[2017] 3 F.C.R. D-11
Animals
Application for order to quash Canadian Agricultural Review Tribunal decision (2016 CART 8) determining applicant in violation of Health of Animals Regulations, C.R.C., c. 296, s. 143(1)(d), imposing administrative monetary penalty (AMP) — Load of spent hens transported by trailer owned by applicant to applicant’s meat processor facility — Applicant reporting 12 percent of load dead due to extreme cold, exposure — Canadian Food Inspection Agency issuing notice of violation against applicant — Tribunal deciding applicant guilty of violation but reducing AMP — Minister of Health needing only to establish on balance of probabilities that person named in notice of violation under Regulations, s. 143(1)(d) committing violation specified, nothing more — Applicant alleging, inter alia, Tribunal misinterpreting s. 143(1)(d), transforming it into automatic liability provision, not absolute liability provision — Main issue whether Tribunal erring in interpreting Regulations, s. 143(1)(d) — Tribunal erring: adopting, applying standard of automatic or vicarious liability, not absolute liability — Making applicant automatically liable without considering its culpability for actus reus of s. 143(1)(d) — Circumstances herein such that Court exercising its discretion against quashing Tribunal’s decision, remitting it to Tribunal for redetermination — No purpose served by quashing Tribunal’s decision, having matter redetermined — Tribunal’s previous findings of fact separate from, unaffected by legal error Tribunal making, namely its misunderstanding of requirement that absolute liability be proven — Previous findings thereof unsullied by that misunderstanding — Would be unreasonable for Tribunal to depart from those findings on same evidentiary record in any redetermination — S. 143(1)(d) referring to “undue” suffering of animals, not any suffering — Purpose, context, text of Regulations, s. 143(1)(d) attaching liability to both positive acts as well as omissions, failures to act — No doubt there was prolonged undue suffering while spent hens under applicant’s control — Applicant’s inaction prolonging hens’ undue suffering — Reasonable care exercised by applicant when hens under its control not taking away from fact that omissions in its practices, procedures nevertheless prolonged undue suffering — Due diligence not defence to absolute liability violation — Tribunal appropriately using applicant’s positive conduct to reduce AMP — Application dismissed.
Maple Lodge Farms Ltd. v. Canadian Food Inspection Agency (A-113-16, 2017 FCA 45, Stratas J.A., judgment dated March 7, 2017, 26 p.)