Emily Crocco, chair of the Canada Agriculture Appeal Tribunal, accepted the testimony of the truck driver that the pigs were roughly handled by farm staff and were panting and in distress when loaded for a trip to a packing plant in Manitoba.
The 301 pigs were crowded in the truck and lacked ventilation. Some were chronically ill.
The weather was 23.7 degrees, beyond the threshold of 21 when loads ought to be reduced by 10 per cent, according to Ontario Pork guidelines.
Crocco dismissed the testimony of hog owner Jim DeBrouwer, who testified that he did not recall anything out of the
ordinary with the pigs.
“That said, Mr. DeBrouwer was not present at the barn during
loading, so I do not put any weight on his testimony about this issue,” she wrote.
The pigs were on the trailer for 30 hours without feed, water, or rest, from the time they were loaded in Eatonville until they were offloaded at the rest station in Thunder Bay. Nineteen were dead.
The transportation of the surviving 169 pigs carried on toward Manitoba. and the trailer was no longer overloaded and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency veterinarian in Manitoba said they were okay.
The tribunal report said the company had three serious violations in the five preceding years and that was a factor in leaving the penalty the CFIA imposed at $13,000.