CALGARY (Staff) — A compensation fund is being developed by the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association to cover losses when Agriculture Canada orders animals slaughtered because of diseases like BSE.
When Agriculture Canada orders an animal destroyed because of disease, the federal government pays up to $2,000 for a purebred and up to $1,500 for a commercial animal.
“We’re talking about losses above that level and a number of insurance options are being explored to afford industry improved protection,” said Dennis Laycraft, executive vice-president of the cattle association.
Payments for these losses will come out of money left in the national tripartite stabilization fund which was terminated at the end of 1993.
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federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
About $4 million remains in the stabilization program’s opt-out fund, which came from premiums paid by producers who decided to leave the program before it expired. This money remained in the stabilization account rather than being returned to producers. Some of it will be used to compensate people who lost cattle suspected of having Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE).
Entire herd euthanized
This proposal was prompted by the decision to euthanize an entire herd of 270 purebred Salers, belonging to Ray DePalme of Red Deer, because the animals had been in contact with a single infected cow who died of BSE last fall.
Money from the compensation fund will not be available to those involved in court cases to halt the slaughter of their animals which were imported from England in the mid 1980s.
