The Ontario Superior Court has dismissed an $8 billion class action lawsuit over the federal government’s handling of BSE.
In a written decision in late January, Justice Paul B. Schabas said Canada was not negligent, as the plaintiffs alleged, in preventing British cattle from coming into the country between 1982 and 1990, implementing a feed ban and monitoring imports from the United Kingdom.
A single case of BSE discovered in 2003 in a Canadian-born cow resulted in closed borders and effectively shut down trade. The class action was launched in 2005 and certified in 2008.
After numerous days of Zoom hearings through 2021, Schabas ruled that the government followed the science available at the time and complied with World Organization for Animal Health guidelines.
He said that while total losses were $5.419 billion, producers received government assistance worth $4.256 billion.
