BSE beef class-action lawsuit gets court date

The long, long grind towards a class action lawsuit against the government of Canada by beef farmers finally has a court date.

A lawsuit was supposed to have its day in court this month. But according to Duncan Boswell, senior partner with Gowling WLG in Toronto, the lead counsel in the lawsuit, the trial date has been kicked to Jan. 18, 2021 with the court setting aside three months to hear the case.

The $8-billion lawsuit alleges that the federal government failed to prevent cattle from the United Kingdom from entering the country between 1982 and 1990, despite knowing that at least 10 of them came from herds known to have bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), better known as mad cow disease.

A single case of BSE in 2003 closed off the U.S. border to Canadian exports, and many countries still won’t accept Canadian beef, though the Americans reopened the border in 2008.