The federal government is “fast tracking” consideration of a proposal that maximum compensation for sheep ordered destroyed because of scrapie disease be doubled to $600 per head, a House of Commons committee was told last week.
It is a response to a Quebec problem.
During the past two years, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has ordered the destruction of close to 11,000 sheep because of concern that the scrapie infection was present in herds. Most of them were in Quebec.
Sixty flocks still are under surveillance.
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Scrapie is an infection that attacks the sheep’s nervous system. It is linked to mad cow disease, although there has been no proven link to humans.
Last week during a session on the scrapie issue, MPs heard what some called “horror stories” of how federal veterinarians dealt with Quebec farmers suspected of having scrapie-infected flocks.
Senior officials from the CFIA listened as MPs from all sides raised problem examples.
Destroyed sheep had their brains extracted on farmers’ lawns to take for testing. Farmers who had seen their entire flocks quarantined or slaughtered were charged the Goods and Services Tax for the cost of transporting sheep to an incinerator.
And because compensation has been limited to $300 for a purebred sheep and $150 for a market animal, many farmers have complained they have been losing money.
Rural Quebec Liberal Denis Paradis said a constituent had seen a $125,000 flock destroyed and received $75,000 in compensation.
“This man has a life, a wife and kids, and he has lost $50,000,” said Paradis.
Bloc QuŽbecois MP HŽlene Alarie said Quebec farmers have lost confidence in the federal program. They fear that if they obey the law and report suspicion of an infectious disease, they will lose their herd.
They sometimes resort to destroying and hiding the evidence. “This is a big problem.”
Senior CFIA officials Brian Evans and AndrŽ Gravel said they recognize mistakes were made. They promised the agency will be more sensitive in future.
Recently, a consultant recommended the maximum compensation level be raised to $600 per animal, whether registered or not.
Gravel said the government will be urged to accept that recommendation “to encourage producers to continue to declare the illness.”
Evans told MPs it mainly has been a Quebec problem, with some herds destroyed or under surveillance in Ontario and the Maritimes. He said there have been few problems in Western Canada.
Reform agriculture critic Howard Hilstrom said he did not object to higher compensation.
He asked for assurance that the disease would not spread to Western Canada.
Quebec MPs from the BQ and Liberals demanded that higher compensation levels be retroactive. It would cost the agency $1 million in addition to the $2 million already paid out in compensation, said Paradis.
CFIA officials said it is a difficult issue not allowed under existing rules.
