Processor's continued transport violations prompts enforcement debate

Thursday, November 20, 2014

by SUSAN MANN

In the three months following a March 27 court order to pay $80,000 for two convictions of causing undue suffering to poultry during transportation and its public pledge to do better, chicken processor Maple Lodge Farms racked up three administrative monetary penalties from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

CFIA spokesperson Lisa Murphy says by email the penalties issued to Maple Lodge  “were the result of undue exposure to weather and inadequate ventilation” during transportation.

They total $23,400 — an amount that is over and above the $314,000 in monetary penalties the processor has amassed since the second quarter of 2011.

But the processor only has to pay half the penalty amount as long as it antes up the cash within 15 days of the penalty being levied, says Lisa Murphy, a CFIA spokesperson via email. Otherwise, the Brampton processor must pay the full amount within 30 days or request a review.

Maple Lodge officials couldn’t be reached for comment.

And while at least one animal rights organization is bristling at the Maple Lodge situation, Murphy says changes are on the way.

Recently, the maximum amount for administrative monetary penalty, one of the main enforcement tools for the Health of Animals Act (prosecutions is the other), has increased to $10,000, Murphy writes. And the amount can be upped another 50 per cent of the original fine to a maximum of  $15,000, depending on the gravity of the violation “and the compliance history of the offender.”

Also in the works is an update to the Health of Animals regulations “with respect to the humane transportation of animals to better reflect the latest science regarding care and handling of animals and their needs,” she says.

The agency has conducted extensive public consultations with stakeholders, including transporters, farmers, processors and animal welfare organizations and “this input will be considered throughout the regulatory process.”

She says there will be another opportunity for public comment once amendments are pre-published in Part 1 of Canada Gazette. She didn’t say when that would be.

Meanwhile, in an opinion page article published Nov. 3 by the Hill times, Sayara Thurston described Maple Lodge as “one of the worst violators of federal transport regulations which suggest the meagre fines imposed merely serving as the cost of doing business.”

Outdated regulations, lax enforcement and inadequate fines for violators are causing “millions of animals” to suffer and die on federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz’s watch, wrote Thurston, who is campaign manager for Human Society International/Canada, a branch of an international organization that lists improving the welfare of farm animals as one of its priorities.

In a telephone interview, she says there haven’t been any improvements for farm animals being transported during the entire seven-year term Ritz has been agriculture minister and changes are needed.

“Animals can be transported for up to more than two days without access to food, water, rest or to protection from extreme temperatures,” she explains. “There’s absolutely no minimum temperature below which it’s illegal to transport animals in open vehicles.”

Ritz says in a statement provided by his communications director Jeff English that his government and the Canadian industry take the safe transportation of animals seriously. “We expect all businesses to adhere to Canada’s strict animal welfare laws.”

And “we expect anyone found violating these laws will be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible,” Ritz says.

Data posted on the agency’s website confirms that Maple Lodge has had the greatest number of administrative monetary penalties of all animal transport repeat violators from April 2011 to June 2014.

In her article, Thurston says about 700 million farm animals (640 million of which are chickens) are transported to slaughter annually. Of these, she says, government records show “more than three million animals per year don’t even survive the journey, with millions more arriving so sick or injured that they must be euthanized upon arrival.”

A Nov. 10 industry rebuttal to Thurston’s article published as a letter to the editor in the same publication notes making an impassioned plea to update farm animal transportation regulations is one thing. But “slamming the government and carefully avoiding any reference to the constant care the poultry and egg industries pay to their birds is both unproductive and unacceptable.” The letter was signed by the heads of Chicken Farmers of Canada, Canadian Poultry and Egg Processors Council, Egg Farmers of Canada, Turkey Farmers of Canada and Canadian Hatching Egg Producers.

The groups say Thurston’s article uses loaded language and heavy suggestion to create “a vision of animal agriculture in which abuse and neglect is common, rampant and seemingly unchecked; this is patently false.” BF