Activism targeting agribusiness has intensified significantly in recent years, said Mélanie Power, a partner in the litigation and dispute resolution group at global law firm Dentons.

“There’s been a growing trend in animal rights activism to engage in direct action against agribusiness. Increasingly, animal rights activists are committing illegal acts, including trespass and animal theft,” she said.

The number of animal cruelty investigations has nearly doubled over the past 15 years, based on Society for the Prevention of Animal Cruelty (SPCA) data. Investigations rose from 4,780 in 2008 to 7,881 in 2023, Powers said at a virtual event hosted by the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association in June.

She said calls to provincial animal cruelty call centres nearly tripled between 2015 and 2022 to 72,000 from about 25,000.

Robin Anderson, director of programs and communications at the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association, said the forum was prompted by concerns about the safety of farmers, farm families, workers and even the trespassers.

“We’re very concerned about the safety and health of everybody that might be on the farm,” she said.

“This also includes people that might end up on a farm.”

Powers said several concerning trends include the use of undercover videos captured by drones, hidden cameras or activists posing as employees.

In 2021, Elite Farm Services and Safeway were charged with animal cruelty after an activist employed by Mercy for Animals secretly recorded chicken handling operations in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley while working as a chicken catcher.

Despite concerns about the reliability of the footage, which had been self-selected and edited by the employee to only show the most controversial moments, Power said courts allowed the evidence to be admitted.

A more dramatic case occurred in 2019 when about 200 protesters organized by Meat the Victims broke into a hog barn in Abbotsford, B.C. About 50 protesters entered the barn and refused to leave until media were allowed to record conditions inside.

“The incident lasted about six hours,” Power said, adding that two protest leaders were ultimately convicted of mischief and breaking and entering, receiving conditional sentences, including house arrest.

In another 2019 incident, four people were charged after activists broke into an Alberta free-range turkey barn. They demanded media be allowed into the barns, which the farm allowed, and to “liberate” five turkeys.

At the time, a representative from Alberta Farm Animal Care said there were no animal welfare concerns that their organization was aware of and that neither it nor the SPCA had been involved with the farm.

“The birds were taken care of according to the fairly strict standards that Alberta Turkey has in place for their producers,” the representative told Glacier FarmMedia at the time.

“(The protesters) are not in there about animal welfare. They’re in there to get meat off the table.”

Power also cited a recent case from March 2024 when Animal Justice released footage from a British Columbia fish farm.

“Video footage was taken in what the activists referred to as the first undercover investigation of a fish farm in Canada,” she said.

The B.C. SPCA claimed it received hundreds of hours of video footage, and the SPCA and federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans began a joint investigation.

Technology adds another layer of risk. Video evidence may be presented as a gold standard for hard evidence that something happened, but there is now more potential for false video generated by artificial intelligence or altered footage, Power said.

“AI is continuing to be improved upon and refined, and there’s obviously growing risk that AI-generated or AI-altered images will be used to misrepresent the conditions at agribusiness sites,” Power said.

The legal risks extend beyond the immediate targets of activism, she said, adding that processors and other companies can face prosecution for the actions of their subcontractors if proper safeguards aren’t in place.

In the United States, a “right to rescue” movement has emerged, with activists successfully arguing in court that they should be acquitted of theft charges when taking sick animals from farms, Power said. There have been cases in California and Utah where activists were acquitted after taking chickens and piglets they claimed were sick.

“Given the acquittal, what we might see here is that it could actually embolden activists into more of this type of activity,” Power said.

Farm risks from activist campaigns include costly regulatory investigations that can drag on for years, negative publicity on social media and boycotts or protests that can impact revenues, the lawyer said.

“Even if your business is cleared of wrongdoing, it’s a costly process, it’s a time consuming process,” she said.

As well, unless businesses spend considerable effort spreading the news that they have been cleared of charges, “it’s not something that gets published and doesn’t get doesn’t make the media cycle.”

