The decision by a Montana judge to keep the United States border closed to live Canadian cattle was based on speculation and fear rather than law and real risk, the Canadian government says in a brief filed with a California appeal court.
“The district court’s determination that the imports of Canadian cattle at issue here pose a threat to public and animal safety is based on speculative fears that have been thoroughly refuted by history, science and the administrative record,” said the brief filed in San Francisco before a July 13 appeal hearing of the March decision by the judge.
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Although the federal government does not have intervener status in the case, it was allowed to file a friend of the court brief outlining Canada’s position.
When Montana judge Richard Cebull reconvenes his court in late July to consider a request for a permanent and expanded border closing, the federal government will not be present with a brief because its application was refused and it did not appeal.
However, Conservative Party politicians will have a brief on file because they applied for and received permission.
In its brief to the appeals court prepared and presented by a Washington, D.C., law firm, the Canadian government argues that the Canadian herd is safe, BSE is rare, testing and anti-BSE regulations are working and the court’s assumption that Canadian cattle are dangerous is unfounded.
“The (U.S.) secretary of agriculture properly determined that Canada’s program to minimize human and animal exposure to BSE in North America, which is indistinguishable from the United States’ own BSE program, has virtually eliminated all health risks posed by this disease,” it said.
The brief spends considerable time arguing that discovery of two new cases of BSE in January 2005 illustrates the system is working rather than that the herd is unsafe.
The brief was filed before the American BSE case was confirmed June 24 and Canada’s lawyers will not be in the courtroom to argue that it is confirmation BSE is a North American issue and not a Canadian issue.
However, it bristled at the lower court conclusion that the import of BSE-infected cattle from Canada would place U.S. beef consumers at a “catastrophic risk of danger.”
