Willow Creek Colony in Manitoba has won an appeal against a $40,000 fine levied by Health Canada.
Emily Crocco, chair of the Canada Agricultural Review Tribunal, found that Health Canada inspectors lacked proof that the pest control products found on the colony’s 6,000-acre property was owned and placed by any of the 150 members of the colony.
Because the public had access to the road where the bait was found, it could have been anyone other than a colony member who put it there.
The colony said it would not be likely to put it there because it would poison the colony’s bees and contaminate the canola crop which their children eat.
Health Canada laid charges after it found carbofuran and chlorpyrifos bait and dead animals that later tested positive with the poison bait.
But a search of multiple colony buildings did not find any of the poison products.
The Health Canada investigation began after Manitoba’s Department of Natural Resources and Indigenous Futures found several dead wildlife animals on colony property. There had been wildlife damage to colony crops.
