Tribunal tosses $10,000 quarantine penalty for B.C. Ostrich Farm

Farmers Forum staff

OTTAWA — The Canadian Food Inspection Agency failed to properly notify Universal Ostrich Farms of the controversial quarantine measures imposed at the Edgewood, B.C., operation last year, according to a recent federal tribunal decision siding with the owners and quashing a $10,000 penalty the agency levied against them.

The agency alleged that the operators violated quarantine rules between Feb. 6 and Feb. 26, 2025, following a presumed avian flu outbreak in their ostrich flock earlier that winter.

But the Canada Agricultural Review Tribunal (CART) has found that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) blundered by serving notice of quarantine exclusively by email to the farm and its lawyer.

Under the Health of Animals Regulations, such notice must be physically handed to the recipient.

Breaking this strict requirement was “fatal” to the CFIA’s case, the Tribunal’s Patricia Farnese ruled on Feb. 6. Her decision emphasized that Parliament intentionally mandated a higher standard of serving notice for quarantine orders to ensure recipients fully understand their immediate obligations.

“Without proper service of the quarantine notice, any contraventions alleged to have occurred … cannot stand,” Farnese wrote.

The CFIA attempted to justify not delivering the notice in person because of “practical challenges,” including remote location and difficult winter conditions.

However, the Tribunal decision highlighted evidence, including the CFIA’s own records, showing that staff made multiple visits to the property for inspections during the same period.

“Inspectors were on our property multiple times to assess (and) there was no emergency justifying shortcuts,” Katie Pasitney, whose mother co-owns Universal Ostrich Farms, confirmed in a social media video reacting to the decision.

“We were not under legal quarantine notice because of procedural errors,” Pasitney asserted, also raising questions about other farms potentially quarantined by the CFIA after email notification.

“Have we ever been under quarantine lawfully? And what would that mean to other farmers … if they were improperly being served these notices. So I think it’s time that farmers really become aware,” she said.

The latest ruling followed a December 2025 decision by the same Tribunal upholding a separate $10,000 penalty imposed on the farm for failing to report the initial outbreak of sick ostriches in December 2024. The CFIA tested only two carcasses for avian flu, which came back positive for the disease commonly carried by migratory waterfowl.

Sixty-nine of the farm’s 400 ostriches died before the illness dissipated around the end of January, leaving more than 300 healthy animals. The owners fought most of the year to prevent the CFIA from culling the survivors, a legal battle that made international headlines throughout 2025. The Supreme Court of Canada ultimately refused to stop the slaughter, and CFIA marksmen shot all of the birds dead last November. The total ordeal cost taxpayers an estimated $6.8 million.