Brian’s Poultry Services Inc. has won an appeal, over-turning a $10,000 fine imposed by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
The CFIA accused the company of animal cruelty while trucking chickens to slaughter during inclement weather.
The company loaded more than 8,000 chickens at Cargill and trucked them to the Maple Leaf processing plant at Bradford.
The tribunal chair, Emily Crocco, wrote that because of CFIA “Inspector (Crystal) Wu’s vagueness about when and how the crates became covered with ice and snow, I find that there was inadequate evidence that the crates were covered in melting ice when the animals were loaded.”
She ruled that there was insufficient evidence that the employees who loaded the truck were aware that the chickens would suffer harm.
There were several theories about how and when they became wet, such as that the cages were loaded with ice when the loading was taking place and that ice melted and made the chickens wet, that road splash during transit could have been responsible or that snow blew into the truck while it waited fror three hours to be unloaded at the processing plant.
Crocco said none of those theories could be verified.
