Ontario government must pay company $3.5 million at center of 2003 contaminated meat investigation

The Supreme Court of Ontario ordered the provincial government to ordered the payment of $3.5 million. It points to the state's "barrage of bureaucratic incompetence" in temporarily taking over the business of a company that was at the center of the tainted meat scandal nearly two decades ago.

In a ruling announced last week, the Ontario Court of Appeals ruled that the province's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries owed a duty of care to his Aylmer Meat Packers and their owner Butch. I have made the decision that there is Clare said when he took over the company's slaughterhouse in 2003, amid widespread investigations of tainted meat. It managed for months, but "by then the business had collapsed," Judge Peter Lauwers wrote for the three-member committee.

The appeal centered primarily on Claire's loss of the opportunity to sell her plants because the government had taken over the slaughterhouse. could have done," Lauwers wrote.

Aylmer and Clare sued the state for negligence, trespassing, and proselytism, seeking damages, but their claims were dismissed at trial. Mr Lauwers said the judge erred on several counts, including confusing the state's duty of care with standard care.

The Department's duty of care, then, was to ensure that its regulatory actions did not unduly or unnecessarily harm Aylmer's business interests," Lauwers wrote. But buying the factory hurt his business, he wrote.

Aylmer's attorney, Jonathan Lisus, said the appellate court was rightfully concerned about the ministry's intrusive powers. “The lesson to be learned from that is that courts are responsible for the consequences of regulators' actions,” he said, Lisus.

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The Ontario Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the state attorney general's department said the state is considering a decision but declined to comment further.

According to the ruling, Aylmer Meat Packers is considered one of the state's busiest Specializes in processing cattle that cannot be otherwise healthy to slaughter.

In 2003, an undercover informant alleged that a plant in Aylmer, Ontario, southeast of London, Ontario, illegally processed sick, disabled, and non-slaughter dead cattle. He told the ministry that he did. All of these violate the law, the ruling said. The informant also alleged that the company used illegal federal stamps on uninspected corpses. of secret surveillance was carried out, the decision said. These inspectors saw suspicious activity and the department raided the slaughterhouse with officers from the Ontario Police Department, the judge wrote.

Police launched a criminal investigation, eventually indicting Aylmer, Claire, and his two sons. In 2007, Aylmer and Clare pleaded guilty to selling uninspected meat, as well as meat wrapped in bags bearing the legend of unauthorized federal meat inspection.Many against Clare. was dropped and all charges against his sons were also dropped.

After the 2003 raid, the Ontario Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs took control of the factory and shut it down the same day, the appeals decision said.