June 19, 2007

Canadian beef sector seeks legal action against government on BSE crisis

The Canadian beef sector decided to file a billion dollar lawsuit against the Federal Government against its alleged failure to implement actions on the monumental agri-crisis brought about by bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

Under authorisation by Quebec Superior Court Justice Richard Wagner, the lawsuit was to continue the aborted trial against the government's alleged incompetence as billions of dollars were lost due the closing of US and other international trade to Canadian cattle and beef over BSE.

Despite the resumption of Canada's live cattle exports to the US in 2005 Canadian beef supplies bound to US are still 20 percent below the 148,552 tonnes sent across the border prior to 2003, according to a US Department of Agriculture report released last year.

In order to salvage some of what was lost, class action claims were filed cooperatively on behalf of all commercial farmers of cattle by a team of lawyers in the courts of Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta in April 2005.

According to figures from Statistics Canada, the industry lost around 9 billion Canadian dollars from the BSE.

Co-counsel in the Quebec action, Gilles Gareau and Cameron Pallett, welcomed the decision, stating BSE dilemma would never happened if the Federal Government had not been "asleep at the wheel".

The counsels also said government officials, in documents filed in Quebec court, have jeopardized the safety of the Canadian food supply in failing to inform the public they allowed 80 British cattle in what was supposed to be a "monitoring programme" to enter the human and animal food chain in Canada. These same government officials' own risk analysis indicated that there was a 95 percent chance that 6 or more of these animals had BSE, they added.

BSE or mad cow disease can lead to its variant, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), in humans. It is spread by prions, abnormally shaped proteins that originate in the neurological tissues.

BSE spreads by consumption of feed that has been contaminated by prions. The human form of the disease can be transmitted if a human being eats BSE infected meat, and through blood transfusions.

Consuming meat from infected cattle has led to the deaths of 154 people worldwide from vCJD.