“The amendment will make sure that everybody that is on a farm and enters a building or an enclosed place will have to take the same behaviour and the owners of the farm will have to make sure that everybody is complying,” said Senator Pierre Dalphond, who proposed the amendment.

Bill C-275 is a private members bill that would amend the Health of Animals Act to increase fines for those who unlawfully enter livestock barns and processing facilities and act in a manner that might expose animals to disease.

Dalphond’s amendment, which passed with seven yes votes and six votes no, removes any reference to being on the premises without authorization.

He cited concerns about constitutionality—that the bill may be more about trespassing concerns than biosecurity. Trespassing falls under provincial jurisdiction. He also said that, according to expert witnesses, the risk of farm workers spreading disease was far greater than that of trespassers.

Senator Don Plett called the amendment “unnecessary and, in fact, very harmful.”

“At this point, producers still do not have the tools necessary to ensure compliance with these protocols,” Plett said. “They can enforce the protocols with their employees, family members and visitors, but they are helpless in one key area and one area only, individuals who come onto the farm without authorization.”

He took issue with the Senate amending a bill passed by the House of Commons with support from multiple parties. He accused opponents of the bill of attempting to delay the bill so it would die on the order paper—particularly if an election is called.

An bill amended in the Senate must return to the House of Commons to be debated again.

Animal advocacy group Animal Justice, in an emailed newsletter, celebrated the amendment as a “giant nail in the coffin of this dangerous proposed law.”

The organization said a similar bill (Bill C-205) died out after a similar amendment in 2021.

“When the bill was amended to focus on poor biosecurity practices on the farm owners and operators, it lost popularity and died when an election was called,” wrote Animal Justice executive director Camille Labchuk.

Bill C-275 would amend the Health of Animals Act and make it illegal for anyone to unlawfully enter a barn or building where livestock are kept.

The private member’s bill was sponsored by Conservative agriculture critic John Barlow and passed in the House of Commons last fall with support from both opposition and government members.

Since the Senate committee began its study earlier this year, it has heard repeatedly that the bill should apply to everyone.

Last week, legal and scientific experts said the bill is entirely about trespassers.

Jodi Lazare, associate professor and associate dean at Dalhousie University’s Schulich School of Law, said courts look at what a law actually does.

“It’s quite clear that this bill is about shutting down activism and trespass, about protecting animal agriculture. In fact, it has been explicitly stated a few times now that this bill is about the protection of private property,” she said during testimony.

The bill doesn’t actually target the most likely sources of risk, which are the people who are lawfully entitled to be in the barn, she said.

University of Toronto law professor Angela Fernandez agreed.

“The legally present people are the problem in terms of biosecurity,” she said, adding there is a real risk that this bill, if passed, would be challenged.

Lazare added courts will look behind the name or function of a law to examine why it was passed and its practical effects. Laws have been found invalid on that basis, she said.

However, senator Don Plett said there would have been lawyers among the MPs who supported the bill. He suggested it could be improved.

Lazare said applying it to everyone would make it about biosecurity.

Amy Greer, associate professor in the department of population medicine at the University of Guelph, said she was sympathetic to the mental stress and anguish experienced by farmers who have found activists or trespassers in their barns.

However, she too said the biosecurity risk is low. The actual risk of a pathogen being introduced is the combination of the probability of transmission given an effective contact and the frequency that effective contact occurs.

“Even for easily transmitted pathogens, the current frequency of these trespass occurrences at a national scale, to me, would be incredibly low compared to the frequency of the occurrence of farm contacts for lawful reasons,” she told the committee. “As a result, the biosecurity risk associated with these trespass events is very low.”

Jan Hajek, clinical assistant professor and infectious disease specialist at the University of British Columbia, said he is among the 20 specialists who last year sent a letter expressing their concern about Bill C-275.

