG difference when you are slaughtering for sale - even if your buyer is standing there.
I agree 100% that you can kill on the farm for your own use and not for sale to the public. Some people not all would kill a down sick animal and sell it in a minute to someone for a fast buck.
An interesting comment about "the deer hunt" , that is looked at as acceptable along with spearing fish or having a hook rip into its mouth or circumcising infants but its inhumane to dock pig tails or castrate new born pigs without pain killer .
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