OTTAWA – Seventeen years ago, Leon Barnett moved his wife and seven children from the hurley-burley of Oregon to the peace and beauty of Bella Coola, in northwestern British Columbia.
He came for the peace, order, quiet and maybe good government of Canada.
Now, this tool and die maker with a soft spot for living off the land is at the centre of the Great Mirabel Alpaca Saga and he sounds a bit bewildered by it all.
He is in correspondence with a cabinet minister.
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He has attracted the opposition of the cattle industry lobby.
The case has prompted western MPs to lobby agriculture minister Ralph Goodale on both sides of the case.
It has forced Agriculture Canada to spend time and money to collect information worldwide as it tries to decide if the alpacas pose any health risk to Canada’s livestock herd.
And because of him, a team of federal lawyers is preparing to go to court in December to try to uphold Agriculture Canada’s authority to control, destroying or deporting if necessary, animals which are imported without following all the health and reporting rules.
If Ottawa loses the case, it may rewrite the legislation to make sure it has that power.
As more than 250 Chilean alpacas Barnett tried to import remain at a Montreal quarantine station more than seven months after they arrived, the man in the middle watches the bills pile up.
Total costs to Barnett, his partners and Canadian taxpayers are well over $1 million.
“I can tell you I wish I had never gotten into this,” he said in his first interview on the case. “It was stupid to take this chance, but I didn’t know. It has been so long. I’ve spent the savings we had.”
No choice
Goodale says he is sympathetic but resolute.
“I certainly do appreciate the predicament he faces … but there is a risk of a threat to the health of animals in Canada and it is my obligation to make sure that threat is dealt with,” Goodale said.
He said Agriculture Canada is working hard to find a way to help Barnett out of his jam, free the animals if they are healthy, and end the saga.
“If we are able to do that, it would be a happy conclusion,” he said. “But it does take time and fundamentally, we cannot allow the integrity of our health-of-animals system to be in any way risked or threatened.”
On that, all sides say they agree.
The saga began when Barnett and several partners spent just less than $700,000 last March to fly 250 alpacas from Chile to Montreal’s Mirabel airport, on the way to B.C.
At the airport, Canadian officials discovered the Chileans had incorrectly certified that none of the animals had been vaccinated against foot and mouth disease.
Vaccination problems
One had. Three others had not been sent because of the vaccination.
There was, and still is, no evidence of the disease but had the incident been known, the shipment would have been blocked.
Agriculture Canada ordered the herd disposed of, probably through deportation.
Barnett, who had been unaware of the deception, appealed and won a court judgment that ordered Agriculture Canada to investigate the health of the animals again to see if there was an alternative to disposal.
The judgment is under appeal. The department says it undermines Canada’s ability to protect itself from imported disease problems by having clear rules that apply automatically.
The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association agrees.
“They should be sent back,” says CCA Ottawa spokesperson Jim Caldwell. “There are rules. They were broken. That is the law.”
Barnett feels caught in the middle. It was not his error and the animals, after seven months in quarantine, have shown no signs of illness.
They have lost value.
And he has the cost of lawyers bills, an Ottawa lobbyist and until July, bills of more than $1,100 per day to have them cared for. Since then, Agriculture Canada has been footing the cost for daily care.
“I thought it was going to be a way to make some money,” he says. “I have hardly any cash left. If we get them now, we still could clear the costs but it is not what I had expected.”
Within a month or so, the problem could become even more complicated.
He said between 50 and 100 of the females soon will be giving birth.
“That herd is going to start to grow real fast,” he said. “I just want to get this over with.”
It is another point on which all sides agree, although there are at least two conflicting versions of what would be an appropriate end to the ordeal.