“The doctors were concerned that the way this bill was promoted misrepresented infectious disease risk and misused people’s genuine concern about biosecurity to pass additional anti-trespass legislation,” he said.

“In stating the need for this bill, some individuals repeatedly made unfounded claims that trespassers introduced infectious diseases on farm and pointed to devastating impact of diseases like BSE, or mad cow disease, a disease whose introduction had nothing to do with trespass.”

He said the bill is unlikely to improve the health of animals but added trespass must remain illegal.

Government officials from Agriculture Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency noted that trespass is largely a provincial jurisdiction. Dr. Mary Jane Ireland, chief veterinary officer, said six provinces have passed enhanced legislation to prohibit trespassing where animals are kept.

Senators heard that biosecurity standards are voluntary and depend on species and individual producers. The CFIA does not track this information.

“We all agree biosecurity on farms is important, which is why I’m disquieted to hear you say that our standards are voluntary and that you’re not tracking the data,” said Alberta senator Paula Simons.

“So we don’t actually know how big the problems are. It would seem to be common sense that the bigger source of contamination might be from farmers not observing any standards than from protesters who have never been shown to track disease onto farms.”

Plett disagreed that trespassers have never caused a problem, citing the appearance of rotavirus for the first time in 40 years after protesters appeared on a Quebec hog farm and distemper at a mink farm in Ontario.

Dr. Jodi Lazare, associate professor at Dalhousie University’s law school, said the bill that purports to protect biosecurity is actually a trespass bill, and trespass is dealt with by provincial laws.

She told the standing agriculture committee Oct. 5 that while uniform legislation would be more efficient and effective, Canada’s constitutional structure means that can’t always happen.

The committee is studying C-275, a bill moved by Conservative agriculture critic John Barlow to increase fines for those who trespass and double fines for organizations that encourage that behaviour.

Lazare said courts would consider the dominant feature of a law, and in this case it is not biosecurity.

“As this committee has heard before and I think we’ll hear again today, biosecurity threats on farms are not in fact driven by trespassers, protesters, activists, by people without lawful authority to be on the farm, to use the words of the bill,” she said. “CFIA records show that there is no documented evidence or instances of an activist or trespasser or protester introducing disease on to a farm (and) that the greatest risks to animals are transmitted from farm to farm, from workers, suppliers, etc. going between farms, from birds, wildlife.”

Lazare said the bill is about shutting down activism in the form of trespass. Barlow, who is vice-chair of the agriculture committee, has said it wouldn’t limit peaceful protest on public property.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s Mary Jane Ireland, executive director of the animal health directorate, said the bill in its current wording poses legal risks.

“There is a risk that the prohibition may not be a valid exercise of federal agricultural power, which is understood to be limited to agricultural operations that are inside the farmgate,” she said.

Biosecurity is a shared responsibility among governments, industry associations and producers, she said, and measures are voluntary. Ultimately, on-farm biosecurity is the responsibility of farmers.

Lazare said if the bill applied to everyone who entered a barn, legally or illegally, it would survive constitutional scrutiny.

Barlow noted that private member’s bills are vetted by the Library of Parliament to ensure constitutionality.

The committee also heard from pork and dairy producers who talked about the biosecurity standards that producers in those industries must follow.

Ray Binnendyk, who operates Excelsior Hog Farm at Abbotsford, B.C., with his family, said in the last four years trespassers have caused significant stress at his farm.

“First there were hidden cameras installed, then an occupation where 48 people camped out in our barn for a day and 150 protesters stood at the road,” he said. “Just a few months ago, we actually found three cameras again.”

He said the experience of having false information spread about the farm was deeply distressing and an invasion of privacy.

Three people were charged after the first incident. In 2022, two people were found guilty of break and enter and mischief.

Binnendyk said the incident made the family feel like they’re always being watched.

“We used to be proud to be hog producers. Now we don’t tell anyone,” he said.

He added there are only four or five hog producers left in British Columbia.