A part-time farmer near Clanwilliam, Man., was found guilty in a Brandon court April 16 and fined $3,000 for refusing tuberculosis testing on his herd of cattle.
Judge John Combs ruled that Nick Synchyshyn, who farms 14 kilometres south of Riding Mountain National Park, failed to make his 50 cattle available for testing when employees of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency visited his farm Dec. 30, 2008.
Robert Keffen, the CFIA vet responsible for TB testing in Manitoba, said the fine was appropriate and sends the message that cattle producers need to comply with testing.
“We’re dealing with a disease situation that has to be dealt with,” he said. “And everybody has to play by the same rules.”
Synchyshyn, who didn’t have legal representation, argued he didn’t know that CFIA employees were coming to his farm. He said he was working on a pipeline crew in Alberta, as he does every winter, and had returned home to Clanwilliam for Christmas.
When CFIA inspector Tamara Kelly knocked on the door of his farmhouse, Synchyshyn said he was shocked to see her. He told the inspector he wasn’t prepared to test, even though his cattle were in the feedlot that day.
Kelly and other CFIA employees said in court that they had sent Synchyshyn a letter in September 2008, which told him the CFIA would be testing all herds in the Clanwilliam area as part of routine TB testing in the region around Riding Mountain National Park.
Unable to reach Synchyshyn to set a date, CFIA employees arranged Dec. 30 as the date for testing with Jared Krushelnisky, Synchyshyn’s neighbour. Krushelnisky was staying at Synchyshyn’s farm and taking care of the cattle while Synchyshyn worked in Alberta.
Combs made note of this in his ruling, saying Krushelnisky likely didn’t have the proper authority to set a date for testing.
If that was the entire story, Combs said he would have found Synchyshyn not guilty.
However, the key additional evidence was a telephone conversation between a CFIA employee and Synchyshyn in early October of 2008.
In the call, the CFIA employee told Synchyshyn of the plan to test cattle in the region. The producer told the employee the CFIA wasn’t going to test his cattle.
Combs also said Synchyshyn could have easily arranged another date after Dec. 30, 2008, to test his cattle. Instead, he refused testing altogether.
It took more than three hours for Combs to hear the case, despite the simple nature of the evidence. During court proceedings, the judge frequently had to remind Synchyshyn that he needed to ask witnesses questions during cross examination, rather than offer his own version of events.
Synchyshyn was irritated in court by the order of CFIA witnesses, but Combs told him several times that crown attorney Christina Cheater had the right to present her case as she saw fit.
