Vernon-Lake Country-Monashee MLA Scott Anderson is voicing his opposition to the cull of nearly 400 ostriches in Edgewood.
In a Wednesday release, Anderson took issue with the stamping-out policy of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), which is the basis for its December 2024 court order to cull the birds after an avian influenza outbreak was found in the herd.
Universal Ostrich Farm fought the court order, arguing the birds had recovered, were healthy and more testing was needed, while also claiming the ostriches were valuable as research subjects.
Last week, following a number of rulings upholding the CFIA's cull order, the Federal Court of Appeal ruled unanimously against Universal Ostrich Farm, leaving the CFIA legally free to proceed with the controversial cull that's drawn international headlines, despite the fact that the ostriches have been symptom-free for more than 220 days.
It's the first case of CFIA's stamping-out policy being used on ostriches, according to the appeal decision. The policy is triggered when an avian flu outbreak is declared at a farm. Chickens are the more typical casualties of the policy. The agency says the stamping-out approach is internationally recognized as the "primary tool" to manage the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza.
Anderson said he's disappointed with the CFIA's "stubborn refusal" to allow testing of the birds or to consider alternatives to a cull.
He said he and his office have been tracking the ostrich story closely and have been in direct contact with the parties involved. In his Aug. 27 release, he said while he is not a scientist, he has spoken to a number of scientists "at the very top of their respective fields" about the issue, including Dr. Steven Pelech, a professor of neurology at UBC and CEO of Kinexus Bioinformatics; Dr. Jeff Wilson, professor at the University of Guelph and president of Novometrix Research, with doctorates in veterinary medicine, epidemiology, and pathology; University of Guelph professor Dr. Niel Karrow, who studies innate immunoregulation, immunotoxicology and immunogenetics; and Dr. Bonnie Mallard, Professor Emeritus of Immunogenetics at the University of Guelph.
"Universally, these scientists declared the cull unnecessary. Universally, they declared that these birds, which have always been research animals, have immense value in immunology research, not only of H5N1 (Bird flu), but also SARS-CoV-2 (COVID) and more. All of them suggested that it is possible and even likely that the remaining ostriches have achieved natural immunity," Anderson said.
The mass cull will achieve its aims in the short term but it won't solve the avian flu problem in the long term, Anderson said, "because replacing the old ostriches with new stock simply means that the new stock can be infected the same way the originals were, but without resistance to the disease."
He highlighted the emotional and social impact that comes with culling the ostriches.
"The idea of your life’s work destroyed, your farm rendered useless, and facing the prospect of starting over again, makes for an image that sends shudders through most of us."
Anderson opined that the issue illustrates the problem with having a "monolithic government bureaucracy," where decisions are made at the top level which could instead be made by a "more nuanced" regional authority.
Farmers will be fearful as a result of the cull and the bureaucratic forces driving it, Anderson said.
"Farmers are petrified of reporting sickness in their herds because a CFIA SUV may show up and a few days later some guy at a desk in Ottawa may announce the destruction of a life’s work," he said.
The MP said the current culling policies and procedures of the CFIA "need a second look by qualified scientists." He added Canadian lawmakers such as himself need to do a better job at moulding institutions that affect citizens.
"Our citizens are not annoyances we have to put up with; they are our employers."
Anderson said he takes no issue with the decision by the Federal Court of Appeal judges, explaining they "quite rightly" ruled that the stamping-out policy and its application in the case of the ostriches was lawful.
"The judges were in effect asked to rule on whether the law thinks the law is reasonable within the parameters of the law. Their unanimous decision affirming that fact is hardly shocking," he said.
It's what the courts weren't ruling on — whether a cull is scientifically required, or preferable to other means of disease containment, or whether there was futility in culling the birds when bird flu "would have been in the wild bird population anyway" — that Anderson says needs to be decided.
"They did not rule on the science behind the cull, nor why the CFIA refuses to allow the farm to test the ostriches, refuses to test the ostriches itself, and refuses to discuss alternatives to a cull."
