Ranchers say new $6,000 cap doesn’t fix a system that destroys healthy herds based on suspicion

The federal government has raised the maximum payout for cattle culled during disease-control efforts from $4,500 to $6,000. The change is meant to reflect current livestock values and offer better support to affected producers.

But for many farmers, bigger payouts fail to fix a system that allows sweeping depopulations of both cattle and other livestock without confirmed disease.

Under the Health of Animals Act, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) can order destruction of animals if they’re suspected of exposure to a reportable disease. Entire herds — or flocks — can be culled without conclusive testing and little opportunity for owners to appeal. That means entire herds can be eliminated without a single confirmed case.

That’s not a hypothetical. In 2016, a Saskatchewan rancher had 109 cattle — nearly 80 per cent of his herd — destroyed based on TB suspicion. None tested positive post-mortem.

Now, a spotlight has turned to Universal Ostrich Farm in Edgewood, B.C., where CFIA has ordered the cull of around 399 ostriches after an H5N1 avian flu outbreak first detected December 2024. The farm has appealed, and won a temporary stay.

The law gives producers little recourse. There is no appeal process before a depopulation order is carried out. CFIA inspectors can enter private property, test animals, and initiate a cull with or without the owner's consent.

What do these events reveal? Whether it’s cattle or ostriches, the Health of Animals Act puts broad authority in the hands of CFIA — allowing massive depopulation based on suspicion or incomplete evidence. The policy favours regulatory convenience over scientific nuance, and compensation schemes don’t make up for lost genetics, breeding potential or emotional trauma.

Ranchers understand the importance of biosecurity and protecting trade. But the current system trades scientific certainty for bureaucratic convenience. In practice, it treats livestock owners as guilty until proven innocent — and by then, it’s often too late.

Until federal policy moves beyond damage control and rethinks the legal framework that allows unconfirmed cases to justify mass culls, trust in the system will continue to erode.

Because sometimes the real disease isn’t in the herd — it’s in the policy.

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