Tribunal chairman Donald Buckingham said the CFIA could not
prove that Ypma was negligent in loading 230 pigs to ship to Britco Packing of
Langley, B.C.
Twenty-seven were found dead by the CFIA veterinarian at the
plant.
Eleven of those were dead on arrival at the packing plant on
Sunday, Oct. 6, 2013. The others died before Monday operations began.
Ypma testified that his finishing barn – he has four with a
capacity of 2,000 each – was full and some pigs were coughing, so he decided to
thin the numbers to provide more space for the remainder.
Britco agreed to take delivery ahead of schedule, so the 230
were loaded on Saturday.
About 25 pigs in the barn had died by the time the loading
took place, but Ypma and the staff did not know that Glasser’s Disease was the
cause.
The pigs that were loaded appeared to be healthy, according
to testimony of the trucker and farm staff involved in the loading.
Buckingham said in his decision that there was “mixed”
evidence about the condition of the hogs when they were loaded, but decided
that the CFIA could not prove negligence.
