Court Battles, Quarantines & 255 Days of Healthy Birds — Still No Justice Part 3

Farmers vs Judicial System #universalostrichfarm #savetheostriches #CFIA #ostrichtiktok #livefootage

Transcript;
By the end of the day, we had one injunction and a judicial review that moved us forward. On January 31, we won that — but then they went after the federal court judge himself.

The federal court judge stated that the agency had erred in law, erred in principle, and overstepped its own jurisdiction by issuing that judicial review.

After that, the fight was on. We had to find a lawyer and go through the whole process all over again.

During this time, the birds were quarantined, but their health was improving. They had already recovered from their illness — they had created their own firewall of antibodies.

We kept saying, “You don’t kill the survivors. The survivors have immunity — and it’s real.”

They were healthy now. They had gone through the virus, completed the 7–14 day incubation period (as stated on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s own website), and had recovered. They weren’t shedding indefinitely — you don’t keep shedding a flu or cold forever.

So, we proceeded with the legal process. We lost the judicial review, but the judges from Ottawa flew to Vancouver for our case.

We were never given equal time in court. It was supposed to be 50/50 — but we only got 25% of the time.

The agency’s representative, Eileen Jones, was extremely unprofessional — interrupting, talking over us, being disrespectful, even coughing toward us in the courtroom. It was an awful display of what “justice” looks like when you’re trying to defend yourself.

We waited about 21 days (maybe longer) for the judge’s decision. Eventually, he came back with a 2,000-page document explaining why he was dismissing our dispute.

So, technically, we lost that round — but it wasn’t over.

We continued to fight, filing emergency stays multiple times. There were open orders, kill orders, and emergency stays — back and forth.

We finally got a Federal Court of Appeal hearing scheduled for July 12–16.
Our first judicial review had been April 15–16.

By the time of the appeal, we were on our third round and feeling confident in our case.

When the panel of three judges returned their decision, they said we lost.

The issue from the very beginning was this:
We were only ever allowed to challenge the December 31 decision, not the days that followed — the period when our birds were healthy and recovered.

That meant we were restricted in what evidence we could submit, and limited in the arguments we could make.

Now, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has the right to look at materials submitted outside of court, but they should be looking at the expert reports we’ve compiled — from virologists, pathologists, and epidemiologists — showing that our herd recovered and remained healthy.

They should be saying:
“Let’s review the recovered herd. Let’s look at the 255 days of health. Let’s test these animals and confirm whether they’re actually sick — or ever were.”

Because the truth is:
Not one ostrich on our farm has ever been tested.